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  • 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 :)

usb 3.0, the future with drives. What are your plans?

Matthew Love

Matthew Love

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Hey guys..

Curious, lately I've been having G RAID drives show up or G Drives with USB 3.0 drives, no more esata.

So basically my ATTO esata h680 card with esata fan out cable is useless, so I go to the caldigit usb 3.0/esata card for that.

BUT, what happens when I want to use a QIO on an Alexa job to dump sxs cards? I can't run off the QIO to the usb 3.0 enabled drives.

What are you guys thinking? Any usb 3.0 fanout cables coming down the line for mini SAS? haha.
 
My suggestions, tried and true: bare drives. The trick is to get your clients a good hot-swappable, trayless drive enclosure so the process of using bare drives with plastic storage cases becomes better than dragging out six different powersupplies and clearing your desk for a mountain of aluminum boxes.

If DITs, post supes, and data wranglers start recommending bare drives with hot-swappable enclosures I think it could catch on (I've been doing it for years). Once I show clients how easy it is - open the hard drive library case, remove the drive, pop it in my external bay, close the door, and bingo - just like tape! - they almost always see the logic and agree to use bare drives on their productions.

I guess it's a side-effect of the evolution of consumer oriented computer hardware, but externally enclosed drives like G-Tech and Glyph are just not the best way to go, use up lots of space, require an arsenal of varying powersupplies for different models / brands, and are stuck with whatever the 'port-of-the-month' was when they were manufactured. But open any of those expensive drives up and they have the same brand of drive inside as you can buy for 1/2 the price or less by the case.


Edit:

talking about stuff like this for the studio or cart:

http://www.pc-pitstop.com/sata_enclosures/scsat84xt.asp

http://www.pc-pitstop.com/sata_enclosures/1822uesr.asp


Or if you have enclosures you're already using, add one or more of these to any 5.25" external enclosure:

http://www.startech.com/HDD/Mobile-Racks/525-Tray-Less-SATA-Hot-Swap-Bay~HSB100SATBK

I've got several of these startech tray-less bays and they've served well for over 5 years without failure.
 
but i think a raid 1 or 5 might be needed though...like say 2 uniform identical enclosures with tags to identify. swap them every day with other raids (all uniform and numbered).
the problem with single drive solutions are slow unless your using ssd and fast ports (usb3, thunderbolt, etc). but ssd doesn't permit a lot of storage capacity and is expensive as hell. so for me the raids are a good idea i think unless you wanna go the sssd route for even more costs... really depends how much your shooting. mutlitcam 3d takes a lot more mags then a talking head one camera shoot...

if the budgets are there i'd go all thunderbolt with ssds, if they ain't usb3 with raids... and if they really aint...only then would i do a single 3.5 inch drive... dirt cheap, slow as hell, hope its paying hourly lol
 
A. i'm gonna by owc equivalent to g drives and g raids and bring them to set. I can just bill production for the drives. (than again I may not want to do that kind of initial investment)

B. bare drive to enclosure can work, but sometimes you really need striped backups for heavy data loads.

C. recommend glyph or caldigit. but i've had mounting issues with glyph in the past, and caldigit is way more expensive. plus you have to set up the raid out of the box through their software which is a little annoying.

D. which leads back to A, everybody should start lobbying to your local hard drive vendors to start stocking OWC drives. they are on par with g tech in everyway, and cheaper too. They also still run quad interface.


Anybody in the NY area that see this as a concern should start emailing b&h and tekserve to start stocking the owc drives. a usb card is also an option, but it's an extra card i don't want in my system. esata is stable, and very integrated. and at the speeds spinning disc drives are at, i see now advantage of usb 3 over esata. redmags can only read so fast, striped externals can only write so fast. nowhere even close to the max speed esata or usb 3 promises. but with a atto h680 i can hook into one or two sas based raids and stripe them, or have up to 8 esata devices, and they are good for the occasional codex job. so an extra card is just a pain and one more thing to troubleshoot.
 
I am telling everyone to get OWC drives.

If I can get a show to use bare drives, I really like that option.

USB3 just doesn't seem that stable and thunderbolt is thunderbolt only, so most post facilities can't use it.

SAS and Sata is still the BEST option. I have been writing letters to G-Tech and having everyone I know write them and tell them we still need eSata.

I recently got an Areca SAS expander box.
http://www.areca.us/products/sascableexpander.htm

This thing is AWESOME! Uses one 2400MB/s SAS port from my Atto H680 or R680. The one I have has six internal SAS ports and two external SAS port. So I can connect 8 SAS devices or 32 Sata devices or any combination of the two. Only limitation is a max of 128 total SAS devices and 2400MBytes/sec. Not much of a limitation. It is the size of a CD drive. Plus I still have a second SAS port on my card. So far I have only connected 8 old sata drives to it. Got over 800MB/s read/write from drives in OSX raid 0.

