new system RAID 5... dropping frames during capture HELP! at DVinfo.net

Brent Marks · June 12th, 2005, 07:49 PM

em RAID 5... dropping frames during capture

Using Vegas5

Any ideas what it could be?

This is a Dual Xeon 3.2mhz... 2gigs ram

and RAID 5 with four 250 gig Maxtor Calypso drives

HELP!

Mike Rinkunas · June 12th, 2005, 09:18 PM

Brent,

How do you have your system set up? - is your OS on the RAID drive?

what kind of RAID Card/controller are you using?
~Mike

Brent Marks · June 12th, 2005, 10:11 PM

Thanks for the reply Mike...

Yes... the OS is on the same drive....

four 250 gig maxtors that make up 650gigs on RAID 5

it is an Adaptec card... hi end

This is a 6500$ Dell system

Mike Rinkunas · June 13th, 2005, 06:47 AM

Brent,

IMO, having your OS on the same RAID drive as where you are sending your captured video is probably the source of your problem. look at some of the other systems produced by other vendors, note how all of them have a seperate dedicated drive for the OS....

the reason for this is that you are not only running your computer (note all of the processes going on in the background when you open Taskmanager), but now you are also trying to capture video through that same PCI bus where your RAID card is installed. the PCI bus is not the same as the dedicated IDE or SATA channels, where you have dedicated harddrive usage between at max 2 drive. The PCI bus is split among all of the PCI slots on your mobo, ie if you have PCI video, network, audio, and firewire cards in addition to your RAID card, you are trying to run all 5 hardware devices on the same channel.....remember that the PCI bus works on interrupts (IRQ), the level of priority of a given card to use that channel. so your video card will most likely have the highest IRQ since seeing an image on the computer screen is important!!! next would probably be your audio card, and then finally, lower priority cards like your network and firewire cards.

so basically you're trying to cram 10 pounds into a data pipeline that can only carry half of that load....

my suggestion to you is to have a dedicated harddrive for your OS and editing programs - use your mobo's built in IDE or SATA channels for this drive and use the RAID drive as your working drive for editing and capturing of video. This should cure your problem.

just my 2 cents.
~Mike

Glenn Chan · June 13th, 2005, 09:30 AM

Normal PCI has 133MB/s of bandwidth, so that shouldn't be the problem.

IRQs: There's no such thing as higher priority IRQs. The time when you run into IRQ issues is when two devices are sharing one IRQ, in which case it becomes an IRQ conflict.
You can check for IRQ sharing through run --> msinfo32 expand the first brand and look under IRQ sharing/conflicts. The drive controller should be on its own IRQ.

OS and video on the same drive can sometimes be bad. I doubt it though because setting up the RAID 5 necessitates formatting the drive (and most people wouldn't want to get rid of their OS and spend time reinstalling it).

Mike Rinkunas · June 13th, 2005, 03:10 PM

Glenn,

you are correct, there is no such thing as higher proirity IRQs. I was trying, rather poorly, to describe IRQ issues/conflicts....

hmm, time to drink more coffe to jumpstart the brain....
~Mike

Brent Marks · June 23rd, 2005, 02:38 PM

Is a RAID 5 system capable of video capture?
or does it choke the hard-drive system?

Jeff Sayre · June 23rd, 2005, 03:16 PM

Brent:

You mentioned your EDL system and RAID set up, but you did not mention what device you are trying to capture from.

I assume you've been on the phone with both Dell, Sony, and the maker of your camcorder/deck?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brent Marks

Is a RAID 5 system capable of video capture?
or does it choke the hard-drive system?

RAID 5 is often used for video capture. However, a balance must be struck between access speed (read/write) and data protection. Since you are just trying to capture (write) data, and are having no luck it appears, the protection aspect is not yet a concern.

Some people with the budget to have multiple RAID configurations, will set up their workflow as follows: capture data goes to RAID 5, scratch data goes to a RAID 0, and finished project files go to a highly redundant, very safe RAID 1 storage.

One thing to note, in RAID 5, the read speed can often be faster than the write speed. However, I don't think it would be so slow as to not work.

Ash Greyson · June 23rd, 2005, 05:14 PM

There are a couple very problematic xeon motherboards, according to what I have read anything with a 6300 southbridge can cause this kind of behavior.

ash =o)

Brent Marks · July 6th, 2005, 04:11 AM

I have found that I am able to capture to an external USB 2.0 hard-drive that I have attached to the system. That works absolutely fine.

The main system drive (C) is a RAID 5 (4 hard drives each at 250gig, to make up 750gig give/take on the system)

I can not capture to the system drive without dropping frames.

