Storage for editing

[mcavoy]

SCSI is ideal, but how's firewire attached storage match up? Anyone using firewire drives?

Chris

[Curjay]

I use Firewire. I couldn't imagine using anything else. it's speed is essential.

[meaculpa]

You won't be disappointed with Firewire. You can even purchase a Firewire card that will add Firewire connections to a PC. Firewire can move about a gig a minute (someone double check me on that). Since 90 minutes of video is roughly 5 gigs, Firewire is normally adequate for most peoples needs.

[mcavoy]

Actually, my question was more about firewire attached hard drives. They're getting cheaper.

In 1998 I worked for an educational video company with 2 Avid editing bays. Each bay had a 100gig SCSI disk array for storage of digitized footage. That array probably cost around $1000 or more. Now, I can go to CompUSA and buy a 180 gig firewire drive for $400.

The paper numbers I've seen say that firewire is about half the speed of SCSI, but still adequate for digital video editing...I was wondering if anyone's using firewire attached hard drives.

This is the news bit I pulled off of www.tomshardware.com:

"CES: Maxtor 160GB External 3000XT Drive


Since hard drives are now being used for such things as storing music and video, it seems a shame to keep them cooped up inside your computer, unless it’s a drive for your PC apps. To let you take your drive (and a ton of ones and zeros) on the road, Maxtor just announced the 160GB external Personal Storage 3000XT hard disk drive, which transports data using a FireWire interface. If 160GB of data isn’t enough for you, Maxtor says you can easily connect up to 62 drives for maximum capacity. The Personal Storage 3000XT will be available later this month for around $399.95. If you’re not yet set up for IEEE 1394, Maxtor also offers a 1394 PCI Adapter Card, a 1394 CardBus, and the Maxtor DV Producer (DV editing product with 1394 Card), priced at $49.95, $99.95 and $79.95 respectively. "

With that much storage, you could digitize several hours of footage, and have it all at hand.

I guess what I'm saying is, the same editing bay that cost a couple grand in 1998 could be duplicated for much less today, as long as firewire performance is close to scsi.

Chris

[TerryJ]

First of all...The DV video format (miniDV, Digital 8, DVCAM) is very different than analog video.

For DV video, Firewire drives do work. This is because DV is compressed and capturing DV Video has less throughput requirements than analog video. In fact, you use the Firewire interface to 'capture' (more like 'download' than 'capture', really) DV video into the computer these days. No more analog input/output breakout box! Firewire is NOT a good choice for analog video capture...or use on an Avid (or any other system) where you're capturing analog video. Too slow for analog.

That being said, not all Firewire drives are equal. I have a Maxtor 80 gig external firewire drive...and unfortunately...it kinda blows with Final Cut Pro on my G4. Too many dropped frames and hiccups. My internal ATA/66 Maxtor 60 gig drive works great, however. (Mac specialists Tekserve here in NYC also weren't too high on the Maxtor external firewire drives for Final Cut use either.)

-Terry

P.S. Note: all external firewire drives are, in fact, ATA/IDE drives...in a firewire compatible enclosure.

P.P.S. The higher end versions of the SCSI interface & drives are still faster than the Firewire interface & drives.

[mcavoy]

Thanks...the editing bay in my mind is now using internal IDE drives.

I've noticed that some motherboard manufacturers are now offering hardware ide raid. I don't know a lot about what they're offering, but I'm assuming you can choose the raid level you want. I wonder how well striped ide would perform against scsi...

Chris

[TerryJ]

Right now...I've configured my office's file server with a dual 80 gig Firewire drive Raid Level 0 (Striped). Haven't really done any performance testing, but it seems pretty good.

I have a feeling that a raid with ATA/133 drives would be fairly speedy.

-Terry

[mcavoy]

That's a good point...

Striped Firewire (or, better yet 0+1 striped / mirrored) might improve those hiccups you were seeing. Get multiple arms pulling data. Apart from the x2 cost.