Thunderbolt is only 1000MB/s.

I put is in a istarusa 2u 12 drive chassis. They also make a 1u 4 drive and 2u 8 drive. Great great build quality.
http://istarusa.com/raidage/product...F8088&sub=High Density&model=DAGE212U40BK-3MS


Dusty
 
Hmmm... Depends which OWC units. The Elite Pro Mini is a piece of crap, for those of you looking for compact 2.5" solutions. Build quality is pretty good, although about 1 out of every 3 I've bought I had to take the rear plate off and de-burr the cutout for the eSATA connector as it was too tight or had a small dingleberry (typical descriptive term for an unwanted burr) that I had to knock off so it wouldn't be too hard on the SATA connectors. eSATA performance on the unit is freakin' terrible and I don't know why, probably because it has the dual-interface and there is an intermediate chipset. It's perfectly fine for hard drives, but any 6Gbps SSDs I've thrown into the unit, including their own!, perform terribly -- capping around 175MB/s or so. And about 150MB/s or so via USB3.0. I have had issues with SSDs in these enclosures where some systems don't properly register their low power draw and the unit intermittently disconnects and then re-connects. Or at least the power thing is only a solid theory. Have the intermittent connection issue with this enclosure when equipped with OCZ, Samsung and Crucial SSDs when connected to the front USB3 ports on the Z820. Works fine on the rear ports. Works fine on all ports if I have a regular 7200rpm 2.5' HDD inside.

...So, yeah, I'm down to 2 of these units now from 8. Won't be buying any more of them. Having much better luck with RocketFish, Rosewill and Bytecc enclosures. Eagerly awaiting some TB + USB3.0 enclosures to hit the market. I even know of a few that have been approved by Intel, but for some reason they're not in production and shipping. It's like peripheral makers are waiting for more PCs to ship with Thunderbolt before they officially jump in.

Buffalo's Mini-Station external 2.5" units are excellent. I've heard and read scattered reports of DOA units or ones that die on the job, but I own 3 of them and they have been great so far. Transfer times are right on par with what a 7200rpm 1TB HDD in that size should provide. I see some reviews on Amazon and NewEgg where people are complaining that they don't get "Thunderbolt Speeds". :rolleyes: All things considered, nice little portables, but run hot. When originally announced, they were supposed to also be selling the bare enclosure. Would love to pair that bare enclosure with some 960GB SSDs from OWC. Would do that with Elite Pro Mini if it weren't so flakey. I do have one of those 960GB SSDs in a USB3.0 RocketFish enclosure I picked up at Best Buy. It screams, but it's USB3.0 only. Can't complain, I'm getting full 3Gbps SATA speed out of the unit for reads and pretty darn close on writes.

USB3 is pretty dodgy as a standard. Lots of minor incompatibilities and performance issues between host and peripheral chipsets and implementations. As more Thunderbolt peripherals and storage solutions hit the market, that's the direction I'll be heading. Better performance potential and much less system overhead. The new Thunderbolt peripheral interface components from Intel still run hot, but they draw less power and make it possible for a lot of devices to be bus-powered now. Things look more promising for the next revision, although we're going to be seeing a shift away from bus-power on Thunderbolt. The optical cables are shipping now for lengths up to 40m and they don't carry power. Powered cables are only good on lengths of 5m or less.

I've had issues with G-Drives, LaCie and just about every other USB3 storage unit I've tried on at least one system or other. If it doesn't have connection issues, it has performance issues. I have to say that I still don't like USB3 all that much and I wish Intel had stood their ground a bit longer and completely refused to support it. Industry pressure was too great, I guess. People wanted it because of what it promised. I have yet to see any combination of host and peripheral that actually delivers on the hype.

Have not tried Glyph. The USB3 version of the CalDigit VR Mini has been my most trouble-free USB3 drive. They're pricey though.
 
i have had serious mounting issues with glyph via esata, especially with a atto h680, haven't tried it on the latest drivers and firmware of the h680 yet, so it might work better now. but i always found glyph drive performance to be poor, and the design of it way too bulky. Caldigits are WAAAAY to expensive, at their prices you might as well getting some es pro's. it's gonna start getting interesting once all those esata drives sell out. glyph might be the only stock solution left if you aren't providing the drives yourself. Around me, productions like the idea of something they can get at a store, buy more if needed, and return unused hard drives if we didn't fill up as many as they bought. Those convenience factors, make it tough to lobby to bring your own drives.

i think more people should email g tech and just lobby for esata back. no reason why you can't fit 2x fw800, 1x usb 3, and 1x esata. we had a usb 2.0 in there previously. unless the boards conflict somehow, but either way it should be a engineering work around they need to figure out.
 
