RAID 0 for HD-SDI uncompressed pci-x recording.

[GideonKiers]

Mmyes we're pretty serious about this. The idea is to end up on 35mm. I've been looking around for the MB/sec needed for recording a 4:2:2 HD-SDI stream but havent been able to find it really. Of course we would like to order the scsi disks and cards, but as this is an artistic project rather than a featurefilm our sources are somewhat limited. Btw, the software for generating the video will be and has partly been allready written by us, using max/msp and especially jitter. Mostly opengl work.
I'll research some more and keep you posted. We're in holland so the sources are a bit limited in terms of hardware and knowledge.

[samsc]

you want to record hd-sdi - without spending any money?

then think about what you are actually trying to do artistically - and what is necessary..

Mike Curtis runs a website for people trying to do this kindof thing.
http://www.hdforindies.com/

[samsc]

to do this kindof thing- cheaply- you need to be aware of the quite large differences in performance between different hard discs - nothing to do with catalyst or any other software.

it is a combination of the interface type and hard disc choice that makes this work.
you need a fast interface - and fast hard discs.
And to get anywhere the bandwidth required - you will need at least 4 discs - all working well together.
if you get either one wrong - it wont work well.

this is an article about the speeds of different large sata drives:

http://www.barefeats.com/hard68.html

www.storagereview.com
gives the basic stats for almost every drive

[GideonKiers]

Well, without spending money .. It's just that $30k for a raid system seems a bit of a waste. Spending the money smart, is what i would say. HDforindies is an interesting place yes, i read that too. It's the DYI thing. You don't need a million dollar recording studio to make a hit record. We're allmost there in filmmaking land. It's just the conversion that is a pain. (Same for doing dolby encoded 5.1 btw)

[samsc]

30k$ for a raid system?

have you looked at the prices of discs?

they are nowhere near that much.

even the basic xserve raid with 4 drives - enough to do HD - costs $6000

---

you want to do a homebrew scsi raid? - a case costs $300
4 drives around $1500 total
a controller card $400

---

you want to do sata raid?
4 drives - 1000$
case $2-300
card $1-300

[GideonKiers]

Yes well, i was overdoing it a bit, allthough it's easy to spend that amount on a raid.

Depending on the frame rate and resolution, you need write speeds of at least 120MB/s and as high as 180MB/s.
Why not just use Ultra320 SCSI arrays -- aren't they faster? They are historically faster, but are expensive and the drive capacity is one-third that of most contemporary SATA and PATA drives.

http://www.barefeats.com/hard46.html provides an interesting speedtest.

[samsc]

Yes well, i was overdoing it a bit, allthough it's easy to spend that amount on a raid.

i think it would be quite hard to spend anywhere near that much - as the top of the range fibre channel xserve raid is 13000$ - 14 discs - 7TB storage.
maybe you need 40 TB storage??

http://www.barefeats.com/hard46.html provides an interesting speedtest.

this pci-x adaptor is only $139.
the 4 drive case $500

[GideonKiers]

ok, the solution mentioned in the article below for pci-x is for a 4 or 8 disk raid system:

- SeriTek/2eVEN4 4-Bay External eSATA Enclosure Bundle with 4-Port Host Adapter - 630$
- 4 Raptors 74gb - 644 $
total ± 1300$
double that for read&write speeds around 400 MB/s and more storage, of course.

still hoping to find a solution that would provide a bit more hd space than the raptors ..

[jasonrudolph]

Actually, right now I'd be looking at Port Multiplication SATA enclosures. Sonnet makes one http://www.sonnettech.com/product/fusion500p.html
You can actually take advantage of SATA II speeds by using these. With their controller card for PCIe macs, you can have four of these enclosures, with 5 drives in each. You can do a RAID set in each enclosure, then do a RAID stripe across two of the enclosures. The real nice thing about these is that you only need to connect one cable from your mac to the enclosure. Here is a review of them...
http://www.barefeats.com/hard72.html
As you can see, and 8 drive array gives you MORE than enough speed to do uncompressed 10 bit RGB 4:4:4 1920x1080/60i

Jason

[samsc]

raptors are 150Gb these days.

doing this kindof thing - you need to be prepared to iterate a couple of times.
start small, investigate the technology. see if it works.

i dont know the answers about pci-x cards - i dont have any - if i were doing this - i would use an xserve raid - with fibre channel - because i know it works.
i have seen it working with my own eyes.
and its reliable, and its designed to do this kindof thing. and make sure that it all happens correctly- and it has a huge cache which makes the problems a little easier.