New iMac fusion drive advice - Videography

[Jeantro]

Originally Posted by hfg

I am not a videographer, but here is a possible solution for a fast external Thunderbolt drive.

I tested a Promise Technology Pegasus J4 Thunderbolt enclosure in which I put 4 ea. 2.5" 1TB 7200rpm hard disk drives (HGST Travelstar). The 4 drives are accessible individually by OS X, so I used Disk Utility to create a RAID-0 4-drive array which appears as a single 4TB volume.

I am getting 500MB/s write and read transfer speeds with this 4TB RAID-0. It is considerably less expensive at $700 than the Pegasus R4 ($1K+), is much smaller, and is so quiet I really can't hear it running at all on my desk.

Just my $ .02...

-howard



.

Can you give me the reference of your hard disk

Is it ssd drive for get this perform

[hfg]

Originally Posted by Jeantro

Can you give me the reference of your hard disk

Is it ssd drive for get this perform

No, it is not SSD, it is 7200rpm 1TB 2.5" laptop sized drives (4 drives RAID-0)

They are HGST Travelstar HTS721010A9E630 7K1000-1000 :
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc..._Internal.html

I purchased a kit with the Pegasus J4 and 4 boxed drives from B&H:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...rbolt_SSD.html

Looks like they raised the price ... I paid $725 for the kit on 1/7/13
Looks like the price of the disk drives has gone up a bunch!

-howard

EDIT: some more info from a previous post:


I have been having some more fun with the Pegasus J4 with 4 ea. 1TB 7200rpm drives as described above a few posts. Here are the RAID-0 results again with the hard disks:

Results:
config ....... Write / Read MB/s
1 disk ....... 115 / 129
2 disk ....... 250 / 258
3 disk ....... 345 / 375
4 disk ....... 501 / 507

I replaced one of the hard drives with a Samsung 840 Pro 256GB SSD:
840Pro ....... 316 / 524


I then created a "Fusion" drive in the Pegasus J4 using the 256GB SSD and one of the 1TB hard disks. I left the other 2 hard disks as a 2TB RAID-0 for now. It all seems to work great so far, although now it is a tough decision whether to leave it as a fast 1.25TB Fusion drive ... or a not-quite-so-fast 2TB RAID-0 using two drive bays. Speed vs. Capacity!

[simsaladimbamba]

Originally Posted by ybz90

Why do you think Thunderbolt-attached HDs will be faster than an internal SATA HD? The throughput of the two protocols are both way too high to be saturated by mechanical drives (10Gbps vs 6Gbps), so the bottleneck isn't the SATA, it's the drive itself.

I do not think that, and I did not write that, but maybe I should have gone into more detail and wrote "using an external HDD will give you the same speeds as having it internally", but then again, it was not really the question.

Originally Posted by robs91

Will there be any delay as compared to direct internal HDD?

[rdisseld]

Hi,

I am thinking on buying the new 27-inch iMac for video editing as well and was wondering if the following setup would be a possibility:

iMac 27-inch 3.4 with 16GB (3rd party) memory, 3TB Fusion Drive and the GTX 680M with 2GB GDDR5 graphics card.

Also a Promise Pegasus R4 for external media files and scratching.

I currently have a setup with separate 240GB SSD system disk and an additional Momentus 750 XT data disk. I like this setup very much and would like to have a similar setup with the new iMac but then also the Pegasus as external video storage.

Now with the late 2012 iMac, I understand that if I buy the Fusion drive, you'll get a 128 SSD card installed (not a drive but a card which is plugged in into the logic board) and a separate 3TB mechanical drive, right?

Now the questions I have:
- Would it make sense to separate the Fusion drive so I will have a 128GB SSD system disk and a mechanical 3TB drive and will this work?

- If I am in a need (or mood), probably after a few years, to upgrade the iMac, would it be possible to install the 480Gb Aura SSD card from OWC, which is currently available for MacBook Pro and Retina. This would then replace the 128GB SSD in the iMac. And maybe I will through in another harddisk at the same time to upgrade the 3TB (2,5") or even switch to SSD which may be a lot cheaper then. Would this make any sense?

I am really trying to find the best setup for max FCPX performance and iMac seems the way to go (price/quality) but I don't want to be stuck to a certain configuration (no Fusion=no second disk) and am therefore looking for the most likely configuration that can be upgraded in the future.

