Building a mobile DIT station

[Isaac Marchionna]

that carry-on thing looks amazing....until i saw the price....but i guess it makes sense...
anyway: the LaCie littlebigdisk TB2 is pretty amazing...superfast, small and in terms of storage you can just keep adding them if you need more...they are a little steep but again, super fast and tiny.....the only issue i have with these are the AC adapters which are a pain (if you are actually running 3 of them)....i wish they were port powered...
you really have to be careful when raid-ing SSDs....a lot are not really meant to be raided...

Those would look interesting but the biggest issue is they're made by Lacie, which is just...well it's a recipe for disaster. I had one of the TB2 LBD's for T&E purposes and it shit the bed during the time I was testing it.

As per normal Lacie QA all their stuff seems to ship broken.

 

[Björn Benckert]

Those would look interesting but the biggest issue is they're made by Lacie, which is just...well it's a recipe for disaster. I had one of the TB2 LBD's for T&E purposes and it shit the bed during the time I was testing it.

As per normal Lacie QA all their stuff seems to ship broken.

I used at least a few thousand Lacie discs and I have not had more problems with them than other drives. Sure some drives and some power supplies have gone dead but then again this drives are tossed and shipped around like mad, usually going to shoot, then shipped to editing and then delivered to grading and VFX... The little big disc that we got in our DIT case is is to me in particular a very nice setup, by far the most solid casing I seen for a raid. No other providers has the same sturdy casing and also the way the discs are swappable / seated on nice sturdy removable sleds are super nice. It's almost so well built so it feels a bit environmental unfriendly .

I try not to have more than 2TB of eggs in one basket when shooting. But in the office other rules apply, there we got about 30Tb of workspace divided into 3 fiber raids but on those we only deal with third generation copies of material and all is rack mounted, with good cooling etc so those discs are not living as dangerously as the once on set.

 

[Isaac Marchionna]

I've had almost a dozen LaCie products die on me. So ten times bitten, more than twice shy. Plus their markup for fancy industrial design isn't worth it. Our little big disk died in about two days and they blamed it on us. Pass card.

 

[Björn Benckert]

I've had almost a dozen LaCie products die on me. So ten times bitten, more than twice shy. Plus their markup for fancy industrial design isn't worth it. Our little big disk died in about two days and they blamed it on us. Pass card.

curious, what was wrong with it?

 

[roryhinds]

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Lian-Li-PC-TU200-Mini-Tower,13504.htmlGot to get on designing a custom made briefcase PC for some Dragon hitting.

 

[Shiblon Wixom]

The MTI Cortex mobile DIT case looks interesting.

If you start with the storage alone, x12 raided SSD = $7,500, the HBA controller will be another $1,500, The TB Motherboard is another $500, basic system components are another $2,000 to $2,500, GPU (i.e Titan) $1,000+, housing and other accessories are another $1,500 to $2,000, so the price would begin around $15,000 just for parts alone, and sharply climb with more options or features, and thats before the Rocket-X or the built-in Display or any Software.

You figure the least they could have done for $35,000 was add more ports from the internal USB3 headers and run eSATA ports from the internal Marvel SATA controller.

 

[Phil Holland]

The box you see above as configured was about $35K, so we aren't talking a budget system in this particular case. It is purposed designed and currently used on sets, so there is a demand for it apparently.

Personally I'd aim a bit cheaper than this for my next system

Don't know if I'll be targeting an SSD RAID. Likely an SSD application drive however.

 

[roryhinds]

I have my eye on the new Radeon R9-295x2. Would be great to get it working for transcoding as it has 5632 cores and its said to be around $1500.

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/amd_radeon_r9_295x2_review,35.html

 

[paul schefz]

Have owned and used LaCie products for decades and haven't had any issues and always great customer support...

 

[Isaac Marchionna]

curious, what was wrong with it?

Tons of failed hardware controllers, drives that basically unmounted randomly until they decided to refuse to mount at all, drive speeds half of what were advertised, and customer support that basically told us to go pound sand less than a week from when we bought the drives and they failed. No thanks.

I know the company, they're 30 minutes drive from where I live, and I refuse to support that local business because of how many drives have failed on shoots or personal drives.

Again if they ran as well as they looked it'd be awesome. They just aren't awesome. I know some have had great experience with them, but for the folks I know it's always a ticking clock till they shit the bed.

