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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 :)

Red Drive

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Matt Redmond

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A few quick, yet important questions regarding RED Drive, etc...

What will the Red Drive filesystem be?

I heard that the e-sata port is a custom connector - is it possible (or necessary) to get a custom e-sata to conventional sata converter cable to connect to a computer, or disk duplicator, for file transfer/duplication?
 
File system is FAT-32. While it's hardly the best filesystem out there, it's the most practical for cross-platform use.

The eSATA connector is proprietary and uses a LEMO cable that provides both SATA and power. I suppose you could risk a RED DRIVE and figure out a way to make a cable of your own by discovering the pin configuration. However, we're talking about two 2.5" HDDs in there. Using the USB2 or FireWire interfaces are going to give you full performance of the RED DRIVE anyway. If you're still not willing to believe this, you have Firewire 800 on there too. All the Firewire and USB ports are bus-powered, so you don't need to find a way to provide the proper power like you would with an eSATA + power cable.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
File system is FAT-32. While it's hardly the best filesystem out there, it's the most practical for cross-platform use.

The eSATA connector is proprietary and uses a LEMO cable that provides both SATA and power. I suppose you could risk a RED DRIVE and figure out a way to make a cable of your own by discovering the pin configuration. However, we're talking about two 2.5" HDDs in there. Using the USB2 or FireWire interfaces are going to give you full performance of the RED DRIVE anyway. If you're still not willing to believe this, you have Firewire 800 on there too. All the Firewire and USB ports are bus-powered, so you don't need to find a way to provide the proper power like you would with an eSATA + power cable.
Click to expand...

Does the drive need a power supply when not connected to camera or is it bus powered (thinking it needs a power supply)? Does it have a non-proprietary e-Sata port for connecting to a computer(guessing it doesn't)?

IBloom
 
The RED DRIVE takes power from the USB2 and Firewire 400/800 interfaces, so when using it with powered ports of those types, no extra power adapter is needed. A power connector is present on the RED DRIVE so that you can provide power to it, which is handy as many notebook PCs don't supply bus power over USB and Firewire. This power connector could also be used if you want to make yourself a LEMO to SATA adapter and run a standard SATA cable to RED DRIVE -- you wouldn't have to incorporate power into that adapter or cable you make. There is no standard SATA connector on the drive.
 
Yes.

Data recorded to the RED DRIVE is saved in 4GB chunks or clips. Playback of these clips is seamless through the REDCODE codec though, so it's not an issue in that respect. While I'll agree that lots of 4GB files aren't as convenient as one larger file, there are some advantages. Like if one file gets corrupted, then it's just a single 4GB file and not a larger file that needs to be rebuilt.
 
Why won't RED make an adapter cable for Lemo to Esata?
Isn't SATA quite a bit faster than fire wire 800? There is a card to dual Esata connectors available for laptops. with a small raid or mirror drive/ sata to sata and a laptop it should be easy to quickly backup the data onto a secure setup. like Raid 5 or raid 1 (mirror)
 
im.thatoneguy said:
Probably because the Firewire 800's bus isn't anywhere near being a bottleneck. You'll probably be lucky to get 50MBs out of the RED Drive.
Click to expand...

That doesn't sound encouraging for offloading to hand off a dupe to clients!
What's the math on 1 hour of footage coming off Red Drive to a duplicate?

20 secs for every Gigabyte?
3 Gigabyte a minute
1hr 40 for every 300GB?

From what I can tell FW800 is the best connection off the RedDrive, I guess you're then routing through an Express adapter to eSata or FW800 to your copy drive? Allow 2hrs per Red Drive for offload?
 
Rocketeer said:
That doesn't sound encouraging for offloading to hand off a dupe to clients!
What's the math on 1 hour of footage coming off Red Drive to a duplicate?

20 secs for every Gigabyte?
3 Gigabyte a minute
1hr 40 for every 300GB?

From what I can tell FW800 is the best connection off the RedDrive, I guess you're then routing through an Express adapter to eSata or FW800 to your copy drive? Allow 2hrs per Red Drive for offload?
Click to expand...

