WINDOWS XP W/ QUAD CORE AND CS3... good enough?

SISUMAN

SISUMAN

Active member
I've just ordered a $4200+ QUAD CORE computer to be built with Premiere Pro CS3 loaded and have some trepidation about the finer points of the editing capability for MXF files and the components that I have ordered. Mostly, being a new user to the HVX200 (just a few weeks) I would need to know if there is any thing else that should be included. Rather than jamming all the technical specs into this text format I've included the quote in a PDF file. It will take them a week to build so time is of the essence. Thanks a lot for you guys' help.:dankk2:
 

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all you'll need is a fast external raid drive and you'll be ready for all things HVX
 
Ok - here's a real newbie question... is RAID required for the P2 workflow? (I'm trying to get up to speed here... thanks for everyone's patience!)
 
no RAID is not required for P2 workflow, you could get along fine without it, I do. But I wish I had RAID, it just makes all the data access twice as fast. That's a great system and will do everything you hope and dream of, don't worry. I second the others though, a RAID drive would be great. You could just get a second Hitatchi 750gb internal SATA drive, tell them to add one more in and to set it up as a RAID 0 - that will give you 1.5tb for storage and double the speed.

Then make sure to get a big external drive for backing up stuff (in a RAID drive, if one HDD dies, you will lose all data between the two). So backup project files and P2 cards to your external drive.
 
RAID 0 or 5 is a big bonus when you've got a lot of data pull off the disk at once, in crossfades, keying, visual effects, etc. You'll get more stuff in realtime without renders.
 
Great - thanks for the input! I'm about to get specs together for a PC, and I'm reading everything I can find in this forum.
 
David S. said:
Or even a couple of internal SATA drives that you can software RAID will do it
Click to expand...

FYI motherboard RAIDs are notoriously buggy. I'd recommend going for an eSata RAID 0 or RAID 10 configuration. There are many inexpensive options, 2tb will run you around $900-1200 nowadays

Brian
 
My advices for a secure, fast & reliable Storage Unit:

1 The only valid RAID config for large file storage is RAID10, consisting in grouping a set of RAID1 pairs as a large RAID0.
If you use any config, like RAID3 or RAID5, you will slice data in 64k chunks, and/or the parity disk will work more. Poor performance.
(RAID3/5 is used in company servers serving desktops producing small files)

2 Use SATAII disks with an ADD-ON controller (like 3ware.com); with 2 pairs, bandwidth is X2, 3 pairs 3X, etc...

It would be crazy to store production files on a non-RAID disk, no?
 
I don't understand why we would promote RAID 1+0 as a solution...

You can change the stripe size in a RAID 5 array, and you're losing space sticking with 1+0 in comparison. Take six 1TB disks in two different arrays as an example:

RAID 1+0
Total Storage:
3 TB
Theoretical Maxiumum Throughput:
3x original drive speed
Failsafe:
One drive can completely fail without any data loss, if a second fails, you have a 20% chance of losing data

RAID 5
Total Storage:
5TB
Theoretical Maxiumum Throughput:
5x original drive speed
Failsafe:
One drive can completely fail without any data loss, if a second fails, you have a 100% chance of losing data

If you actually lose TWO drives at the same time, chances are it's a catastrophic event where you lose more than two anyway (electrical problems, natural disaster, etc.).
 
1) With RAID5, you have 2 main disadvantages:

- with x disks, you have the same bandwidth as a single disk.
=> No bandwidth advantage.

- Disk failure has a medium impact on throughput

- Difficult to rebuild in the event of disk failure.
=> In production, you will lose more time then RAID1 type (RAID0+1 or 10)


2) RAID0+1 for high data transfer performance (or RAD10 adding even more reliability)

- RAID0+1 has the same fault tolerance as RAID5.

- High I/O rates are achieved thanks to multiple striping (on several disk in //)

This is why it is recommended for imaging applications, although:
- 50% disk space overhead
- 4 drives required as a minimum
- scalability at a cost (deciding to buy a 4 or 8 disks controller for adding more disks)

3) If you stick to RAID5, you could consider RAID50 (6 disks minimum).
With very fast disks, RAID3 on 3 disks (2 for stripes, 1 for parity) is a very efficient config for video production.

you could visit www.acnc.com/04_01_00.html for an animated tutorial on RAID levels.
 
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In case we haven't beaten this to death, don't use RAID 0, or at least expect to keep anything on it. Having just recovered from losing 1.5TB of data (two large projects) that are forever gone, I reformatted to RAID 10. :(


B
 
oh, but isn't the speed of raid 0 soooo tempting? :) I agree though - the benefit isn't worth the risk. One could back everything up prior to working off the raid 0 array, but that's pretty inefficient.

The reason I like raid 5 is for the disc space efficiency and read speed vs raid 10... but if that's not an issue, then raid 10's a better option.

JM
 
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Indeed, you need a really good crash to feel the value of your data!
Then, you consider that any single disk has a possible bad future.

All RAID configs (banning RAID0) have pros & cons, but some are more appropriate to video/imaging.
The rebuilding process, (after a single disk failure or a bad shutdown) can stop or slow the production for a while.

A good system strategy is the passport to work on production peacefully.
 
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