 

[Corey Robson]

Here's my mobile DIT station all housed in a Pelican 1660 case:

It's an Intel 3970x based hackintosh with 64GB RAM, GTX780, internal 12TB SAS RAID10 w. Atto R608 controller. Shuttle drives on top x 2. Works great for those fun mountain days... I wouldn't recommend a hackintosh though - Windows is getting more functional for our purposes by the month if you want to stay away from Apple hardware.

There are a thousand working DIT station designs out there as you know. My advice is to make a list of what you need to get the job done in terms of software and storage, then stick to your budget with a complete system design that accommodates your needs. Your business won't survive if you blow everything on gear you simply can't pay off.

 

[Stephen Brock]

I wanted to ask you how you attached the sonnet expansion chassis to the rack. I'm planning on getting the 2u version of that case and will be using the OWC Thunderbolt 2 raid. ( it will fit I checked ) I'm just trying to think how to secure it to the rack.

So far I've actually just had it zipped tied down with some spare foam pieces used for padding the corners. It's ugly but hidden inside well and it works. It also keeps me from having to modify the chasis permanently.

 

[Stephen Brock]

I've had almost a dozen LaCie products die on me. So ten times bitten, more than twice shy. Plus their markup for fancy industrial design isn't worth it. Our little big disk died in about two days and they blamed it on us. Pass card.

+1 for us as well. Little big disk had to get RMA'd twice. And their raid's were always finicky when trying to mount and unmount on the fly.

 

[Stephen Brock]

Here's my mobile DIT station all housed in a Pelican 1660 case:

It's an Intel 3970x based hackintosh with 64GB RAM, GTX780, internal 12TB SAS RAID10 w. Atto R608 controller. Shuttle drives on top x 2. Works great for those fun mountain days... I wouldn't recommend a hackintosh though - Windows is getting more functional for our purposes by the month if you want to stay away from Apple hardware.

There are a thousand working DIT station designs out there as you know. My advice is to make a list of what you need to get the job done in terms of software and storage, then stick to your budget with a complete system design that accommodates your needs. Your business won't survive if you blow everything on gear you simply can't pay off.

While our editing dept. is committed to the apple ecosystem. I'm tempted to switch field DIT to Windows, especially since hardware options are far more versatile for less money(imo). How would you deal with the HDD/SSD's file system difference? I.E. HFS+ vs. NTFS...

 

[Phil Holland]

How would you deal with the HDD/SSD's file system difference? I.E. HFS+ vs. NTFS...

NTFS. Always NTFS.

 

[Mack Benz]

Hi guys,

I'm looking to build a new mobile workstation with DIT, live-grade and edit abilities, so, when we're done with it on production, I load it up into my One-ton or Cargo van and bring it back to the studio, or to the editors house, to have him cut the project.

I just ordered an Echo 48 from Inovativ. I'm so broke now, lol. But, I figured it's a lifetime investment in a good cart. http://inovativcarts.com/shop/carts/echo/ -- It's 5 weeks back-ordered since I discovered it during NAB... So, hopefully end of May, I get mine, as I'm shooting our 2nd feature film in June (by that, I mean that I own part of and produce with two partners in Vancouver on really cheap features).

So far I've picked up a 14u rack to fit inside of it. And I did read the comments on here about shock/vibrations and harddrives, etc. I understand the risks versus the convenience of what I'm trying to do and won't be using rack-mounted storage right away until the LaCie http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?id=10622 BigRack is ready to go and I build a new X99 chipset machine that will hopefully support TB versus the current X79 system. I'll be using the internal RAID on the tower I build and the DAS (direct attached storage) RAID via USB3 or eSATA (depending on latency). I'll be using WD 4tb Blacks, latest revisions in both the tower-chassis and the DAS.

The DAS will be brought to and fro' with the DIT-cart as it will be the "off-line storage" of the project media, that will be brought home to be copied to the NAS at the studio, so I have triple redundancy as required by my production insurance.

