On the topic of Red Drive capacity

[Darrell Wilkins]

I would trade additional capacity in an upgrade for Raid 5 (or even 6). I know that this would mean 3 or 4 drives in the brick, but the data security it gives you is (in my opinion) well worth it.

Also much faster drive speed would be useful. In a two or more camera shoot you really want the off load speed to be much higher than record speed. Even using 2 bricks /camera the a data tech ends up working though lunch to catch up.

Also being able to use the custom cable directly into a Mac would be brilliant. At a recent shoot we had our Promise Raid on set (4TB of Raid 6). The cameras were tethered for playback anyway, one extra cable per camera and to record straight onto that would be awesome.

 

[Dave Neathery]

Well... for some of us, the Red Raid drives are the only option. (In fact, I don't have anything else.) Almost all my shots are 1 hour or more non stop.
If you wanted to use raid, you would have to add more drives to the system to make the data rate high enough. In fact, for me, the biggest disapointment with the drives is that I can't use the higher data rate. (I shoot 4 K 16:9 30fps).
More drives in the array with raid would be nice as you would get both more data recovery and higher data rates, but not very practical: Cost and size would be a real problem.

I've been watching the progress of solid state memory since the mid 70s and am glad to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but for a lot of us, it's not quite there yet.

 

[Lewis-M Soucy]

The drives are great for speed, but as everyone said, you looose a LOT of work if something goes wrong... I'm not a big fan of big capacity media. I like short and safe, like film mags. 8Gb cards is a must. I'm not even sure I'll use the 16... Drive? I have one, just in case of very controlled environment shoots OR slomo shots... 320Gb is more than you need to kill yourself or get murdered in a production should you loose what's on it... 2 drives in mirror raid is a different discussion though... And a clever one!

 

[Eirik Tyrihjel]

Where are you getting that 10-15% of their capacity? Is that from personal use?

That has got to be nonsense... I have shot 2hrs 4K on one disk on several occasions (more than 200Gb) - no problems.

I would like the option of a larger disk, for long concert shoots, and similar events.

 

[wallyoo]

I shot a corporate short film with a purely Red drive setup, no CF, here in Singapore 2 months back.
Thankfully it was all indoors.

As director and DIT, I kept panicking walking the Red drive over to my desk-bound Macbookpro & RAID 1 setup.

My mind was flashing through all kinds of crazy thoughts like:

1. Baggy jeans....am I generating too much static?
2. Will the curse of sweaty palms lead to a catastrophic slip?
3. Do I have a latent magnetic super power that'll manifest itself today and wipe the drive I'm holding...

After all that, I return to directing a bunch of non-actors.
Stressful, yes?

 

[Steve Murray]

Red Drives only hold 10%-15% their capacity, sorry no none would care if they were larger, they would only become more dangerous than they already are.

Dude - where did you get this? I have used my 2 drives a lot and they are good for about 70% before they start to drop frames. So you can get about 200gb on a drive. I do not recommend shooting with them that long unless you have no other choice -- of course.

I had already downloaded 100+gb and forgot to reformat the drive before I started shooting again..... finding out just how long they can go.

 

[JanneJansson]

I'm just happy the RED-DRIVE is off the backorder and in the web-shop again!

 

[Axel Mertes]

We have two RED drives for our two REDs, but use them ONLY for data offloading during shoots. If a drive fails, you've lost a ton. . . except for a performance of some sort, I'll never use the drives for recording.

Stephen

Stephen,

with all due respect - but do yourself a favour and change that in future.

I have to admit that we ended up using RED drives occasionally as backup media on-set. But only for a second or third backup, never the only one.

As I previously described the risk of a failing RED drives is roughly 3 times higher than if it were an internal notebook drive. When you say you use ot only for data offloading, I'd recommend you strongly to use other drives than the RED drives in first place.

We use tons of RAID drives and external drives in our facilities, for more than a decade. I've seen several RAID5 systems crashing with complete loss of data. I've seen tons of disks dying. I've seen many "striped disks" failing - nothing else is RED drive RAID 0. At the end of the day poeple start thinking about this first when it hits them.

Bottom line: NO RAID is really safe. Not even RAID 6 or RAID 1. Not even making 3 copies of the data. But you raise the bar pretty high to prevent loss of data.

All I say is that - and thats often "new" to many users - a RAID 0 = stripe set is about as many times more likely to fail (compared to a single drive) as it contains drives and proprietary controller hardware.

