Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

2x Sonnet Echo Express Pro, 2x RED Rocket Cards

A

Anderson Boyd

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 24, 2010
Messages
162
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Location
New York, NY
So, like Christmas morning, two RED Rockets arrived this morning. Totally psyched. I've had 2 Sonnet Echo Pros waiting in the wings for them.

Using one, I get supreme real time playback at 1/2 res in Cine X and Premiere Pro. Don't know how I lived without a Rocket for this long.
Using two, I get a terrible bottleneck which locks and freezes both REDCine X and Premiere Pro (when used independently of each other and no other programs running.)

Macbook Pro 2011 Thunderbolt --> Echo Express Pro --> Echo Express Pro --> Promise 12TB RAID --> Thunderbolt display. Obviously well under the 6 periph limit for Thunderbolt. I will try again when my Retina Macbook gets here in a week or two, and if that proves not to help the bottleneck continue using one RR and wait for Thunderbolt optical cables later this year. Hopefully can get both up to speed, but I'm sure the 4X slots have something to do with the bottleneck.

Anyone else attempted to double up on the cards with a laptop and Thunderbolt? Love to hear some folk chime in.
 
Well, one Rocket is beyond the x4 lane capability of a TB port, so that's likely the reason. RCXP and PP are probably both seeing both Rockets and thinking they can just send everything 2 Rockets in a tower could handle, but obviously the TB can't, and so it hangs up.
 
Yea, makes sense. Do you think the two independent thunderbolt ports on the Retina will accommodate, since it won't be in a daisy chain? I'm thinking this, with no more than two peripherals giving throughput on each port, coupled with the fiber optic Thunderbolt cables (whenever they arrive) would be a good solution. I bought two RR and Chassis with the contingency being I'll split them between the two systems I have, one dueling as a transcode/assistant station. Thanks for your input.

EDIT: Forgot to mention once I changed my RAM settings I get realtime, 4K playback (even with graded footage) with the one RR card in both programs, for whoever is deciding whether to pull the trigger or not on Sonnet Chassis.
 
Mike Halper said:
Well, one Rocket is beyond the x4 lane capability of a TB port, so that's likely the reason. RCXP and PP are probably both seeing both Rockets and thinking they can just send everything 2 Rockets in a tower could handle, but obviously the TB can't, and so it hangs up.
Click to expand...

Does that then mean an 8x slot (magma) will not give anymore performance than the Sonnet Pro?
 
copper based Thunderbolt ...

copper based Thunderbolt ...

Johnny Friday said:
Does that then mean an 8x slot (magma) will not give anymore performance than the Sonnet Pro?
Click to expand...


The limitation is due to the current copper based implementation of Tbolt (will change when vendors bring out the optical version) ... essentially, copper Tbolt is only x 4 lane PCIe ... we have the Sonnet Express Pro with single RR and another card (ESATA RAID or FC HBA) and it works just fine .... haven't tested the Magma ... be interested to know if any one has benchmarked single RR in both boxes and measured if there's any performance gain with the Magma.

Also, haven't tested two separate Sonnets with the two separate Tbolt ports on the RetDisp MBP .... be interesting to know if that gives double performance with two RR cards when using Resolve 9 and EPIC 5K .r3ds ... anyone done that yet?

Neil
 
Likely it's too much bandwidth with both the Rockets and the Raid being on the same bus.

Have you tried putting your source media on a Ram Disk to see how the rockets work without the source read speed being an issue?
 
Anderson Boyd said:
Yea, makes sense. Do you think the two independent thunderbolt ports on the Retina will accommodate, since it won't be in a daisy chain? I'm thinking this, with no more than two peripherals giving throughput on each port, coupled with the fiber optic Thunderbolt cables (whenever they arrive) would be a good solution. I bought two RR and Chassis with the contingency being I'll split them between the two systems I have, one dueling as a transcode/assistant station. Thanks for your input.

EDIT: Forgot to mention once I changed my RAM settings I get realtime, 4K playback (even with graded footage) with the one RR card in both programs, for whoever is deciding whether to pull the trigger or not on Sonnet Chassis.
Click to expand...

You could try separate Thunderbolt ports, one for each Rocket. I'd be curious to hear how well that works, especially if you're copying to a RAID via Thunderbolt at the same time.