I know upgrading is a pain but when the time is there, I trust many have done this already and good instructions and toolkits will be available then

Thanks for providing any insight into my reasoning, whether good or bad

Rob

[msg362]

Originally Posted by leman

If you are doing serious editing, you should use a fast external drive array in any case. For 'casual' editing it does not matter.

That may be the answer, my files were only up to about 5 GB each, (AVCHD/Sony), but a total of about 25 Gb in one edit. loaded fast, check with disc speed check gizmo, getting around 300+ read and write.

[Katori]

I think you're thinking too hard about this dude. The Fusion Drive is not going to have any problems, it's a very rare chance. Back up anyway to an external, during and especially after your projects, but using the Fusion Dfive for, you know, what a computer is for...that's not going to cause a problem.

[msg362]

Originally Posted by Thuc5dides

You should ALWAYS store your media on an external drive, preferably a RAID, faster the better. Fusion drive will still be worthwhile to speed up your app loading, but we've gone for the 768SSD because there are always render files and other associated media which get stored locally and it would become a bottleneck.

Bottom line: Fusion is fine for consumer use but dont trust it to manage files for pro applications.

So editing on Premiere Pro , using a 3TB fusion drive to store files and getting 300+ read/write is no good? Why can you not trust it? What experience do you have of fusion drives?. I'm backing up my files as you should, using a 3 TB USB 3.0 external and have saved a lot of money,where is the disadvantage?

[Katori]

Originally Posted by msg362

So editing on Premiere Pro , using a 3TB fusion drive to store files and getting 300+ read/write is no good? Why can you not trust it? What experience do you have of fusion drives?. I'm backing up my files as you should, using a 3 TB USB 3.0 external and have saved a lot of money,where is the disadvantage?

Really, nobody has any experience with Fusion Drives. It is brand new. There have been a few faulty ones but there are faulty hard drives as well. That's why my advice stands: use the Fusion Drive. Use the heck out of it. But once your projects are *done,* then transfer them to another drive or offsite, just in case.

[msg362]

Originally Posted by Katori

Really, nobody has any experience with Fusion Drives. It is brand new. There have been a few faulty ones but there are faulty hard drives as well. That's why my advice stands: use the Fusion Drive. Use the heck out of it. But once your projects are *done,* then transfer them to another drive or offsite, just in case.

didn't deal with the 'consumer' pro' comment. My very limited experience suggests there's nothing to be gained by spending vast sums on Thunderbolt RAID drives for anything other than really high level editing. What do you think?

[itsamacthing]

Originally Posted by rdisseld

Hi,

I am thinking on buying the new 27-inch iMac for video editing as well and was wondering if the following setup would be a possibility:

iMac 27-inch 3.4 with 16GB (3rd party) memory, 3TB Fusion Drive and the GTX 680M with 2GB GDDR5 graphics card.

Also a Promise Pegasus R4 for external media files and scratching.

I currently have a setup with separate 240GB SSD system disk and an additional Momentus 750 XT data disk. I like this setup very much and would like to have a similar setup with the new iMac but then also the Pegasus as external video storage.

Now with the late 2012 iMac, I understand that if I buy the Fusion drive, you'll get a 128 SSD card installed (not a drive but a card which is plugged in into the logic board) and a separate 3TB mechanical drive, right?

Now the questions I have:
- Would it make sense to separate the Fusion drive so I will have a 128GB SSD system disk and a mechanical 3TB drive and will this work?

- If I am in a need (or mood), probably after a few years, to upgrade the iMac, would it be possible to install the 480Gb Aura SSD card from OWC, which is currently available for MacBook Pro and Retina. This would then replace the 128GB SSD in the iMac. And maybe I will through in another harddisk at the same time to upgrade the 3TB (2,5") or even switch to SSD which may be a lot cheaper then. Would this make any sense?

I am really trying to find the best setup for max FCPX performance and iMac seems the way to go (price/quality) but I don't want to be stuck to a certain configuration (no Fusion=no second disk) and am therefore looking for the most likely configuration that can be upgraded in the future.

I know upgrading is a pain but when the time is there, I trust many have done this already and good instructions and toolkits will be available then

Thanks for providing any insight into my reasoning, whether good or bad

Rob

Rob, you and I are on the same page. Get the 3TB FD now... External RAID box for R/W intensive data, and then in 3 years crack it open and upgrade the hell out of it! Hopefully we have a 2TB Flash and 4TB HDD or 3.5 SSD solution in 2016.

