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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 :)

Backing up data "on the road"...

Slight correction I think it's a US company that makes them.

I'll let you know when I check up.

JohnF
 
Interesting finds there Arno there seems to be more choice than when I last looked.

But those weren't the laptops I was talking about. The one I have in mind actually looked like it could take a pounding! (more like a Pelican case with a computer in!!!)

JohnF
 
Read this:

It mentions that the AIT-5 can "fit the drive into either a 5.25in or 3.5in half-height slot."

The laptop I'm thinking of has an large expansion bay on the underside with enough room for a full sized PCI-e card and two extra drives.

Now we've been talking about it and now that I've heard of the AIT-5 the more I think about it I'm quite excited that a practical solution to in-the-field back up is actually possible.

JohnF
 
Arno said:
John, I think I found what laptop you refer to, the Warrior 2K
http://www.bsicomputer.com/notebook/warrior2k/warrior2k_details.htm
Click to expand...

OK, where do you ad the U160 SCSI adapter? It only has a PCMCIA slot. Seems a little extra chunky and hacked together. Nowhere near as polished of a product as the Panasonic Toughbook -- Is Panny still making those? Expensive, but they could take a beating.

There is also the Itronix XR-1 that seems to have better performances and resistance but it's $4k+ (yeah I know for a 4k Camera this seems appropriate but not for my wallet:)
http://www.gd-computing.com/index.cfm?page=Products:XR-1&locale=en_US
Click to expand...

Looks to be a much better, more developed product... It is very expensive, but if you can actually hose it off the way they show, that's cool. :) No PCI Express here either. Other than running backups or similar tasks, it's not going to be that good for any sort of video or graphics work. Only a 1.83GHz CPU and an X300 GPU.
 
Thinking about it, it's becoming pretty insane though.
I mean we're already in the +$4k range and over 8lbs just to have an interface between the AIT-5 and the RedDrive.
And if we have a laptop then we're back to "why not take LaCie 750Gb harddrives (soon 1T) and offload to them rather than to the AIT tapes..."
I'm really feeling that there is a simple gap to fill (of couse I'm not an engineer to say that) for the workflow to become nice safe and easy.
 
Maggie May

Maggie May

I hope some of the rental oriented folks on the boards are reading this thread carefully. For starters I would have plenty of RedDrives and rugged shipping containers for them. Secondarily I would build up and unitize a back up solution (AIT-5 and LTO most likely) ready for flypack.

IMHO: just use a small/medium sized Pelican case with 20 RedDrives (60 hours of 4k@24fps) out on location - the mags are pretty small and lightweight so this won't be a monster to handle. I can still remember lugging 35mm Arri mags in Anvil cases around set as a 2nd AC and they were NOT light.

Yes, that's right, I am suggesting that instead of backing up in the field that you just bring enough mags. Its not that different than boxes of tape. If you just cannot imagine letting the shot mags travel out of your direct control then put them in your carry on bag and be patient at the security checks. Seems like a worthy trade-off to avoid the extra baggage charges, expense of AIT-5 desktop drives, late nights of dubbing, ...
 
I totally see your point Blair and yes, if in the end we spend more money for a backup system than just having as many RedDrives as necessary for our complete filming then your solution fully makes sense.

But if we end up going that route then I think something is wrong because I honestly think it does not have to be that way. Because it's sort of a bummer to pay for the entire RedDrive while all we really need to change are the drives and not the entire RedDrive unit. I mean in the $1000 price tag of the Red Drive I imagine that the drives themselves represent about a quarter of the cost of the system.

We've seen the discussion about the focus assist. From what I've understood the Red Team is hardly working to provide a solution so that the Red is taken seriously in the high end film and video sets without having to bring some extra costly setup/boxes/converters for the video village.

For our problem the easiest solution would be to have a hard drive swappable RedDrive unit so that we can just change the HD at the end of the day in the RedDrive.

I don't see it as being a terribly huge technological challenge, but again I'm not in there with the engineers, and of course I understand that the integrity of the RedDrive has to be preserved to the highest point.

But I doubt that Hitashi, Maxtor or WD are going to make some custom drives for the RedDrives, so it is going to be consumer grade HDs that end up in the Red.

Should we be able to swap them? That is the question, but to me this would be the easiest solution for data backup.

