LaCie eSATA HUB is AWESOME

[Rick Darge]

So when I DIT & transcode, I use a Glyph Triplicator & a Maxx Digital Red Rocket.

Right now I'm on a show and my setup is this,

17" MacbookPro 2011 Model

Maxx Digital into the PCI-e slot of the Macbook Pro
Macbook Pro FW800 cable going into the Triplicator which is hooked up to (2) eSATA Lacie External Drives via eSATA. Red-Mag reader is hooked up to the FW800 port of the Triplicator as well.

Moving 22GB of data, it's taking 9 minutes, 54 seconds. Keep in mind it's spanning across 2 drives via the triplicator.

Transcoding to 1080P Pro-Res HQ is taking 17 minutes, 34 seconds.


I just bought the Lacie eSATA Hub to speed things up. Now my setup is this....

Maxx Digital into the PCI-e slot of the Macbook Pro
Macbook Pro Thunderbolt to HUB. eSATA out of the HUB to the Triplicator. eSATA out of the HUB to the Red-Mag reader.

Moving the same 22GB of data, it's now taking 2 minutes, 35 seconds!

Transcoding to 1080P Pro-Res HQ is taking 17 minutes, 21 seconds.

Not much of a speed improvement on the transcodes but the transfer speeds are now lighting FAST. I'm guessing the slow down on the transcoding is because of the PCI-e slot. I imagine a thunderbolt enclosure would be a lot faster but I'm more than happy with these results!


Go get one! It's $200!

[Matt Gottshalk]

Very cool.

[Jon Carr]

Yep averaging 8 gigs a minute to download, so worth the 200 bucks

[Rick Darge]

Are we always going to be limited to the MBP seeing the Red Rocket as a 1x card via the Maxx Digital or is there some voodoo trick to speed up transcodes that I don't know about?

[Chris McKechnie]

Got pretty close to the same setup as you Rick. Love it!

[chad vachter]

very cool of you to share successful set ups !!
i will take your advice....
also since you seem to be a sharing fella...
your 17 inch macbook pro .. would a new retina macbook be that much of a boost ?
you would lose the express34 slot obviously
I KNOW THERE IS ANOTHER THREAD ABOUT THIS [ disclaimer for other parties reading this / ]

i am asking you as i am building a mobile pelican case enclosed set up as you describe.

i bought two red mx's as i like their look , and am happy with all the cheap accessories that folks
are jettisoning .

should i take advantage of the 2011/12 macbook 17 inch quad i7 ?
or buy the retina ?
i already have the mobile red rocket box , with express 34 adaptor.

thanks for your post . my mind has been swimming in those thoughts for days

[Harrison Diamond]

I also picked up this hub. I'm using it right now to offload Redmags and also to run an SSD as my iMac boot drive without pulling the thing apart and screwing with the fan issue they have when you pull the stock HDD. Working without a hitch so far.

Are we always going to be limited to the MBP seeing the Red Rocket as a 1x card via the Maxx Digital or is there some voodoo trick to speed up transcodes that I don't know about?

I'm reasonably sure that ExpressCard is only an x1 lane itself, so I think so unfortunately. I hope I'm wrong.

[Gabriele Turchi]

i found that the triplicator make things quite slower ... when unloading red mag(ssd) i think i get 30 MB/s , but FW800 should sustain 100MB/S and the gthech i am suing should sustain around 75MB/s ...


g

[Danai Chutinaton]

Just got one as well. So far so good!

[Johnny Friday]

Rick,
Thanks for sharing that info....I've found that as well as Sonnet's new hardware:
I think there is even a faster way to do this now over T-bolt...since the Lacie device is only 3gb/s box...i chose NOT to get it and instead went with Sonnet's little T-bolt breakout box with express 34 card and 2 esata connections....these are both sonnet hardware and their new version 2 allows up to 6gb/s. I've not tried it, but it arrives next week at which time i'll try it...