I'll also be finding a way to properly "fix" in my case on this DIT-station. The tower-chassis and workhorse of the cart will be comprised of;

Intel Core i7 4930K 6 Core 3.4GHZ (3.9GHZ Turbo) 12MB Hyperthreading
ASUS P9X79 WS ATX LGA2011 X79 DDR3 6PCI-E16 SATA3 USB3.0 SLI
Kingston HyperX Blu Black Series 16GB 2X8GB DDR3-1600 CL10 DIMM Dual = 64gb total.
1x SanDisk Extreme II SSD 2.5in 480GB 545MB/S R 500MB/S W 7MM SATA3 -- for primary OS and Apps.
8x Western Digitial WD4003FZEX Black 4TB SATA 6GB/S 7200RPM 64MB Cache -- 4 internal RAID0 for 500+MB/s R/WR -- 4 in DAS RAID0 for 400-500MB/s R/RW
GeForce GTX Titan Black Superclocked Signature w/ G-SYNC 6GB 2XDVI-I -- Will buy a 2nd eventually and SLI it for extra horsepower, but don't have cash after all purchases.
Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro 3
ASUS BW-12B1ST Blu-ray Writer 12X BD-R 16X DVD+R SATA Black Retail
Corsair RM1000w Silence ATX 12V V2.31 80 Plus Gold Modular Power Supply


All going into, what I think is quite the beautiful case that I plan to mod (I'm getting the green version); http://www.overclock.net/t/1270969/official-corsair-vengeance-c70-gaming-case-owner-club

In my rack, I have so far purchased; 1x SmartScope Duo 4k http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/ca/products/smartview -- I plan to buy 1 more, for 2x total (4 screens total) as we usually run 2 camera's on our Indie productions. Sometimes a 3rd as a splinter crew or usually incorporated into the shot (HandiCam type stuff for "found footage crapola")...

I also bought a 1u Duramax surge/fault protector.

1x Wave Tangent colour-control surface -- Was also purchased for on-set grading as well as post on an actual "colour-specific" workstation. (I have a workstation with a Quadro card for colour, full 10bit monitors and a 70" Sony for broadcast to clients, etc. at my studio strictly for colour-timing).

http://ca.startech.com/HDD/Enclosur...-RAID-Tower-eSATA-USB-3-Enclosure~SAT3540U3ER -- This is the 4bay DAS I use for backup to ship to the studio to be copied to the NAS for triple redundancy, meanwhile the DIT-station stays on-site (locked up in my one-ton) or is brought back to my place in the cargo-van, depending on the actual set-location (safety/crime, etc.)

What I still need (and I'm looking for suggestions and covering all my bases, hence why I am posting my new-cart, thoughts and plans here, in the hopes for some community input and feedback);

The most important on my missing items list... Monitors -- still in need of a good 4k solution. I don't need 10bit monitors, just good, on-set monitors that have the ability to adjust the important dials and calibrate to rec709 or pretty damn close (again, this isn't a full, 10-bit colour-timing station, so I don't need a 10bit monitor without the 10bit video card (this is a Titan, not a Quadro)... There are a few, >$1,000+ 4k monitors coming out from Asus, Samsung, and the lot, I'm sure one of these will subside.

Complimentary to the monitoring side of things, I was also thinking about getting this (12x12 version); http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/smartvideohub -- In-case when I hire the DP/Camera crew, they don't bring an "as good package" as me for VideoVillage, and instead, I might be routing from my station to VV monitors, and so forth...

I'm looking to get a 1u rackmountable 2-4 bay, SSD dock for the occasional stuff not shot on RED, again BM offers this, but not in a USB3 version, so with my X79 motherboard, this is impossible...

A proper 1800 watt UPS rackmountable solution, no bigger than 2u. I've seen some stuff in the thousands... want to keep this >$1,500+

Any other peripheral and rack-mountable, important on-set pieces/devices I might be missing, I'd love some suggestions on.

Moving forward, I will buy the two jib/arms from Inovativ to properly attach to my cart, but they are about $1000 w/ shipping, so, that's not in the budget atm... I'll likely create a cheaper solution of my own once I get the cart and can strategize some monitor mounting options.

I'll likely lock the tower-chassis in pretty good with cables/ties.

___________

I appreciate any and all feedback and truly dig this forum, it's been a wealth of information, not just for RED equipment, but filmmaking and the technical side of things, in general.