The second easiest solution would be to have some kind of AIT-5 that can communicate directly with the RedDrive and to do automated backup during the night. As Stuart already said, this is not going to be possible. I guess I understand more the technical reason for this than for the non-swappable HDs in the RedDrives.

But if you think about all this, none of those two solutions are feasible without the help of the Red team at the current stage of designing the RedOne:
We know that if this is not taken into account right now then it just won't happen (or maybe in Red Two...), let's be clear on this.

Now some people might say that it is in the interest of the Red Team to sell many RedDrives, personnally I don't think that's their mindset and they have proven their commitment to helping the community it since the begining.

But let's not forget that they are a business and at some point they have to start thinking about making money.

And I think that behind our issue might lie this very sensitive point. Where is the Red team going to draw the line between adding feature that make our life easier and that save us money, and thinking about preserving their profit? I sincerely don't know. They have done so much already maybe we should feel just like lucky bastards and not ask for more.

But you know filmmakers, they can't just ever stop asking for more...
 
Blair S. Paulsen said:
Yes, that's right, I am suggesting that instead of backing up in the field that you just bring enough mags. Its not that different than boxes of tape. If you just cannot imagine letting the shot mags travel out of your direct control then put them in your carry on bag and be patient at the security checks. Seems like a worthy trade-off to avoid the extra baggage charges, expense of AIT-5 desktop drives, late nights of dubbing, ...
Click to expand...

Well, it's going to be pretty expensive. If a 320 GB REDDRIVE costs $1K, that's over $300/hour for 4K REDCODE RAW. If you use Toshiba's 1 TB $400 hard drives, it's $40/hour.

And I, for one, am too paranoid not to have at least two copies of everything, physically separated from each other. (Mail one set of drives back to the office, or at least pack the two sets in different people's luggage.)
 
When considering a remote situation where media is being shipped back home, I definitely wouldn't trust a single hard drive as my only copy.

This thread has been good though... I think it shows that there's really no ultimate solution for this sort of thing. Tape is more robust and can be cheaper than hard drive in the long run. If you price out 1TB hard drives vs. LTO-3 tape using a 1x7 autoloader or desktop single-slot unit (about the same price ~$350 different, maybe). It seems the two solutions are even in price at about the 20TB mark. After that point, the LTO3 tape is the clear price winner.... Tape is slow, but compared to a RED DRIVE or most mobile solutions and external hard drives, it's not. AIT5 is about 60% as fast as a decent 3.5" 7200rpm HDD these days. LTO3 is roughly 2.5X faster and about the same price to set up and use ($50 tapes, $4K drive & controller/cables). I also like that LTO3 tapes can be re-used if necessary where AIT5 are WORM media. At an uncompressed transfer speed of ~68MB/s, LTO3 should be able to record the contents of a RED DRIVE faster than the little drive magazine can dish it out.
 
No free lunch

No free lunch

Once you get the RedDrive back to base (likely your edit bay) you can run as many back ups as you like and return the rented RedDrives. The marketplace has not determined the cost of RedDrive rentals but at $60/week the rental house should do OK.

Yes there is some risk to not having a redundant back up in another location but I have done plenty of remote gigs to tape where we never made copies of the master tapes in the field. Don't get me wrong, back ups are a great idea but this thread started on the premise that a fast moving doco crew had limited options for using the RedOne specifically because of the extra "weight" mandated by an data centric technology vs tape.

I highly doubt that the rationale behind the topology of the on board recording options hinges on the profitability factor for Red. Do I think they don't care about being a successful business? IMHO that is not the issue at hand.

I think they are focused on shipping a complete digital acquisition system with a real world workflow that is a successful product. If they can achieve that, anywhere close to the specs we've been hearing about, the profit will come quickly enough as the RedOnes sell as fast as they can make them.
 
Its a deal to me

Its a deal to me

Perhaps I am more offended that I should be at the notion that the Red Team is making choices based on revenue streams. I guess I still remember paying $2K for my Firestore FS-100 that only holds 100GB and never has to write faster than 15MB/sec vs the RedDrive that holds 320GB, has to be able to write at over 30MB/sec and costs half as much - hard to feel like I'm getting ripped off.
 
sharkguy said:
...