Chris

[mcavoy]

Also, on a side RAID note:

I'm a unix admin by day, so this is the geeky stuff I like to talk about - from a file server perspective, watch out for just striping drives, it improves performance dramatically, but increases the likelihood of you losing your shit....if you lose one drive in the stripe, you're f-ed. Consider RAID 5, or mirroring. RAID 5 is more cost effective, but you might get a slight performance hit depending on what software / hardware volume management you're using. Mirroring typically doesn't hurt performance, but it's expensive. Although, if you've only got two drives in the system, you can't do RAID 5...anyway...just be aware that you increase your chances of losing everything with striping. Make sure you're putting your shit to tape...

Is your office server a Mac? Does OSX have a built in volume manager (for software RAID)? I know the new Linux kernel does...I'd kind of assume that OSX has something, either an add-on or standard, but I don't follow the Mac tech...

Chris

[TerryJ]

Still using Mac OS 9 + Appleshare IP 6.3 on a G4 for a file server (because it's easy to use/setup and I'm still not yet overly familiar with OS X yet.)...AIT backup tape drive. Got an extra firewire drive as a replacement (since they are so inexpensive.)

Using Maxtor's Mac drive utility for the RAID setup.

Will probably move the server over to Mac OS X at some point this year. Not really rushing yet, though.

-Terry

[mcavoy]

Sounds like a good setup...

As for OSX - except for the cost of Mac equipment, I'd love to run it at home, and at work. It's the best of unix with the best of PC desktops...very great idea.

It's a shame Jobs won't change his thinking and make Apple OS available for intel / amd x86 architecture.

Chris

[kinglou]

I'm running Final Cut Pro on a G3, OS 9.1, and I bought an 80 gig firewire drive from this place called http://www.caldrives.com I saw their booth at Macworld and they guaranteed that their drives don't drop frames on DV material. I guess you're supposed to look for the 911 Oxford shipset because that make the transfer rate closer to what firewire is actually capable of. I guess previously frewire's potential was there but untapped.

Anyway, I've had it for about 6 months now and it's still rocking. No dropped frames unless I start messing aorund during playback. A few people have bought these drives and they've all been happy. I forgot to mention it was only $299! I don't know how they do it but it's great. Best of all I don't have to fill up my companies fibrenet drives with my delightful projects.

Rock!:up:

[Nick Mougis]

Hey,

how much do you think this is all going to matter now that there's offline RT on Final Cut Pro 3?

40 minutes of footage per gig is what apple says.

Of course, you have to eventually need to bring the real dv footage into your system to print a finished copy... but it would only be the edited final project, which isn't as terrible.

I'm going to be stuck with firewire HD's for my new IMac, but
they are selling 100+ gig firewire drives for reasonable amounts, so i guess I'll be ok.

[kinglou]

Well, I haven't started using the RT mode in FCP 3. Haven't really had a need. I'm using FCP to mainly cut my public access show and the 80 gig drive holds about 3.5 shows worth of material. Right now I think that RT is cool if you have a nice G4 to handle all the recompression of media but for me it's not an option. Plus it's an extra step. Now I just bring it in, work on it, put it out. No extra steps.

Maybe if I get into doing heavy effects in FCP I'll get deeper but for now After Effects does a better job.

When Apple gets everyone to switch over to X and figures out how to really get those dual processors cranking on all the video stuff I'll be psyched. But thats a ways away.

Word!
:D

[Kurt]

kinglou -

you say you have a cable access show? and you live in BKLYN? I too am a bklynite, and am in need of a cable access show for this porject I';m working called kurtbot:
http://www.kurtbot.com

how does one go about getting a BlackCat cable access show? How long does it take?

If you wanna do this off the board, my email is kurt@kurtbot.com

thanks.

+k

[Nick Mougis]

Yeah, I just bought FCP 3, so I'm still waiting on checking out what it can do. But I loved editing on 2, so I'm sure 3 will kick ass.

[meaculpa]

Thought that I would post this site for good deals on storage.

www.memoryonly.com