#1: You can offload flash a lot faster. CF or REDRAM.

#2: For REDDRIVE - I suspect the workflow you want - is to be CLONING media to a RAID 1 solution WHILE you are shooting (assuming you are not a DOC guy shooting LONG takes of wildlife - and if that's the case, I'd take a HARD look at REDRAM) - during a re-light or turn-around, etc. -

You can do removable trays in a 2-bay enclosure and give your client a hot-swap drive - that's assuming you don't want to "develop" the footage for your client in REDCINE ...

Think like changing mags on a film shoot.

If you have two REDDRIVES and a decent software utility, you are cloning and protecting while you go -
 
for those that normally shoot film .. seems once we get 16gig CF cards ( approx 12min.. much more min at 2k ) at under $100 why off-load ? the $100 could just be a media expense for the client = they keep the CF card as their master !!
and once we get 32gig CF ( approx 26 min 4k or alot of min 2k ) we are ALL in a good place - again client buys CF media and we have no off loading - they make the backup on their time (either their editor or dupe houses add it as a service) ...

IMO forget trying to make copy while shooting - shoot CF and client BUYS media.
 
This same question of providing client copies comes up with every new media type it seems. It's still a topic of discussion for P2 workflows. Here's my input on that... Just make a duplicate for your client to whichever media he prefers. Unless you're trying to hand off footage for the 5 o-clock news that starts in 15 minutes, it's not going to be a huge deal.

I retain copies of everything I shoot, no matter who I shoot for or why. Lots of ways to provide client copies. If you're shooting flash, you will be swapping out cards and offloading somewhere. The hot-swap RAID1 makes excellent sense for this. As CF cards become larger and cheaper per GB, it will make perfect sense to dupe each card to a second one and just hand over a CF card set. Dump RED DRIVE or RED RAM content to an external HD or to that RAID1 again and hand over the drive. It's not a big deal... Make the client aware of the workflow restrictions and how it's going to be.

If you have an agreement where you don't retain the footage and they get the only copy, then that's easy too. Just shoot to RED DRIVE or CF cards and hand over the media when you're done shooting. You bill them for the media and you can credit back the cost of the media (less a small fee) if/when they return it to you.

As for eSATA... RED could provide an eSata to LEMO cable at some point. I just know that as of the last time Stuart chimed in, it was not on the list of planned accessories. For now, FW800 is a lot faster than what the RED DRIVE can sustain and it's probably a good bit faster than what we'll see from the first RED RAM units too. When a need for a faster interface presents itself, I'm sure RED will provide for us. SATA is roughly 3X faster than FW800, assuming they're using the 300MB/s flavor. Otherwise, it's only 50% faster anyway.
 
offhollywood said:
You can do removable trays in a 2-bay enclosure and give your client a hot-swap drive - that's assuming you don't want to "develop" the footage for your client in REDCINE ...
Click to expand...

I've been considering this and I'd like to go RED DRIVE FW800 into a 17inch Macbook Pro, and then out to a RAID 1 enclosure that connects into the ExpressCard Slot with two standard internal drives. Any recommendations on the best enclosure, does it matter?

Any ideas what the throughput will be on this setup (how long it will take to dump the whole drive?)

I'm also curious because all of this will be done through OSX I'm guessing (or Windows if you go USB). A straight up copy. Unfortunately that won't include logging or verification, two things that are pretty important in the P2 world. Any thoughts?

IBloom
 
ibloom said:
I've been considering this and I'd like to go RED DRIVE FW800 into a 17inch Macbook Pro, and then out to a RAID 1 enclosure that connects into the ExpressCard Slot with two standard internal drives. Any recommendations on the best enclosure, does it matter?

Any ideas what the throughput will be on this setup (how long it will take to dump the whole drive?)

I'm also curious because all of this will be done through OSX I'm guessing (or Windows if you go USB). A straight up copy. Unfortunately that won't include logging or verification, two things that are pretty important in the P2 world. Any thoughts?

IBloom
Click to expand...

don't buy anything YET - facts, answers and real world testing as soon as #6 & #7 ship ...
 
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