 

[Mack Benz]

I'm also trying to do a Pinterest of High-res mobile DIT workstations, whether portable or on wheels/mobile. So please, post your hi-resolution DIT-workstations/carts people! I would love to see the vast array of personalities

http://www.pinterest.com/mackbenz/dit-carts-mobile-film-workstations/

 

[Jason Osterday]

Jeff - multi ssd raid is tough. The parity information on certain array arrangements with particular drives can prematurely wear them down. I very much considered m500's (550 weren't out yet) or Evo's and saw that the 500's seemed to do better in raid scenarios. The Samsung Pro's are good too but I found myself constantly working on jobs that needed more than 3 or 4 TBs with decent speed but also redundancy. I went with 12) 7200rpm drives for size, speed, raid 6 and cost. I had two other Travelstar raids running 24:7 in raid 6 in the past with good success (knock on wood). I'm hosting them with an Areca 1882 SAS 8087 to ESata fan outs. Bit of a pain to install and the Icy Docks are finicky with the Sonnet hardware. I like the look but have moved on. I'm back to separated Raids (promise or Areca) vs rack. I like having the freedom to walk away with the drives and also it helps for travel vs pulling rack trays.

Phil- I tend to burn 3-4TB on single cam 3/4 day shoots. If I'm doing a full week show with 2-3 cameras 12TB can be cutting it close. Which means you'll need at least 14 2.5" drives in Raid 6. SSD's really break the bank for me once I get the appropriate size raid and I end up not needing more than 800-1000MB/s anyway. I really like what Lacie has going on with the 8 drive 1RU big disk. It's a shame the price will be so high, that the same money would likely buy me twice the capacity storage elsewhere.

 

[Jeff Brown]

Thanks Jason. I just bought a couple of the M550 to test and am thinning 6 x 1TB in the Icy Dock but in Raid 0 pairs. It's really just for quick scratch disk processing on jobs. Having been using JMR Blustors for the last few years I've come to the conclusion that redundancy is unnecessary as it's not something that gets paid for (and there are client drive copies as masters). For now small/ light/ quiet and fast are the winning factors.

The only thing I need to find now it a Mini SAS - 4 x Sata to connect the H680 to the Icy Dock. I can only find Ebay options from Hong Kong with a 6 week ship time to the UK so anyone out there with suggestions of where to get these - it would be much appreciated

 

[Leland Haushalter]

Hey guys,

Due to some inspiration from this thread. I pulled the trigger earlier this summer and built two of these systems. I call them the " Data Loader Pro" and " Data Loader Pro Mini".

I built the original Data Loader Pro in the 4u SKB case :
.

Here is what I installed in it:

• 15inch Retina Macbook Pro
• Incase matte black Macbook Pro case
• keyboard condom
• Live Wire power distribution
• USB3 REDMAG reader
• Sonnet SXS Alexa and F55 reader
• Pluggable USB3 Black Magic Camera SSD reader
• Kingston USB3 CF, SDXC, and micro SD card reader ( Recently upgraded to Hoodman USB3 Reader for UMDA7 compatibility )
• 2x Belkin USB3 hubs ( for each side of the case)
• OWC Mercury Elite Pro Duel 8tb Thunderbolt 2 Raid ( Not installed at time picture was taken)
• 32GB USB3 flash drive
• 6x Power adapter pig tails
• 2x shelves with vents
• custom G-Drive velcro straps!

I built the original system for a two camera Canon C300 show. Overkill I know, but I wanted a system that could handle pretty much any camera you could throw at it. It was renting so well on other shoots that I decided to build a Data Loader Pro Mini to keep on the TV show while the other system worked on more commercial work.

Data Loader Pro Mini in 2U SKB Studio Flyer

• 13inch Retina Macbook Pro
• Keyboard condom
• Belkin surge protector
• Kingston USB3 card reader
• Anker USB3 hub ( hate it, replacing it soon)
• Rack shelf
• Custom G-Drive Straps!

Now I know what some of you are thinking. Where is the battery back up? I ALWAYS use a battery backup with these, I just didn't want to add one internally because of either space, weight or airline restrictions. Battery backups are cheap enough that i've just had production buy one if its in a city where I don't have access to one already. Often it sits on the bottom shelf of the cart and allows me to run power to go-pro chargers or whatever. You can read more about them at :

http://www.chicagoassistantcamera.com/data-loader-pro.html