ANY IDEAS?

Jeff Sayre · July 6th, 2005, 09:52 AM

There is nothing wrong with having the OS installed on the array. It does not make sense in a RAID 0 configuration since there is no redundancy. However, in other RAID configurations it is done successfully all the time. Most people install the OS on a separate array from were their data is stored. Is yours on the same array?

For optimum performance, here's what I suggest. Put your OS on a mirrored pair array (RAID 1) and your data on the RAID 5 array.

Here are some other issues to address:

1.) How did you configure the RAID? Did you configure the RAID before installing the OS? If not, that could be the problem. It is important to configure the RAID first then install your OS.

2.) Do you have a RAID chip on your MOBO instead of a dedicated RAID controller card? If so, the on board RAID does use some of your CPU cycles. Combine that with the OS need for CPU cycles and it could cause problems. A dedicated RAID card has its own CPU on the card.

3.) If you have a RAID card, check to make sure you have the latest drivers/firmware for your RAID card.

4.) Make sure your Adaptec card is compatible with Intel's MOBO. There have been some reports of incompatibilities of certain Adaptec cards with Intel MOBOs.

5.) What is the speed of each drive? I believe your Maxtor Calypso drives are 7,200 rpm. Many people running RAID 5 for video capture use 10,000 rpm drives. They're more expensive than the typical 7,200 rpm drives but the increased speed can make all the difference. This is just a thought.

6.) What is the speed of your external USB 2.0 HD?

Here is a link that may prove useful:
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/perf/raid/conf/index.htm

Edward Borden · July 7th, 2005, 10:06 AM

This is definitely a throughput issue on the bus. The problem is not the RAID 5 (RAID 5 gives you INCREASED throughput, not just redundancy). Also, having your OS and software on the same drives as your video was poor engineering by those Dell folks. That is video editing 101 stuff.

What specific motherboard are you using? I'm not sure how to get that information from an OEM like dell, but if you can get a map of the bus architecture of the board, you can see what is sharing the same bus as that card.

I have a feeling, though, that if you put the OS on a separate drive, ANY drive, you will probably have this fixed right away.

Ash Greyson · July 7th, 2005, 02:31 PM

The problem is the motherboard, check out this article...

http://www.videoguys.com/DIY3.html

ash =o)

June 12th, 2005, 07:49 PM	#1
Brent Marks Major Player Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Houston TX and New Orleans LA Posts: 300	new system RAID 5... dropping frames during capture HELP! em RAID 5... dropping frames during capture Using Vegas5 Any ideas what it could be? This is a Dual Xeon 3.2mhz... 2gigs ram and RAID 5 with four 250 gig Maxtor Calypso drives HELP!

July 6th, 2005, 09:52 AM	#11
Jeff Sayre Major Player Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: South Bend, IN Posts: 301	There is nothing wrong with having the OS installed on the array. It does not make sense in a RAID 0 configuration since there is no redundancy. However, in other RAID configurations it is done successfully all the time. Most people install the OS on a separate array from were their data is stored. Is yours on the same array? For optimum performance, here's what I suggest. Put your OS on a mirrored pair array (RAID 1) and your data on the RAID 5 array. Here are some other issues to address: 1.) How did you configure the RAID? Did you configure the RAID before installing the OS? If not, that could be the problem. It is important to configure the RAID first then install your OS. 2.) Do you have a RAID chip on your MOBO instead of a dedicated RAID controller card? If so, the on board RAID does use some of your CPU cycles. Combine that with the OS need for CPU cycles and it could cause problems. A dedicated RAID card has its own CPU on the card. 3.) If you have a RAID card, check to make sure you have the latest drivers/firmware for your RAID card. 4.) Make sure your Adaptec card is compatible with Intel's MOBO. There have been some reports of incompatibilities of certain Adaptec cards with Intel MOBOs. 5.) What is the speed of each drive? I believe your Maxtor Calypso drives are 7,200 rpm. Many people running RAID 5 for video capture use 10,000 rpm drives. They're more expensive than the typical 7,200 rpm drives but the increased speed can make all the difference. This is just a thought. 6.) What is the speed of your external USB 2.0 HD? Here is a link that may prove useful: http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/perf/raid/conf/index.htm __________________ www.SayreMedia.com