Most RAIDs die in the moment of a drive rebuild, due to excessive stress on the harddisks, increasing system heat, backplane errors on changing bad drives (e.g. electrical discharge) etc.

Some examples:

RAID 0 with proprietary controller = any failing part results loose of data
internal stripe set RAID 0 = any of the two drives results in loose of data
single drive = drive failure results in total data loss.
RAID 5 with 3 drives = 2 of 3 drives must fail to loose data
RAID 5 with 4 drives = 2 of 4 drives must fail to loose data
and so on...
RAID 6 with 3 drives = 3 of 3 drives must fail to loose data
RAID 6 with 4 drives = 3 of 4 drives must fail to loose data
RAID 6 with 5 drives = 3 of 5 drives must fail to loose data
RAID 1 with 2 drives = both drives must fail to loose data

So what is the most secure system in the end?

We make on-set data backup at least to different drives, preferably single drive units, preferably different brands. And then hand them out to different people when leaving the set, different transport path Mission critical - as much as possible

Axel

 

[Dave Cox]

Having just come off a RED shoot, and being in an IT background, some of what is posted here sounds wrong.

We used the drives most of the time unless we were on steadicam (granted there were no super rough shots on this one). No problems doing that.

We didn't use a drive past 90% full, and usually swapped out at 96, though this was more to keep me as DMT from having to spend hours watching footage that was shot to check for issues than concern about the drive failing, though that was present of course.

We also had small 'mag cases' with mag-tags for the drives, a system which worked really well and ensured we weren't carrying naked drives through the dangers of set! Small pelican cases can work incredibly well for this.

An upgrade to 1tb capacity sounds great to me, but not for the reason you'd expect: 500gb drives are faster than 160gb drives because they are denser, and at the same rotational speed, more data can fly past the hd's heads. This would mean possibly faster downloads and also the ability to shoot at higher speeds should the software eventually support it..

Raid 5 on the camera sounds a bit ridiculous. Not only does it require a complex controller, but as you add drives you add complexity, cost, and power hungriness, not to mention size. There's already enough stuff hanging off the RED when it's set up for shooting, we don't need a gigantic film mag that requires its own battery to be weighing a ton and getting in the way all the time.

My final question would be this: Who's ever had a RED drive fail? maybe it's morbid but I'd love to hear horror stories..

 

[Brent J. Craig]

My final question would be this: Who's ever had a RED drive fail? maybe it's morbid but I'd love to hear horror stories..

All drives eventually fail. It's a fact of life. As the Red drives are approaching their first birthdays, more will start failing. If anyone's Red drives last more than 4 or 5 years, I would proactively retire them from critical use and use them to store your iTunes music or something.

A RAID 1 option would be welcome, but better solid state solutions would be more useful.

Perhaps a future firmware upgrade could have the Red One monitor the SMART data from the Red Drives and give the user dramatic warnings when error rates are up or failure appears imminent.

 

[Chris Gearhart]

There is no completely guaranteed media--even film. It's a matter of keeping your risk managed for your needs. I think the RED drives are well within risk tolerance for most productions, as long as you take appropriate precautions with handling, offload, backup, and replacement procedures.

 

[Alex Carr]

Its good practice to only allow 10-15%, all around it is better on Production.

Of course there are shots that need the storage, Find a Time to reload, if at all possible. Rent another Drive for the Shoot, Usually under $50. It only saves you money and (part of) your ass when something does happen.

1) Create RSX logs in RedAlert as per needed for Dailies in RedRushes (Can do this during the day if you reload often) Brings the DIT job back on Set!!
2) Check shots before too many setups later, For TC, Exposure, Green Frames, And Even continuity (if needed).
3) Getting the Producer or PA off set with 1 of 3 Backups ON-TIME. And even yourself.
4)Prevents Producers from just Rolling on down time, Adds to Transfer time and Project Data size (ie: more LTO tapes, more transcoding stuff that is unnecessary, more Storage, more money)
5) If youve written Data to the entire disc before chances are it needs a Zero out, the drive will perform slower if the entire disk has been written before without Zeroing it. (you wouldn't get the highest Speeds as the disc fills up, or start Dropping Frames sooner)
6) Keeps drives in Rotation so one Doesn't OverHeat and give Playback issues or not mount on MacbookPro. Rotation keeps Drives Cool.
7) Job security and Reputation.

I'm giving advice, I take many precautions Because I care about my work and the work of everyone on set. Most Productions can't afford to risk it.