HDD specs for HD video input files.

BusyBee wrote on 9/17/2006, 3:06 AM
Hello,

Rigging up for DVCProHD video data editing with Vegas7, I am in the need of additional HDD space...
This post is to discuss in detail the recommended specs of such HDD.

I was very surprised to find out from Serious Magic that a 'plain' FW400 or USB2 7200RPM external HDD is more than enough to record DVCProHD video directly to disk (with DVRack), as this is 'only' a 100Mbit/s writing process.

Does it make sense to have the video input files (media library) on such a HDD when working with Vegas7 ? I will of course be rendering to a separate Raid0 HDD, and the Vegas temp files will also be on such disk.

Henry

Comments

farss wrote on 9/17/2006, 4:38 AM
Recording means there's only one data stream being written so ALL it's got to do is keep up with however fast the data is going down the pipe. Playing back the data is the same. Rendering and playing back from the T/L might be a bit different though.
If nothing else Vegas needs to read the waveform files, probably not much but they're a separate file, so heads have to move.
Of course if you've got more than one stream coming off the firewire / USB drive the amount of data having to fit down the pipe increase, probably a pretty unlikely scenario except for multicam editing.
Rendering however I find a significant slowdown coming off firewire drives compared to the same drive directly connected by PATA.
But in the end the drive you're talking about only has to capture, once captured you could copy the files to the RAID system and render back to the f/wire/USB drive.

PS, don't trust RAID HDDs, I've lost a lot of work from the buggers hiccuping, back them up.
BusyBee wrote on 9/18/2006, 3:30 AM
Thanks,
And what about using a LAN HDD on a gigabit network? LaCie is putting a 1 and 2 terabyte HDD on the market for the moment. Is this a speedy solution or not for placing video data when editing and rendering with Vegas7 ?

Henry
farss wrote on 9/18/2006, 3:58 AM
1Gb is plenty fast enough so long as it goes through a Gbit switch.

BTW I'm thinking about a Thecus 5200 box, probably cheaper than the LaCie and you get to choose the drive. LaCie boxes get bad press, one client just lost 600GB. The Thecus lets you run RAID 5.

Bob.
RBartlett wrote on 9/18/2006, 9:01 AM
Gigabit ports on NAS boxes doesn't equate to enterprise SAN performances - not yet. I'd say most economic NAS platforms target the server "shared drive" market more than the video workstation market. This is often limited by the constraints of a network-operating-system - this flavour of information transfer is very much different to USB2/FW/SATA external drive attachments. The sluggishness of consumer NAS will change, IMHO.

However the speeds can be good enough for DV/HDV and some and there is a lot of convenience with there being a gigabit port capability.

I disagree that an ethernet switch is needed unless you are sharing or remotely managing this device. Point to point - directly cabled gigabit ethernet is not a compromise in this regard but you do need a spare PC network port and ideally a network card on something better than a 32bit 33MHz PCI bus or legacy southbridge. Although most commercial NAS would not reach the theoretical maximums due to the way they are implemented. The exceptions that can use the bandwidth are not in this price range. I suppose it is quite unusual to have plug'n'play drives based on ethernet technology.

Lacie have suffered from using Maxtor drives. That has to change now that this source has all but disappeared. Although the failure rate of >400GB single drives is quite bad across all manufacturers from the reports I'm getting within my circle of mates. Will it get better, or will this be the equivalent of the candle-bulb? Some blame the use of plastic platters where glass was once used. Perhaps vertical/longitudinal recording will sort this perceived volatility in these big ATA/IDE units. Two drives or TB storage units only compound this current nuisance.

BTW: Synology DS-106e (UK£150) isn't tardy from the review, but isn't to be recommended for all applications. Just like the Thecus range. The model in the review doesn't scale up per sé - it is a single drive enclosure although it does support outboard SATA slaves. The review compares the Synology with at least one of the Thecus models. Synology also have RAID-5 NAS units but these are priced accordingly:

http://www.tomsnetworking.com/2006/06/28/synology_ds106e_full_featured_nas/index.html