July 7th, 2005, 10:06 AM	#12
Edward Borden Regular Crew Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Budd Lake, NJ Posts: 49	This is definitely a throughput issue on the bus. The problem is not the RAID 5 (RAID 5 gives you INCREASED throughput, not just redundancy). Also, having your OS and software on the same drives as your video was poor engineering by those Dell folks. That is video editing 101 stuff. What specific motherboard are you using? I'm not sure how to get that information from an OEM like dell, but if you can get a map of the bus architecture of the board, you can see what is sharing the same bus as that card. I have a feeling, though, that if you put the OS on a separate drive, ANY drive, you will probably have this fixed right away. __________________ Edward Borden President, Tantus Computers Post Production Solution Providers Video Editing/3D Workstation Integrators http://www.tantuscomputers.com 877.826.8871

June 12th, 2005, 09:18 PM	#2
Mike Rinkunas Regular Crew Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Allentown, PA Posts: 134	Brent, How do you have your system set up? - is your OS on the RAID drive? what kind of RAID Card/controller are you using? ~Mike

June 12th, 2005, 10:11 PM	#3
Brent Marks Major Player Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Houston TX and New Orleans LA Posts: 300	Thanks for the reply Mike... Yes... the OS is on the same drive.... four 250 gig maxtors that make up 650gigs on RAID 5 it is an Adaptec card... hi end This is a 6500$ Dell system

June 13th, 2005, 06:47 AM	#4
Mike Rinkunas Regular Crew Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Allentown, PA Posts: 134	Brent, IMO, having your OS on the same RAID drive as where you are sending your captured video is probably the source of your problem. look at some of the other systems produced by other vendors, note how all of them have a seperate dedicated drive for the OS.... the reason for this is that you are not only running your computer (note all of the processes going on in the background when you open Taskmanager), but now you are also trying to capture video through that same PCI bus where your RAID card is installed. the PCI bus is not the same as the dedicated IDE or SATA channels, where you have dedicated harddrive usage between at max 2 drive. The PCI bus is split among all of the PCI slots on your mobo, ie if you have PCI video, network, audio, and firewire cards in addition to your RAID card, you are trying to run all 5 hardware devices on the same channel.....remember that the PCI bus works on interrupts (IRQ), the level of priority of a given card to use that channel. so your video card will most likely have the highest IRQ since seeing an image on the computer screen is important!!! next would probably be your audio card, and then finally, lower priority cards like your network and firewire cards. so basically you're trying to cram 10 pounds into a data pipeline that can only carry half of that load.... my suggestion to you is to have a dedicated harddrive for your OS and editing programs - use your mobo's built in IDE or SATA channels for this drive and use the RAID drive as your working drive for editing and capturing of video. This should cure your problem. just my 2 cents. ~Mike

June 13th, 2005, 09:30 AM	#5
Glenn Chan Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 4,750	Normal PCI has 133MB/s of bandwidth, so that shouldn't be the problem. IRQs: There's no such thing as higher priority IRQs. The time when you run into IRQ issues is when two devices are sharing one IRQ, in which case it becomes an IRQ conflict. You can check for IRQ sharing through run --> msinfo32 expand the first brand and look under IRQ sharing/conflicts. The drive controller should be on its own IRQ. OS and video on the same drive can sometimes be bad. I doubt it though because setting up the RAID 5 necessitates formatting the drive (and most people wouldn't want to get rid of their OS and spend time reinstalling it).

June 13th, 2005, 03:10 PM	#6
Mike Rinkunas Regular Crew Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Allentown, PA Posts: 134	Glenn, you are correct, there is no such thing as higher proirity IRQs. I was trying, rather poorly, to describe IRQ issues/conflicts.... hmm, time to drink more coffe to jumpstart the brain.... ~Mike

June 23rd, 2005, 02:38 PM	#7
Brent Marks Major Player Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Houston TX and New Orleans LA Posts: 300	Is a RAID 5 system capable of video capture? or does it choke the hard-drive system?

June 23rd, 2005, 05:14 PM	#9
Ash Greyson Trustee Join Date: May 2003 Location: Tulsa, OK Posts: 1,689	There are a couple very problematic xeon motherboards, according to what I have read anything with a 6300 southbridge can cause this kind of behavior. ash =o)

July 6th, 2005, 04:11 AM	#10
Brent Marks Major Player Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Houston TX and New Orleans LA Posts: 300	I have found that I am able to capture to an external USB 2.0 hard-drive that I have attached to the system. That works absolutely fine. The main system drive (C) is a RAID 5 (4 hard drives each at 250gig, to make up 750gig give/take on the system) I can not capture to the system drive without dropping frames. ANY IDEAS?

July 7th, 2005, 02:31 PM	#13
Ash Greyson Trustee Join Date: May 2003 Location: Tulsa, OK Posts: 1,689	The problem is the motherboard, check out this article... http://www.videoguys.com/DIY3.html ash =o)