Need Advice on SSD Drives

[Dorian Weber]

I have a Mac Pro 3.1 with 16 GB RAM and OS Mountain Lion.
I bought 2 SSD Drives @ 128 GB, which I originally wanted to use in my PC, which has about the same power. Had to scrap it, because I need the Pro Res as delivery format.
Now my question: Transcoding my full 5k footage to 1080p takes a long long time in RCX. (I prefer using RCX, because I can correct very fast in there) The final correction I do in FCP 7.
Which setup will give me the fastest transcoding (without a Red Rocket):
Option 1: SSD 1 put OS and RCX and FCP 7 on and write on SSD 2
Option 2: Keep OS and RCX and FCP7 on an HDD (1 TB-SATA 6) and RAID 0 the 2 SSD drives?
With RAID 0 I mean; only for transcoding, so as soon as I finished transcoding, I would transfer the data to my Drobo for storage.

 

[Peter Majtan]

Hi Dorian! This really depends on the actual performance of the SSD's.Without a RED Rocket the speed of the drive is not the limiting factor. You are best of installing the OS and all the apps on one SSD and then use the other for rendering output buffer - before offloading the final render to your Drobo. RCX is seems to be heading towards supporting powerful GPU's to accelerate the output. So if you have some beefed up GPU in your Mac Pro - it wight be worth keeping the OS and the apps on the 1TB HDD and then stripe the two SSD's as RAID-0 for max performance. I would highly recommend testing both configurations to see the real results...

PS: I am here in Tokyo as well - feel free to give me a call (number is in the contact section of my website)

Cheers

Peter

 

[Dorian Weber]

Hi Peter,

thanks..... I will give it a try with one SSD OS and one SSD writing.
Just got the holder today.... Not so easy to mount an SSD inside a 3.1 Mac Pro.
Icy Dock works. Still have the original GPU inside. Not sure if I should invest now and there is no confirmation if the RCX will speed up with a faster GPU ..yet.

Cheers

Dorian

 

[ignacio guzman]

Another option (rather than purchasing a red rocket) is to record straight to prores on an external recorder. this way no need to transcode. I do it all the time for shoots that require 1080P deliverables. Saves me a ton of time.

 

[Dorian Weber]

I'm pretty sure the transcoding speed bottleneck is your CPU, not the drives.

Yas, I am aware of that, but I am trying to get the fastest possible output with my existing hardware.

 

[jimhare]

Dorian, I agree with everyone here. WIthout a rocket you probably aren't going to see an increase by speeding up your drives so there wouldn't be a benefit to RAID the SSDs.

I just put a cheap one in my Mac Pro and it reads 250MB/s on it's own. Without a rocket you probably don't need to read/write faster than about 50MB/s to keep up with the pace.

I would put the system/apps on one, and use the other as a transcode destination. If you are doing a lot of transcoding, I highly recommend getting a rocket, it changes the entire playing field.

If you are only doing short clips once in a while, then your approach is perfect.

 

[Dorian Weber]

Another option (rather than purchasing a red rocket) is to record straight to prores on an external recorder. this way no need to transcode. I do it all the time for shoots that require 1080P deliverables. Saves me a ton of time.

Yeah, this would be an other option! Which one do you use?
But I need also the full 5k as master.

 

[jimhare]

The Samurai is a great option http://www.atomos.com/samurai/

You still record to your SSDs at 5k, it just makes a 1080P ProRes straight from the HD-SDI port. The look is baked in so you want to get your settings looking good on set.

 

[Dorian Weber]

Thanks, I was looking at the Samurai already. How about the Blackmagic?