This link is spot on for LTO vs gen 4 DLT.

http://www.open-mag.com/features/Vol_122/DLT-S4/DLT-S4.htm

PS - The Quantum model DLT does come in a "tabletop" model @ 13 lbs and stores approx 8 hrs of WORM 4K RAW. A reasonable archival method, no? DLTS4 may also provide a smart way to deliver a finished film to the film-out lab?
...
Click to expand...

Thank you sharkguy for this interesting link. I was going fot LTO-3 until I read this. Faster transfer rates, double capacity : 800 GB uncompressed, vs 400 MB for LTO-3, at approximately the same price point.

About backing up on the road, I've also been looking for a SCSI express (34 or 54) card, but had no luck. I think on the road I'll be backing up to HDs, using a double drive enclosure in mirror-RAID mode, so my DATA is copied to two drives at once, then either I ship one drive and keep the other, or have another member of the team keep one copy.

As a side note, yes this may not be cheap, and somewhat of a hassle, however, remember this is an alternative to film, light sensitive negative to be precise, so in fact it's a lot less of a hassle and a lot cheaper. For those who think it really is too complicated or expensive, maybe they should be looking at other camera systems, as in HD, there are good options, record to tape, but hey... it's video.

Personally, I'll be shooting 2K, at least in the begining, while travelling, gives you over three times the amount of footage for the same HD space.

Cheers,
Damien
 
I'm not sure what those guys are comparing with their speed tests, which seem to be missing something... They're also comparing vs. IBM's LTO3 drive, which appears to be a slow performer anyway and is rated slower than Quantum's DLTS4 drives. So what's the point...? Quantum rates their LTO3-FH drive at 68MB/s, their LTO3-HH drive at 54MB/s and their DLTS4 FH drive at 60MB/s.

I think one reason I'm also still leaning toward LTO3 is it's become a more universal standard. Whereas DLT and VXA have essentially become proprietary technologies of their respective owners - Quantum and Exabyte.

FWIW, Dell has some pretty good LTO drive prices - $2700 for a desktop LTO3 unit (it's a Quantum drive in a Dell enclosure). Lots of LTO-3 units for sale on eBay, There's a Magnum 224 12-slot LTO3 autoloader on there for less than $3K. I'm so tempted, but I don't need it right now and want to wait a bit longer.

DLTS4 might be a good option - price of the drive is roughly the same as n LTO3 unit, maybe just a bit more. Tapes are a bit more than double, but you also need to carry half as many tapes. DLT tape media has typically been viewed as less reliable than LTO, but I'm sure it's still far more rugged than hard drives.

As for an ExpressCard SCSI adapter, I can't seem to find one either. Adaptec appears to be the only company still making a PCMCIA Cardbus SCSI adapter. However, it's only Ultra SCSI II - 32bit 50pin with a max transfer rate of 20MB/sec. Google the Adaptec 1480.

I've been looking around and researching and apparently there are no ExpressCard solutions. I've emailed Adaptec inquiring about ExpressCard SCSI adapters and if they will be offering such a product. No response yet, but I only emailed yesterday afternoon.
 
"...using a double drive enclosure in mirror-RAID mode, so my DATA is copied to two drives at once.."

Earthling very good idea, do you have a link explaining how to do this via laptop etc?

Sharky
 
sharkguy said:
"...using a double drive enclosure in mirror-RAID mode, so my DATA is copied to two drives at once.."

Earthling very good idea, do you have a link explaining how to do this via laptop etc?

Sharky
Click to expand...

No link, but it's very simple.

Plug in an express card with double SATA connectors, like this :
http://www.pearl.fr/article-TG1097.html

Then connect a double SATA drive enclosure, like this :
http://www.pc-look.com/boutik/Prod_Stardom-Boitier-Ext.-3.5''-USB-SATA-2-DD-SATA-SOHOTANK-SR-3610-2S-SB2__6284_fr.html

You can configure the drives in RAID mirror with Disk Utility and the double drive will appear as a single drive, and single sized, to your computer. Just make sure you use identical sized drives and preferably same model.

Cheers,
Damien

PS I just did a quick search for the above links, those were the first pages I found with these type of product. I don't use these drive cases, but I know people who do and I've been thinking of getting some.
 
COOL! Thanks for the idea/links.

Do you know the transfer rates thru a mac book pro - 320GB red driv to sata drives? 1:1 OR ?
 
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