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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 :)

Why the RED RAID should have a SATA port...

Cinewalt said:
I think the drive speed maxes out with the FW 800 - and I don't think you can see SMART status on hardware raided volumes.
Click to expand...

Correct on both accounts.

My testing has put the RED Drive's max read speed in the 74~75MB/s range, meaning that it's only capable of about 75~80% of FW800's bandwidth. SMART status would be available to the internal RAID controller for each drive. Does it get used? Who can say... But with the unit as a RAID volume, it can't report SMART status of individual drives over SATA. We would need a separate RAID utility that can talk to the internal controller to get this data, which if such a utility existed (and assuming the internal controller is capable of SMART and also talking with an external utility), then the info could be reported over any interface.

However, I do agree the RED Drive should have an eSATA connector. Just for complete connectivity options.
 
I would like to see an eSATA connector on the drive [well that LEMO does contain eSATA...] just so when my FW800 bus is saturated to hell by a few hard drives, I can shift the load.
 
jbeale said:
Seems like all you need is the right cable? (Red proprietary LEMO <=> eSATA)
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Yep- I would LOVE a cable like that. Does anyone know of one, or if one is in development?

I just got done with a shoot where all we had was either an esata or usb connection - and without being able to use esata, we had to transfer via USB- NOT FUN AT ALL!!!

Having esata, would then allow me to connect the drive to my laptop via esata, and then to the backup drives via FW800, which would speed the whole process up.
 
As SATA only supports a single device per channel, it would either have to be a port-multiplier (in which case you'd need to have a PM-aware host controller - and port multipliers are quite flakey), or the RED is actually carrying two individual SATA channels through the drive cable.

Either way I don't think an eSATA connection on the drive would be all that useful.
 
Ryan,

We have gone to eSATA for all our offload, on-set / in-field drives and connect the RED Drives via FW800. Seems to be the most practical and fast solution. FW800 backup drives? Bleh...

Dylan,

The RED Drives have their RAID controller on-board. They are not carrying individual SATA channels through the drive cable. You connect the RED Drive via FW, USB, etc.. it appears to the host system as a single storage device, no need for port multipliers etc... The internal RAID controller and firmware of the drives are all tuned to one another for the best performance.

With the current model of RED Drive, having a standard SATA connection we could all use is not going to provide faster offload times vs. FW800. However, it sure would be nice to have it just for that added connectivity option in the field.

With the upcoming RED RAM (RED FLASH) drive, I sure hope they offer an eSATA connection as that drive should be considerably faster than the HDD-based RED Drive.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
Dylan,

The RED Drives have their RAID controller on-board. They are not carrying individual SATA channels through the drive cable. You connect the RED Drive via FW, USB, etc.. it appears to the host system as a single storage device, no need for port multipliers etc... The internal RAID controller and firmware of the drives are all tuned to one another for the best performance.
Click to expand...

A port-multiplier would be required for SATA communication. What you describe sounds like a hardware port multiplier - that controls a RAID set and presents itself to another SATA controller as a single SATA device.

The RAIDed interface for FW and USB is easy from an onboard RAID controller, but connecting that to another SATA controller is harder (except with something like an HPM). However, my experience of hardware port multipliers so far has been anything but positive.
 
Why would there be need for port multiplication for a single device using a single channel? Even if that device consists of two mechanisms attached to a RAID controller, the SATA controller doesn't care what went into making that array. It only cares about how it presents; one device over one channel. The RAID controller handles the multiplexing.

Port multiplication presents multiple devices over a single port, but there is but one read/write device presented at the head-end here. The e-SATA, Firewire800 and USB are all talking to the same device (and are built into the RAID controller card). There's no need to complicate it further.

FWIW, the RED drive cable does not carry lines for multiple SATA channels. It has just the one (6 lines [2 xmit+shld & 2rcv+shld] and ground).

Maggie

PS - and yes, I know this first hand as I've scratch-built a cable.
 
FW 800 hub

FW 800 hub

Is there such a thing a as a FW800 hub? I've used them for FW400 but can't seem to locate one for FW800.
If there is no speed benefit to eSata and connectivity is an issue then this would seem to solve it.

??

Greg
 
maggie said:
Why would there be need for port multiplication for a single device using a single channel? Even if that device consists of two mechanisms attached to a RAID controller, the SATA controller doesn't care what went into making that array. It only cares about how it presents; one device over one channel. The RAID controller handles the multiplexing.
Click to expand...

I've not seen a RAID controller that can take two SATA devices, create a RAID set and present that set as a single device to a regular SATA controller. Well, actually I have, but it is called a hardware port multiplier and pretty much sucked.
 
Sure you have. LaCie makes an entire line of such device as do several other companies. I have two dual-drive RAID0 enclosures with eSATA (and FW800 and USB) ports sitting on my desk. All RAID controllers are not necessarily inside the computer.
 
Gregory Leno said:
Is there such a thing a as a FW800 hub? I've used them for FW400 but can't seem to locate one for FW800.
If there is no speed benefit to eSata and connectivity is an issue then this would seem to solve it.
Greg
Click to expand...

Belkin used to make one, but I think it's discontinued. However, using a FW800 hub would not distribute the load any differently than hooking each FW800 to the previous device. Unlike USB, Firewire is multi-host aware, uses peering and relies in the onboard controllers (not your CPU) to manage throughput. All FW800 devices are supposed to have 2 connectors to allow tree-ing of (up to 63) devices.

There _is_ a potential speed gain to be had with eSATA on a drive, but as Jeff stated, not very much in context of the current RED Drive RAID. For the RED-RAM, however, there would most definitely be a real call for it.

Jeff Kilgroe said:
With the upcoming RED RAM (RED FLASH) drive, I sure hope they offer an eSATA connection as that drive should be considerably faster than the HDD-based RED Drive.
Click to expand...
 
maggie said:
Belkin used to make one, but I think it's discontinued. However, using a FW800 hub would not distribute the load any differently than hooking each FW800 to the previous device. Unlike USB, Firewire is multi-host aware, uses peering and relies in the onboard controllers (not your CPU) to manage throughput. All FW800 devices are supposed to have 2 connectors to allow tree-ing of (up to 63) devices.
Click to expand...

Yes, I have used the Lacie drives like that. However I have had a lot of problems with the controllers going out (like constant clicking and the 2nd drive not mounting).
I didn't realize all firewire drives had the tree-ing ability though. Thanks

Greg
 
Gregory Leno said:
Yes, I have used the Lacie drives like that. However I have had a lot of problems with the controllers going out (like constant clicking and the 2nd drive not mounting).
I didn't realize all firewire drives had the tree-ing ability though. Thanks

Greg
Click to expand...

That's because you're pulling more power from the computer than FW800 is rated for and the drives start getting choked for power each time it starts doing reads/writes which take more power than idling.
 
production or the producer or director have to bloody stand around waiting with the DIT guy to do a copy before they can take the rushes drive home on wrap. thats bloody why :-)[/QUOTE]

hear! Hear!

Some of us who use multiple camera's often trying to make 2 redundancies of both cameras at the end of day and not cost production and extra hour after wrap is frustrating. After a 15hr day an extra hour just waiting for drives is not cool. We can't be taking the drives home on Union jobs;)
 
I use a dual port esata expresscard for my backup drives and use the onboard firewire for the red disks. goes quite fast :)
 
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