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Preventative Red Drive Maintenance?

Nate Clapp

Nate Clapp

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Is there any good preventative maintenance one can do to help keep those Red drives healthy? Obviously protect them from shock. But anything else, like every few months using disk utility and zeroing out data or some other utility that can identify potentially bad sectors and wall them off? any suggestions on techniques and or duty cycles would be appreciated. Thanks!
 
always always always unmount them before you unplug them or power down the camera. sounds easy but you would be amazed at how many AC's question me on this one.
 
dino g said:
always always always unmount them before you unplug them or power down the camera. sounds easy but you would be amazed at how many AC's question me on this one.
Click to expand...

Agreed! Always unmount.

Always power the drive with the AC adapter and not via the USB/Firewire interface alone.

Other than that, preventative maintenance is not really needed or possible. I will occasionally zero-out my media, depending on what may or may not be there, to keep prying eyes away -- especially now with REDUNDEAD available.

Don't drop the drive, don't allow it to sit in overly-humid or wet locations. Don't spin the drive up if it's in freezing temperatures or just come inside from a freezing vehicle, etc..
 
ok, nothing unusual. i guess i have to stop pulling drive mid-record and tossing the drive 10 feet to the DIT in the pouring rain :)
Jeff, so zeroing out drive is really more for security than drive maintenance?
I wish there was an "hour meter" so I could see how many hours the thing has run so I could consider retiring the drives before they fail, because given enough time they will fail.
 
The thing with drives though is that there's no good indicator of failure based solely on usage time.

I have, before a couple big shoots, scanned the drives for errors. There's really not much you can do, it's just a hard drive (or two of them in a RAID-0 stripe). Most utilities such as defragmentation, cleaners, etc.. are not that useful since we're typically reformatting the drives regularly anyway. Zeroing them out every so often may have more benefits other than security, just to normalize everything.
 
why, what happens....

why, what happens....

dino g said:
always always always unmount them before you unplug them or power down the camera. sounds easy but you would be amazed at how many AC's question me on this one.
Click to expand...

why, what happens if I do this. We have been powering down and taking it off once in a while with no problems. Also, Why always use the power supply for the hard drive?

thanks

j
 
Jason H said:
Also, Why always use the power supply for the hard drive?

thanks

j
Click to expand...

The drives take alot of current.. most systems are just on the brink of being able to power the drives off the bus.. but if you plug something else in, or there is a fluctuation, the power will drop and you have risk of corrupting your data.
 
I am not exactly sure on the internal workings of the HDD's in the Red Raid but I would venture to guess that if you don't unmount the drive may not have a chance to return the head to it's neutral position which is off the discs. Thereby any jar would damage the disc.
 
When you don't un-mount the media, there is no guaranty that all the caches are emptied and you don't get the camera log files written to the media either. This is the same whether you shoot to CF, RED Drive or RED-RAM. Always un-mount the media. Powering down should un-mount the media for you and I think it does. However, I always un-mount before I power down. Just a habit I got into early on with the camera...

As for the AC adapter with the RED Drive / RED-RAM. There have been several people with fried FW800 ports on the drives. The drives draw a lot of current as Jarred says. Not only can a power fall-off cause data corruption or other undesirable effects with the media, but that's just a lot of juice flowing into the Firewire or USB port. A small spike or fluctuation can fry the FW or USB interface. So, use the AC adapter! RED should have probably disconnected the FW/USB power leads on the RED Drive so that people would be forced to use the adapters. :)
 
My Concern, Red Drives are expendables. They Suck... There are so many things you can do wrong to them and yet they are still used!!! Drives with old age drop frames every time, its the nature of the beast. Its a RAID 0 Stripe, they are laptop drives, there is ZERO Airflow, drop them from at least 3 inches and they are toast.

Basically the best Maintenance is to buy CF Cards instead. Because your Red Drives WILL FAIL, its only a matter of time. I've lost one, and my other one is still kicking... For now.
 
So does RED have that AC power supply as a separate item? I got my RedDrive pre-loved, but it did not have the wall wort. Now I am paranoid about frying my MBP!
 
Eythan Holladay said:
So does RED have that AC power supply as a separate item? I got my RedDrive pre-loved, but it did not have the wall wort. Now I am paranoid about frying my MBP!
Click to expand...

you can use any properly sized ac adapter, so long as it is 12 VDC and can supply enough current to power the thing. Devices will only use the current they need, no danger of oversupplying current. I have 2 or three AC adapters for the reddrive, just in case.
 
@John - so to spell it out for anyone who searches in the future , 12vDC ( assuming center positive) minimum 2A amp should cover the requirements?

If someone could verify the exact specs, current requirements and what not.. I understand that it will take what it needs, but a minimum should be stated for posterity.
 
reddrives without any problems

reddrives without any problems

Alex Carr said:
My Concern, Red Drives are expendables. They Suck... There are so many things you can do wrong to them and yet they are still used!!! Drives with old age drop frames every time, its the nature of the beast. Its a RAID 0 Stripe, they are laptop drives, there is ZERO Airflow, drop them from at least 3 inches and they are toast.

Basically the best Maintenance is to buy CF Cards instead. Because your Red Drives WILL FAIL, its only a matter of time. I've lost one, and my other one is still kicking... For now.
Click to expand...

I'm working for almost 2 years with my 3 reddrives and only use CF cards in heavy movements and with extreem high level sound.
When using the hdd power and unmount in a correct way there is no problem at all. Use them like you where used to work with a can of film, nice and easy!!

Robert M. Berger,

Red One 1265, waiting voor new EVF and Epic to buy....
 
Robert Berger said:
I'm working for almost 2 years with my 3 reddrives and only use CF cards in heavy movements and with extreem high level sound.
When using the hdd power and unmount in a correct way there is no problem at all. Use them like you where used to work with a can of film, nice and easy!!

Robert M. Berger,

Red One 1265, waiting voor new EVF and Epic to buy....
Click to expand...


When you think about it that way. You can drop a can of film, but if it opens your totally screwed. I guess it's all a matter of perspective and what we've come to expect from progress.

I would say that's why backups are a must.
 
Well, drives that are privately owned last a lot longer than ones floating around at rental Houses. Thats my point. Thats why I dislike them.
 
I no longer rent out RED Drives. In fact, I have not put a drive out on rental for 6 months or more now. If I send out a camera package, it goes with 16GB CF (or 8GB if requested) and/or RED-RAM. I only shoot to RED Drive when I have to... Even though they're $900, they are still the "budget" media option for the camera.

The reason I no longer send out RED Drives for rental kits is because I know how people treat rental gear. They drop it, kick it, throw it around, etc.. And then when it breaks, they always blame the gear and not their own actions. Eliminating moving parts and somewhat fragile hard disks from the recording media equation helps ease my mind. As for the RED RAM, it's expensive, but I own two of them and they have paid for themselves a few times over now. One I keep pretty much with the camera 99% of the time, another tends to get shuttled around on rentals quite regularly. I keep the RAMs pretty busy. Which is contrary to the person who sold me one of them, that bought it for a vehicle mount shoot and then couldn't justify keeping it. The other RAM I bought new from RED. So far, they have been bullet proof. Love em.
 
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