Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • 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 :)

GROUP PURCHASE - 3ware Sidecar RAID Solution

Thanks David. I placed an order to give it a run. If it works with PTs that is a bonus but I really am buying this for use with my RED system. I'll let you know what I find out. I am hoping to hook this up to a Mac Pro and get some solid results.

Sidecar is back-ordered. Any ideas as to delivery times? Any recs on 1T drives?
 
David, does the Sidecar support OpenFiler? It's open source NAS/SAN software based on the linux 2.6 kernel. One of the things it supports is Raid on Raid.
 
Hoffman, we are expecting to have our restock shipment of Sidecar's to the online store in the next day or two so your order will go out ASAP. As for recommended drives, our support team has an online list of those posted below...

http://www.3ware.com/products/pdf/Drive_compatibility_list_3ware_SideCar_9650SE-based.pdf

Zeke, we do not have the resources to verify all available software applications out there... but in general since our product uses hardware based RAID any application that is available on a supported operating system for our products should work okay. The RAID is not visible to the application so it should work just like it would with a single drive unit.

Muffinny, since our Sidecar uses a PCI-Express RAID controller it is hard to have it work with a laptop. However, I am in the process of testing a product from Magma that might work. It is a PCI Expresscard slot interface box that would allow our controller to work with that type of slot on a laptop. The Magma product is EB1F that I am testing. Once I have it here and tested I will let you all know the results. Regards,
 
David, I went back to the openfiler site and in the forums, they state they support 3ware cards (considered one of the favorites). At 3ware, the sidecar management utility info says it runs on linux kernel 2.6 which is the default for OpenFiler.They have instructions on how to get the 3ware Disk Manager 2 (3DM®2) and Command Line Interface (CLI) to work on a generic linux install.

Joe C.
 
Joe, that is good to hear. For the most part software applications seem to work fine with our hardware based RAID technology.

As for the Magma, I am working with them now to get an evaluation unit sent over so we can test it. I will be sure to update you all on the progress. Regards,
 
I got a little worried reading this post a couple weeks ago, but I just wanted to let you guys know, I just successfully set up two of these units with my Mac Pro running the latest Leopard and they seem to be running great (haven't done anything other than copy some files around). They were super easy to set up. The steps are really as simple as: download and install the latest driver, put your bare drives in the cases, slide in the PCI cards, and run the browser based configuration utility. I configured both RAIDS as RAID 5 and then configured them in OS X's Disk Utility as a striped RAID 0 array so that I have fault tolerance and speed (is that the correct way to do that config?) Having a 5.46 TB empty array is awesome. The whole process from opening the boxes to having the array ready for use, took about 30 minutes.

My only concern is that the fans are quite loud... I'm sure that's important with 8 TB worth of drives sitting there, but it's a bit much in my normally quiet office. It would be nice if they were variable fans as I don't see why they would need to be running so fast if the array is idle. Anyone know if it's possible to run longer cables for them so I can store the units out of my office?

Thanks,
Josh.
 
Josh, the 2 meter long cables included with the Sidecar are the maximum supported length in the SATA specification. You might be able to use a longer version but it would not be tested or supported. Good to hear your setup went well, that is one of the advantages we promote about our product... easy to use and setup! ;)

David
 
Thanks for the info David. Is there any way to make the fans variable speed (like the ones in the Mac Pro) so that they only spin up loudly when a lot of writing is going on?
 
Data Read/Write Rates translated

Data Read/Write Rates translated

Sorry if I've missed something posted earlier. But will this allow for 10-Bit UC 1080? 2k? DPX?

I saw the data rates that it will read/write-just need some help translating that.
 
Yes the datarates will definitely handle that. We purchased ours for 1080p DPX finishing in Color. I haven't gotten to do a test yet, but hope to soon.
 
Josh keep us posted on your results.

I read a review that talked about the sidecar having theoretical performance for 10-bit UC HD but not actual performance.

You can read it here, towards the bottom...
http://www.dv.com/reviews/reviews_item.php?articleId=196604027

Thoughts on the following excerpt
"I tested the system in a MacPro 8-core dual 3.2 monster with 14GB of RAM and running Mac OS X 10.5.2. The Leopard driver was available on the 3ware Web site and installed without a hitch. My test unit came with four Western Digital 10,000 rpm 150GB raptor drives. Thus, I did not have a huge capacity but did have the added speed of these WD speed demons.

