Storage options?

I have the Nitro FW 800 card. For my MBP
Works.

I'll shelve HD's, to answer your quest.


Gunleik
 
Firewire 800 transfer rates are 786Mbps -- same speed?

gunleik said:
I'll shelve HD's, to answer your quest.
Click to expand...
Gunleik,

Sorry my non-techie ignorance -- how will you do?
 
Laptop connections

Laptop connections

As long as your laptop has either FW 800, FW 400 or USB-2 you'll be fine. Any of these can be used to mount the Digital Magazine to your computer to clone the data.
 
FW 800 is double speed of USB-2, so it should be the best route. Considering a 160GB RED DRIVE, we are talking about less than 30 minutes for the full transfer but taking the USB-2 via it won't be less than one hour.

We can also have two RED DRIVE in a field situation, changing the RED DRIVE and while the RED ONE is ready to operate, we transfer the data from the Digital Magazine (RED DRIVE right?) using a laptop (there isn't any other option unless three or more RED DRIVE units or am I wrong?).

It's here the solution where I'd like to know if this device will work coupled to a laptop (without FW 800 but working with the same transfer rate: 786Mbps) if such device can add the Firewire 800 feature -- or am I missing something here and this device can't get/handle the 786Mbps rate?

http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10482
 
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Keep in mind that a 2.5" drive isn't nearly as fast as a FW800 interface. FW800 will probably still be a small bit faster than USB 2.0, but because of the limited speed of the drive it won't be twice as fast. Expect it to take upwards of an hour to copy 160 GB.
 
The best option for the RED-DRIVE will be to use the eSATA connector plugged into your computer directly. It is by far the fastest of the three connectors and is also supported on any platform that has a SATA plug in it (with internal adaptor to eSATA, or simply using the eSATA plug on the computer itself as most modern boards have).

For Mac users who don't yet have access to eSATA (as far as I'm aware), FW800 would seem the best choice for now, though once eSATA makes it into MACs that will supersede it in terms of speed and flexibility.

Plus, there are a lot of eSATA external enclosures hitting the market right now that will make Red footage transfer a breeze. Just one example is the four drive IcyDock.
 
Understood. So will USB-2 be enough?

Nevertheless, I'd like to know if such device coupled to a laptop without FW800 will it work anyway (like any other with FW800) ? Same transfer rate? Or the use of this LaCie PC card (here) has its limitations?
 
visceralpsyche said:
The best option for the RED-DRIVE will be to use the eSATA connector plugged into your computer directly. It is by far the fastest of the three connectors and is also supported on any platform that has a SATA plug in it (with internal adaptor to eSATA, or simply using the eSATA plug on the computer itself as most modern boards have).

For Mac users who don't yet have access to eSATA (as far as I'm aware), FW800 would seem the best choice for now, though once eSATA makes it into MACs that will supersede it in terms of speed and flexibility.

Plus, there are a lot of eSATA external enclosures hitting the market right now that will make Red footage transfer a breeze. Just one example is the four drive IcyDock.
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:dankk2: Paul and sorry my non-techie ignorance but are you talking about laptops too?

What precisely is the eSATA connector?
 
visceralpsyche said:
For Mac users who don't yet have access to eSATA (as far as I'm aware), FW800 would seem the best choice for now, though once eSATA makes it into MACs that will supersede it in terms of speed and flexibility.
Click to expand...

There are various eSATA options for the Mac. Here's one for the MacBook Pro. I've heard the Mac Pro towers have two extra internal SATA ports, in which case all you need for eSATA on those is a bracket.

It won't matter just for transferring off of a digital mag, though. A 2.5" drive doesn't come close to maxing out FW800, so SATA isn't likely to be any faster.
 
On FW 800 LaCie PC card I found other additional info:

http://compreviews.about.com/cs/pchardwarebasics/tp/aatp1394pccards.htm

http://about.pricegrabber.com/search_techspecs_full.php/masterid=1805502

Chris,

But it seems even if with those obvious 2,5" HD limitations, the eSATA will be the best way or isn't it necessary and we can count 1 hour for 100 minutes of 4K RED footage @24fps via USB-2?

And in this case, we can count on 2 RED DRIVE units ($2,000) which shall be added to the $17,500 as the minimum configuration for a reasonable field compromise.
 
Emanuel said:
But it seems even if with those obvious 2,5" HD limitations, the eSATA will be the best way or isn't it necessary and we can count 1 hour for 100 minutes of 4K RED footage @24fps via USB-2?

And in this case, we can count on 2 RED DRIVE units ($2,000) which shall be added to the $17,500 as the minimum configuration for a reasonable field compromise.
Click to expand...

Firewire 800 or eSATA could be 10-20% faster than USB 2 for reading from a 2.5" drive. Footage should still transfer just a little bit faster than it records even with USB 2, though. If you're doing nearly continuous recording and you're trying to get by with only two RED DRIVE units, I'd go for FW800 or eSATA. But it's really probably not smart to try to get by with just two RED DRIVE units if you need to do nearly continuous recording.

