RAIDS

Oh one thing I completely forgot to factor in...

...the ExpressCard 34 slot on the MacBook Pro only has a 2.5Gbps PCIe interface so you'll likely get less than 3Gbps of the single eSATA anyway (once the overheads are taken into account).



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So I went to MicroCenter and picked up a US$24.00 eSATA II 2-port card. Popped it into the Mac Pro, and hooked up-- (wait for it, Derek!)-- two recent LaCie Quadra D2's. They are not raided, and don't worry, I wouldn't do it, I am long convinced of their limits.

However, on SATA they popped up on the desktop in the blink of an eye. Nothing like FireWire 800. So I ran the AJA System test on one, using a half-GB file size in NTSC DV25, which is all I use them for, other than client archive:

Write 73.0 MB/s
Read 72.4 MB/s

I guess that's smack within Ben's spec for SATA II--

[your average SATA II HDD will do between 50 and 100MBps sustained]

-- but what about sustained? If the AJA System Test tool doesn't measure that and I don't want to buy DigiLoyd, what's out there for free that seems reliable to test?

I concur completely on Hitachi. My three non-striped internals are 1TB DeskStars and my software RAID 0 is two Hitachi 2TB's -- they rock at 720P 8-bit, half GB file size:

Write: 235.4 MB/s
Read: 227.8 MB/s

But again, peak VS sustained..?

Drooling over the new 3TB's...

Data loss: Ain't happening here either. All 12 LaCie's, from FW400 to eSata interfaces-- are on the shelf and I powered each up after years of non-use; I concur again with Ben, data doesn't go away quickly.

ALERT- Oh, no--- THUNDERBOLT? Where's Lightfoot?

- Loren

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The AJA does the average over the period of the duration of the filesize you choose.

Turn down the text and cut and paste it to save it to a file if you like - it will give you a rough guide to the performance and you can see where the actual peak and the lowest data transfer occurs.

Try using the 16GB filesize to test the sustained throughput - although on 70MBps you'll be leaving it for about 4 to 5 minutes to finish and get the results.

The diglloydTools are much more in depth and really best used on new empty drives to thoroughly test and HDD to capacity and see how they perform when filled and if there are potential issues that would otherwise not show up until later then again once you RAID them to see whether your setup performs as expected. There are a load of other things it does too. I use it to test memory as well.



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Thank you, Ben!

- Loren

Today's FCP 7 keytip:
Play from Playhead to Out Mark with Shift-P !

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No probs man - just do make time to really thoroughly test each drive to the max if you use DiglloydTools as you may find one duff drive and depending where you bought it you can send it back before you get 6 months down the line and your RAID fails!



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