The first benchmark test is the AJA System Test utility, simulating various video frame and file sizes. In a read/write test, a 1920x1080 8-bit option with a 4GB file size produced avery respectable 208.3MB/s write and a read rate of 237.9MB/s. Similar results were achieved with 10-bit uncompressed settings.

Benchmarks and real world are yet another matter. With the drive half full of data, I tested editing in Final Cut Pro 6.0.2 video frame sizes of 1080i60 8- and 10-bit uncompressed, 720p24 1280x720 8- and 10-bit uncompressed, ProRes 422 and 422HQ at 1920x1080 60i settings.

Despite a data rate from the AJA System Test that would theoretically support 1080i60 10-bit uncompressed, I was unable to play a clip without dropped frames. Eight-bit uncompressed fared a bit better with the occasional dropped frame. I do believe that four-drive RAIDs are right on the cusp of ability to handle uncompressed video, and I’m more comfortable with a minimum of five drives or more to deal with uncompressed 1080. The uncompressed 720p both 8- and 10-bit edited without a snag, and I was even able to achieve up to seven layers of real time in FCP with 720p 23.98 8-bit uncompressed files.
 
This is one of the reasons why I configured two Sidecars (each a RAID5) into a RAID 0 array in Disk Utility. It should give us a substantial speed boost. I'm waiting on our AJA card and a few other things to arrive before testing our full post pipeline.

Time to go outside and shoot! I'll keep you updated as I test the post process (hopefully next week).
 
Good news everyone, I have brought in a Magma PCI Express expansion box for testing and the initial results are good. This is using a Magma ExpressBox1 Pro to handle the RAID controller card used for the 3ware Sidecar running of the CardExpress 34 slot on my HP laptop running Windows Vista 64. Of course, our driver support would let you use any supported operating system so this could mean the Sidecar can now be used on PC and Mac based laptops. Will keep you posted on the full test results once we are done! ;)

http://www.magma.com/products/pciexpress/expressbox1/index.html
 
Holy crap!

That is cool!

Reminds me of the expansion box for the old Laser 128 Apple II clone.

That was a while ago.

ATF
 
Zeke, technically the controller is a PCI-Express x4 but it is backwards compatible electronically to x1 speeds. The Magma box has the larger x4 PCI slot inside to fit the controller into, but the CardExpress 34 laptop interface supports only x1 speeds (up to 250MB per second). We are still running the benchmarks how.

As a follow up to Josh's post... Magma is planning to release a box with multiple controller support. You might be able to configure two Sidecar's to work together on a laptop for much higher capacity. I will be talking with Magma on that option once our testing is complete on the current unit.

David
 
JoshBertrand said:
This is one of the reasons why I configured two Sidecars (each a RAID5) into a RAID 0 array in Disk Utility. It should give us a substantial speed boost. I'm waiting on our AJA card and a few other things to arrive before testing our full post pipeline.

Time to go outside and shoot! I'll keep you updated as I test the post process (hopefully next week).
Click to expand...


Any results yet, Josh? Im thinking of buying a Sidecar to start and possibly adding a second one if I start doing more 2K, UC 10-bit and/or DPX workflows. Figure this is the best transition step until I have the resources/need for a much faster RAID. Would you agree?

Also, What about the heat output? Do you have a portable AC unit next to your units? or a fan?
 
GREAT NEWS!!!

I just got a text from David Grass at 3ware. He was messaging me from the floor of SIGGRAPH.

He wanted me to tell everyone who hasn't grabbed their Sidecar yet, that 3ware is running a SIGGRAPH show special... it's half off. That brings the price to $382.50.

He didn't say how long the special would last (only during the show?), so anyone thinking of getting one should do so quickly before the offer expires.

You don't need any special codes, and you don't have to be at the show.

Just go to the link and order your Sidecar:

http://store.3ware.com/?category=9&subcategory=9&productid=9650SE-SIDECAR-KIT

-Thor Wixom
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top