Well if people are having problems with OWC drive then bare drives is the only answer. Cost half as much and easy to get.

Easier for post facilities to get a little drive dock than upgrade to Thunderbolt or USB3.


Dusty
 
Just did my first job using USB3.
OMG!!!! What an F***ing NIGHTMARE!!!!!!!

Productions provided G-Tech 2TB USB3 G-Drives. The USB3 version of the tried and true G-Tech eSata drives I love.

The drives were testing at 140MB/s so I thought not bad.

If you tried to do more than one thing at a time with the drives they slowed down to 40MB/s. Do a couple things at a time and the drives slowed down to 10MB/s. WTF!!!!!!

It was taking 2 and a half hours and more to download 64GB SXS cards that I normally would have done in under 30 min with the old eSata version of the drives.

It seems like G-Tech has replaced the internal parts with complete crap. Bottom of the barrel sata drives die like this when pushed hard.

I was using the Sonnet 2 port USB3 card in a Mac Pro 4,1.

I have talked to a couple people and they had similar problems with the new USB3 G-Drives. One DIT changed to eSata Drives connected to USB3 ports with a cheap little adapter and is having great results. The problem is not USB3, but the complete crap drives with USB3 interface.


Dusty
 
Good news everyone. I among others have written g tech emails about this issue and they took the time to call me to inform me due to the backlash on usb 3, esata g raids are BACK in production. It may take some time for them to show back up on the shelves but they are back for sure. The reason they dropped esata was because no vendor made USB 3 and esata combo boards and had to forgo esata to get on USB 3. But esata is back and the worries should die down, just remember to tell production specifically esata g drives and g raids. Pretty cool of g tech to listen and be so loyal to their customers.
 
Both MacMall on Wilshire and Melrose Mac in Burbank currently have 5-foot tall pyramids of 2 TB eSata G-Techs on their sales floors, hopefully it stays that way.
 
Dustin Cross said:
Just did my first job using USB3.
OMG!!!! What an F***ing NIGHTMARE!!!!!!!

Productions provided G-Tech 2TB USB3 G-Drives. The USB3 version of the tried and true G-Tech eSata drives I love.

The drives were testing at 140MB/s so I thought not bad.

If you tried to do more than one thing at a time with the drives they slowed down to 40MB/s. Do a couple things at a time and the drives slowed down to 10MB/s. WTF!!!!!!
Click to expand...


Actually the problem IS the USB3.0 interface. It's essentially a high-speed stream layer that exists atop USB2.0. The transaction initiation timing and latency is the same as USB2.0, so when you try to hammer a USB3.0 device with a multitude of transaction operations, it chokes to a crawl. It doesn't matter who makes it. The G-Tech units are as good, or should I say as bad?, as anything else out there. I'm having better luck performance-wise with CalDigit and LaCie, but they still suck. IMO, stick with eSATA and Thunderbolt.

The problem is everyone wants USB3.0 and they want it to live up to the hype. It's not going to happen. If you use it within its limits, you're fine. G-Tech may have been caught off guard by the reaction to their USB3 drives and I think their users demand more than the average joe, who buys external drives for secondary storage or simple backup use. I question why they would discontinue (or attempt to) their eSATA version of the G-Drives. Makes no sense... And eSATA is still the superior interface for performance storage, USB3 only has advantage for convenience of power and data in the same cable and common availability.
 
Jeff,

Thats interesting. I have had a couple people tell me they are using eSata drives with those cheap little USB3 to eSata adapters with great success. Maybe they aren't pushing too hard. I was just trying to download and checksum two sxs cards at once while transcoding in Resolve. That killed the drives.


Dusty
 
Dustin Cross;1120626I was just trying to download and checksum two sxs cards at once while transcoding in Resolve. That killed the drives. Dusty[/QUOTE said:
Drives? As in, both? At the same time?

Holy crap
Click to expand...
 
Joe,

Don't understand your question?

I was writing to both drives at same time, checksums on both drives at same time, and reading from one drive for Resolve and writing to a different drive, all at the same time. This is normally not a problem with good eSata drive or good internal Sata drives. The USB3 G-Drives dropped to 10MB/s when doing this.


Dusty
 
Dustin Cross said:
Joe,

Don't understand your question?

I was writing to both drives at same time, checksums on both drives at same time, and reading from one drive for Resolve and writing to a different drive, all at the same time. This is normally not a problem with good eSata drive or good internal Sata drives. The USB3 G-Drives dropped to 10MB/s when doing this.


Dusty
Click to expand...

I'm interpreting "killed the drives" as meaning they both died, as in, no longer worked, wouldn't mount, wouldn't spin up. nothing. "Killed".
 
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