What did you change your RAM settings to?
 
rocket performance on magma vs sonnet is identical. they use the same amount of bandwidth. rocket showing up as 4x with sonnet has no effect on its performance. it only uses 4x at a time separately for playback and rendering. magma just gives you the 8x options so that cards that do have issues when they show up in a 4x slot have a chance to work their best at being recognized as 8x. and the extra slot lets you juggle more cards.

daisy chaining expanders on the same port isn't a good idea. 2-3 cards alone along with raid and other devices will already flood out your TB port. you'll need a full second tb port for another expander for this not to happen. retina mac or imac will be a good test of this. but if they are truly independent ports you should get double the speed.

however i don't know how rocket protocol works when it comes to combining rocket power when both are showing up a 4x. that may cause glitches I don't know.

on another note, anybody know if dual rockets perform at double the speed when one is in 8x and the other is in a 4x config?
 
Matthew Yaeger said:
Likely it's too much bandwidth with both the Rockets and the Raid being on the same bus.

Have you tried putting your source media on a Ram Disk to see how the rockets work without the source read speed being an issue?
Click to expand...

Thanks for the idea Matthew, just tested this out with amazing results. Dropped some R3D's onto my local HD and disconnected all Thunderbolt peripherals except for the 2 sonnet boxes, chained into my one port.

Transcode times increased substantially, going from 4K to 1920x1080 proxy, a 1:44 minute clip took 55 seconds. with one card is was about 1:17 seconds. Playback is realtime full res, same as with one card.

I'm definitely pleased to know that doubling up on Rockets is a possibility for laptops, especially with multiple ports on future iterations of the Macbook Pro, and as the Thunderbolt cables convert to fiber. The rule seems to be not to daisy chain "up to 6 devices" as they say is possible when dealing with the heavy machinery such as RAID arrays and Rocket cards. Thank you guys for your input and ideas. A promising future for sure.
 
4K on this end, shooting/cutting Scarlet. I'd say 1/2 5K ain't too shabby. In PP I allocate 80% of RAM, and 85% in REDCine X, and only have one program open at a time.
 
Late in the game with the Sonnet Echo Express Pro.
We ordered one for a rMBP.
Has anyone looked into this option http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempossd.html
Basically want to take a RAID off the DIT cart.

How is everyone to date with their RR set-up?
 
Eric Santiago said:
Has anyone looked into this option http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempossd.html
Basically want to take a RAID off the DIT cart.
Click to expand...

We had one of those at REDucation UK in a Magma chassis. Worked brilliantly. I would say though, it does not really replace a RAID for the DIT cart, but rather gives you a fast work drive, as you are limited by the capacity of the SSDs. 1TB is really not much for downloading to.
 
Nick Shaw said:
We had one of those at REDucation UK in a Magma chassis. Worked brilliantly. I would say though, it does not really replace a RAID for the DIT cart, but rather gives you a fast work drive, as you are limited by the capacity of the SSDs. 1TB is really not much for downloading to.
Click to expand...

Thanks Nick.
We only have 2 x 256 SSD.
We dont do long format shooting (yet).
For now this is good to hear :)
 
Nick Shaw said:
1TB is really not much for downloading to.
Click to expand...

Forgot to add that we might attach a Promise TB RAID to the second channel.
Not sure how this affects everything since we havent received anything yet.
 
Eric Santiago said:
Forgot to add that we might attach a Promise TB RAID to the second channel.
Not sure how this affects everything since we havent received anything yet.
Click to expand...
I've used my Magma chassis with a Rocket in, together with a Caldigit eSATA/USB3 card connected to the eSATA REDmag reader, and daisy chained the Thunderbolt to a LaCie eSATA Hub and a Promise RAID. Got good performance from all the devices in the chain. This was with a 2011 17" MacBook Pro.
 
has anyone tested a BMD DeckLink with any of these TB options?
 
Thunderbolt rules OK ...

Thunderbolt rules OK ...

Eric Santiago said:
has anyone tested a BMD DeckLink with any of these TB options?
Click to expand...

Both the TBolt DecLink dual link and the Tbolt HDMI boxes work totally fine ... have my retdispMBP playing out SDI to a BMD videohub connected to a SDI Panasonic grading monitor, SDI plasma, SDI Sony BVM monitor, SDI Hypershuttle SSD recorder, SDI to DVI projector and a SDI to HDMI LED TV .... amazing to see the same image being graded on Resolve 9 playing out on five different calibrated viewing environments through HD SDI ... also Tbolt to HD SDI to Fiber Channel is a very nice way to complement Pegasus RAID and USB 3 drives .... having access to 64 TB of fast FC RAID from your laptop is pretty amazing!

The other thing to note of interest is that the RAW footage from the Blackmagic cinema camera looks pretty damn sweet on all five types of display ... 3k for 3k ... now where have we heard that one before? ... yer, I know it's only HD ... no future in that for sure :-(

Neil
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top