If you're not doing nearly continuous recording, or you have at least three RED DRIVE units, USB 2 should be more than fast enough to get your footage transfered before each RED DRIVE has to be rotated back into the camera.

(Note that Mac users should definitely use Firewire 400 or 800 rather than USB 2 for transfers. There's obviously an internal preference for Firewire at Apple, and it shows through in the lackluster performance of OS X's USB mass storage drivers.)

Keep in mind that on a narrative feature, a full day's shooting might not even amount to the 90-100 minutes it'll presumably take to fill a 160 GB hard drive. So, low-budget filmmaker types might be fine with a single RED DRIVE, just downloading at the end of the day. (Just try not to drop it, you know?)
 
:dankk2: Chris! Apart the techie info which I don't have control, I fully agree with your words. You sum the point.

EDIT -- I will buy a new laptop and I needed for some help on it. Now I know I should look for a small and lightweight notebook as far as I can get with a Core 2 Duo (codenamed Merom right?), Vista ready and that's all!

Well, last but not least: If I shall transfer to a PC laptop it would be possible to work on a Mac/FCP basis if this will be my choice for the editing and post?

I mean (just to the footage transfer operation if I will edit @Mac/FCP):

Can I use a PC notebook and later it shall use the same files but in a Mac environment (FCP editing)?
 
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Not sure if any laptops have native eSATA plugs yet but you can get a PC card version or ExpressCard version that simply plugs into the spare slot. I'll be looking for a new laptop early next year once I get to Japan and one of the requirements will be eSATA connector. Again, no need to worry too much until the time Red ships as by then more computers will have the required hardware built in.
 
visceralpsyche said:
Not sure if any laptops have native eSATA plugs yet but you can get a PC card version or ExpressCard version that simply plugs into the spare slot. I'll be looking for a new laptop early next year once I get to Japan and one of the requirements will be eSATA connector. Again, no need to worry too much until the time Red ships as by then more computers will have the required hardware built in.
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yeah mate.. but chris already left an useful link.. w/out need for native eSATA plugs..

http://fwdepot.com/thestore/product_info.php/products_id/1753

Chris Kenny said:
There are various eSATA options for the Mac. Here's one for the MacBook Pro. I've heard the Mac Pro towers have two extra internal SATA ports, in which case all you need for eSATA on those is a bracket.

It won't matter just for transferring off of a digital mag, though. A 2.5" drive doesn't come close to maxing out FW800, so SATA isn't likely to be any faster.
Click to expand...
 
visceralpsyche said:
Not sure if any laptops have native eSATA plugs yet but you can get a PC card version or ExpressCard version that simply plugs into the spare slot.
Click to expand...

Note that CardBus (PC Card) tops off at 132 MB/s. This is obviously more than fast enough for transferring from a digital mag, but if you're planning to hook up a respectable RAID to your laptop, you should definitely opt for ExpressCard, which is nearly twice as fast.
 
Chris Kenny said:
Note that Mac users should definitely use Firewire 400 or 800 rather than USB 2 for transfers. There's obviously an internal preference for Firewire at Apple, and it shows through in the lackluster performance of OS X's USB mass storage drivers.
Click to expand...
Interestingly, they've ditched Firewire in favor of USB2 for their entire iPod line and dropped FW800 support from the first line of Mac Book "Pro" computers (though it has since returned).
 
If you have an expresscard54 slot on your laptop here is something you can get to add eSata raid connections
I have one for my HP.

http://www.siig.com/product.asp?pid=1037&catid=128

Here is an example google search

http://www.google.com/search
hl=en&lr=&q=siig+expresscard+esata&btnG=Search

On most of the tests I've read, nobody is going faster than 110MB throughput, so if a FW800 interace and drive is significantly less expensive, that may be the best way to go.

Siig also sells PCIe eSata cards for desktops. The wireing and power requirements are different than a regular internal SATA interface, even if you run the connector to the outside.
 
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AuditoryVisuals said:
Would the transfer rate on RedFlash be faster than the RED-DRIVEs?
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That will depend heavily on internal implementation details. RedFlash will have to contain a fairly large number of memory chips, since the largest single chip on the market is 4 GB. If they're accessed sequentially (reading from or writing to one chip at a time), then probably not. If they're set up in banks with the camera reading from or writing to multiple chips in parallel, which is what I'd expect, RedFlash could be faster. Depending on the level of parallelism, it could be a lot faster. Samsung's current fastest NAND memory reads at 40 MB/s and writes at 25 MB/s, and unlike hard drives, those speeds are consistent across the entire memory capacity. If eight 4 GB chips in an 32 GB flash magazine were used in parallel, you could max out a SATA II interface when reading (300 MB/s). I wouldn't expect things to necessarily be that fast, though.
 
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