Internal/External/RAID/eSata?

[mikeburton]

Hey Guys,
I am working with RED Proxy footage and noticed some interesting things.
1. Working on set with an eSata drive plugged into a MacBook Pro Laptop works great, just don't bump the fragile cable! You can playback Realtime just fine the quicktime 1K proxies in FCP with the RED Codec installed.
2. FireWire 400/800/USB2 does not work with the proxy images at least not for me. Drops Frames like crazy due to speed/data rates. Will not play realtime for more than a few seconds.
3. RAID - Haven't tested a RAID yet but i'm sure if eSata works fine, RAID 0,1,5 should work as well, maybe allow 2k proxy playback as well.
Here is where i am a little confused.
4. Internal startup disk drive on my MacBook Pro and Dual Core MacPro runs the 1K proxies in FCPS2 just fine. Strange to me but maybe someone else can elaborate further.
Also, now i need to figure out what kind of cheap RAID sollution will work best.
Any ideas?

 

[Mike McCarthy]

Internal drive is SATA, and will run much faster than Firewire or USB. That answers that part. The <100MB/s range in interesting, since that is where interfaces become an issue. Above that you are in SCSI, FC, or eSATA territory, but below 100MB/s there are Firewire800 options and such, but these will not be as fast as SATA/eSATA. An external box with a port multiplier connecting through a single eSATA cable will be the fastest way to get RAID0 to a laptop. RAID5 is a lot harder to come by in a portable solution.

 

[mikeburton]

so would a RAID 0 FireWire 800 interface drive work or would that just give me the same issues. Is it better and cheaper to just get another internal Sata drive in my desktop Macpro to handle the proxy footage for editing purposes?

 

[robbo]

Hi Mike - I used to run a fw 800 striped raid set on my pb 1.67
- it used to run at around 115 read and 80ish write.

If you're going to rig up a MBP with a fw 800 Raid you'll need a card to give you the extra bus.
The pb struggled with 1080 stuff in fcp - a MBP should have no issues.

imo, as suggested by MacCarthyTech - you may as well just go eSata - unless you have legacy fw 800 enclosures.

In my MacPro I'm running a single striped internal raid at the mom for media.
Same situation for the MacPro - you'll still have to add a card to get the extra fw bus if you really really want to use fw 800.
Not worth it imo ... eSata much much faster.