RED STATION

[CJ Roy]

I'm sure I'm alone on this, but I had always thought of the CF recording option as a temporary fix until the SSD's dropped in price. Limited frame rates, limited bit rates, etc? Pardon my french, but fuck the CF's. Let's get the SSD's rolling out!

[Stephen Webb]

What does the base station do, other than power the other modules?

Can we have a 3.5" module as well please?

[Stephen Lovett]

Blaire, to add some perspective... I've spent probably $3,000 over the past 3 years on different card reading systems. I have half a dozen firewire readers, a dozen SATA readers [different brands, models, etc], 4 different SATA cards, 2 FireWire cards and 2 SAS cards. I have every ass-backwards cable you can imagine to get everything to talk to each other. I've gone into motherboards with SFF-8087 connectors, SATA L connectors, through expansion chassis, you name it. Different combinations require different versions of reader firmware, PCI card firmware, system firmware, Mac OS version, etcetera. It was an unbelievably frustrating process to get my SAS reader system to function in a bulletproof manner... and keeping it working as I'm forced to upgrade other elements of my system is a frustrating and significant undertaking. All just to move as much data as quickly and effortlessly as possible so that I can focus on the real tasks I should be spending my time with.

Having a RED manufactured and supported solution for current and future media is a huge deal.

Not only does it simplify things immensely, it creates a "right" answer to the question. It means that as more and more individuals and companies build their digital loader carts and DIT carts... one more variable just became a standard.

My experience is similar, and even with all that, the best solutions I have are not what I'd call reliable. A DIT puts major demands on a reader, and most of us end up swapping out readers to keep them from getting hot.

To put things in perspective, the Sonnet Qio which is the only other e-sata multiformat reader is $1000.00 and the people I've talked to who bought one say they are unreliable.

RED will test that REDStation will work with RED media specifically, we don't have that now.

This just plain rocks.

What I want to know is it port multiplier aware or does each module require a discrete e-sata connection?

I'm hopeful that it will work with the Sonnet Sata Pro Express card reader and still allows me to use an e-sata drive when I get stuck working on a MacBook Pro.

There's money in my account at RED...

Just need an add to cart button to push :-)

BTW my 18mm showed up today, so I'm having a Redtacular day!

Steve

[Todd M.]

What does the base station do, other than power the other modules?

Can we have a 3.5" module as well please?

Gives you one on/off switch for the whole stack. Also only one power cable to supply up to three modules.

I think 3.5" drives have gone the way of the dodo bird with the new camera system.

[Nathan VanderByl]

A cable-less solution would be far more elegant and way more cool. Perhaps in the future...

Great idea, though.

[ericyoung]

That connector isn't [read: doesn't appear to be and presumably is not] a 7-pin SATA data cable, it's a 6-pin SATA power connector. Note that the "L" is backwards from the traditional data cable... it's a smaller power connector designed for smaller drives [I can only remember seeing it on a slimline DVD drive, but that's just memory talking].

It's great to get a reliable data reader (can it be used as a writer too - ie it mounts media as standard drives)

I think you're right Brook - that worries me a bit because those connectors aren't the most physically robust (although neither are firewire, esata and usb!) and probably aren't designed for that many mating cycles considering they're meant for internal hard discs! Hmmm.

At least there is an alternative power input supplied!

Actually, are those SATA power connectors in parallel with the round 2.1mm DC input jacks on ALL the modules, not just the base station? That would be the best redundancy if the base station developed a fault - but then ... why do we need the base station again? And if not, then if the base station goes faulty, you can't continue to daisy chain modules via SATA power and might have to find 3 wall warts at short notice!

[Jochen Schmidt-Hambrock]

So, using SATA, how long would it take to offload a full 64 gig cf card to a MBP with a SATA drive attached?

Is the computer going to be the bottleneck?

Jochen

[Stephen Webb]

I think 3.5" drives have gone the way of the dodo bird with the new camera system.

For backing up on set? I never use 2.5" drives, always use 3.5". Bigger, Cheaper, Faster, Better.

So you have to have the base station to power more than one module with a single cable? You couldn't power one module off the mains and the other module via the eSata power connector?

I kinda always assumed the Red Station would be a stand-alone system, so you plug your CF card in one module, your archive drive in another and hit "backup" on the base. But it seems you still need a laptop to use this configuration.

Even so, it's definitely more elegant than other solutions at present. And as others have said, hopefully faster & more reliable CF reader.

[ericyoung]

How much power does each module and the base station consume?

Can't see a fan vent - so presumeably they run very cool or have massive heatsinks!

[Todd M.]

For backing up on set? I never use 2.5" drives, always use 3.5". Bigger, Cheaper, Faster, Better.

So you have to have the base station to power more than one module with a single cable? You couldn't power one module off the mains and the other module via the eSata power connector?

I kinda always assumed the Red Station would be a stand-alone system, so you plug your CF card in one module, your archive drive in another and hit "backup" on the base. But it seems you still need a laptop to use this configuration.

Even so, it's definitely more elegant than other solutions at present. And as others have said, hopefully faster & more reliable CF reader.

From my understanding of Jarred's first couple of posts it seems that, yes, if you do not use the base station to distribute power, each individual module will need it's own power supply. This seems to be supported by the rear shot HERE where the DC IN port on the base is of larger diameter than the ports on the modules (presumably for higher wattage intake to distribute to multiple devices).

I think these modules are solely (at this point at least) intended to dump footage off to a computer with eSata, Firewire or USB interface. So no 3.5" module because the new camera system will not have a 3.5" recording option (unless you are using legacy RED Drives.) The 2.5" are mainly intended, I think, for SSD's which I'm sure RED is ensuring are going to much faster and better than any 3.5" platter; though not cheaper or bigger :)