DIT hard drive set up

[Jeremy Ball]

Hi all. Its my first post so I figured I would make it a loaded question.:tongue:

What seems to be the most reliable drives for a DIT setup? Brand and model please.

I am wondering what drives you recommend to clients to bring you for offloading transcodes for editorial. Do you ask the client for two drives, one for RAW and one for transcodes, or one drive for both RED and transcodes?

RAID 10 would be best but are many of you using RAID 5 for onset transfers? Also what drives do you use in your RAID setup?

I typically work on commercials but want to start working on some indie features. I plan on using a 240 GB (2x240) SATA3 SSD RAID 1 for offloading all RAW files. This will be the fastest offload with redundancy. Then using a 6 TB 4 drive RAID 5 for transcoded dailies and additional storage if the 240GB are getting full.

Thanks for the help.

 

[Von Thomas]

Reliable is a ggod word, as there are drives that I've used recently that have died on first use. For years I've gone to G-Tech for my client drives, but my recent experience has lead me to bypass G for Maxx Digital Drives.

I use Maxx Digital Evo VR and Evo mini's which are 4 bay RAID 5. I use these for both transfer and backup, as well as transcoding dailies. The mini, has a mini SAS interface, so my I/O speeds are very comfortable. I recommend to clients to purchased identical drives, so they'll have at least identical master drives that can be vaulted. I also suggest that they buy RAIDS, it's a good insurance policy, to a certain extent.

Call Ron, Devon or Kyle at Maxx. They are a small company, and bend over backwards to help you with your storage needs.

Von

 

[Richard Tran]

Hi Von,

Is it not better to buy different Hard Drive Brands, but similar Sizes?

I heard that reduces glitches that may occur for drives that are the same.

 

[Von Thomas]

Hi Von,

Is it not better to buy different Hard Drive Brands, but similar Sizes?

I heard that reduces glitches that may occur for drives that are the same.

Enterprise drives by Hitachi have been my goto drives for a while, and I always buy matched pairs for my clients. Why would you buy different brands?

 

[Tim Sutherland]

I built my own raid for my cart, with an Atto raid controller. 8 drives in raid 6, it's very fast and very reliable. My drives are enterprise class raid drives from Atto's recommended hardware list.

For clients, I often get or ask for G Raids, or g drives, just because I know you can get them everywhere (apple store), have esata and fw800, and aren't made out of plastic. My favorite are Glyph drives, they come in a padded case, have all the required I/o, nice form factor, are rack mountable, have a built in power supply,and have free overnight replacement for failures, which I have never had with Glyph. Bit they aren't as easy to come by. As Von noted, Maxx are great too, similar build style to Glyph, with internal power supply and local phone support.

I've only experienced failure on the 4 tb models when I've gotten g raids (or G drives), so for short jobs like commercials, I ask for g drives since they aren't raid 0, and are reliable in my experience. Basically I'm trying to avoid receiving plastic western digital my book drives with only USB or something that looks like a good deal to a PA but is not going to cut it. I also keep a copy on my cart raid for a few days after, just in case. Never had to go back to that though.

For short jobs I make 2 exact copies of everything on externals, and ask production to take them to different places if possible. One usually goes straight to editorial, and I try to get them to sore the other one someplace else safe. If going out of town for post, I try to stress that they should only FedEx one copy, and send the other on a production vehicle, no shipping or flying with the backup. Again, never had a problem with the main drive, but Murphy's law still applies.

As for buying different brands, all brands have some failure rate, but I find that sticking with the good ones with appropriate I/o is more efficient than giving production a longer shopping list.

Hope this helps.

Tim

 

[Ryan Lalonde]

Yes, there is a small chance you could have trouble from using the exact same drives. But if you simply reformat them with unique names you'll never have a problem.. (SOP for most people)