The question is which external solution ... Howard got some amazing results with this J4 solution. The Promise Pegasus flat out kicks almost anything's butt..but it ships with Desktop drives and I'm not down with that. If the Pegasus shipped naked, I would buy it tmr. Don't really trust Drobo altho they have 2 possible solutions. In your case, you might just need a fast scratch disk?

[rdisseld]

Originally Posted by itsamacthing

Rob, you and I are on the same page. Get the 3TB FD now... External RAID box for R/W intensive data, and then in 3 years crack it open and upgrade the hell out of it! Hopefully we have a 2TB Flash and 4TB HDD or 3.5 SSD solution in 2016.

The question is which external solution ... Howard got some amazing results with this J4 solution. The Promise Pegasus flat out kicks almost anything's butt..but it ships with Desktop drives and I'm not down with that. If the Pegasus shipped naked, I would buy it tmr. Don't really trust Drobo altho they have 2 possible solutions. In your case, you might just need a fast scratch disk?

Hi itsamacthing, thanks for the confirmation. Happy to see I am not alone with this thinking.

I will have a look at the J4 solution of Howard, although I'll probably start with the Desktop drives.

Good to know that at least we have some options available and I trust it won't take that long before more options will appear, from OWC for ex.

Thanks for the feedback!

Rob

[hfg]

Originally Posted by itsamacthing

Rob, you and I are on the same page. Get the 3TB FD now... External RAID box for R/W intensive data, and then in 3 years crack it open and upgrade the hell out of it! Hopefully we have a 2TB Flash and 4TB HDD or 3.5 SSD solution in 2016.

The question is which external solution ... Howard got some amazing results with this J4 solution. The Promise Pegasus flat out kicks almost anything's butt..but it ships with Desktop drives and I'm not down with that. If the Pegasus shipped naked, I would buy it tmr. Don't really trust Drobo altho they have 2 possible solutions. In your case, you might just need a fast scratch disk?

Just for clarification ... The Pegasus J4 is available empty, loaded with drives, or as a kit (bare J4 + boxed drives) from B&H. The Pegasus J4 uses 2.5" laptop sized drives (mine are 1TB 7200rpm) whereas the much larger Pegasus R4/R6 uses full size desktop drives.

-howard

[Jeantro]

Originally Posted by hfg

Just for clarification ... The Pegasus J4 is available empty, loaded with drives, or as a kit (bare J4 + boxed drives) from B&H. The Pegasus J4 uses 2.5" laptop sized drives (mine are 1TB 7200rpm) whereas the much larger Pegasus R4/R6 uses full size desktop drives.

-howard

my hobby is video editing and I think to buy this product empty and put hard disk like you

it's not very expensive solution for get best performance

[Thuc5dides]

Originally Posted by msg362

So editing on Premiere Pro , using a 3TB fusion drive to store files and getting 300+ read/write is no good? Why can you not trust it? What experience do you have of fusion drives?. I'm backing up my files as you should, using a 3 TB USB 3.0 external and have saved a lot of money,where is the disadvantage?

Your setup should be fine if you are a casual editor with the occasional project, but if you are cutting alot of material in a professional capacity, the 128 of SSD in a Fusion drive will be used up very quickly and you wont get those same read/write levels. Depending on the bitrate of your footage and your workflow, this could be a serious problem.

To be clear I do not have direct experience with Fusion yet but its simple to infer the above through what we do know.

What Fusion MAY be good for is dealing with render files and CS6 peak files, but since nobody knows yet I'm not risking it in our imac editing setup. Solutions for that are keeping all your app directories on fast externals or forking out for the 768 SSD internal if you can part with the $.

[Katori]

Originally Posted by Thuc5dides

Your setup should be fine if you are a casual editor with the occasional project, but if you are cutting alot of material in a professional capacity, the 128 of SSD in a Fusion drive will be used up very quickly and you wont get those same read/write levels. Depending on the bitrate of your footage and your workflow, this could be a serious problem.

To be clear I do not have direct experience with Fusion yet but its simple to infer the above through what we do know.

What Fusion MAY be good for is dealing with render files and CS6 peak files, but since nobody knows yet I'm not risking it in our imac editing setup. Solutions for that are keeping all your app directories on fast externals or forking out for the 768 SSD internal if you can part with the $.

Yeah, that's not how it works. Your data isn't kept long-term on the SSD, it's moved to the HDD at the earliest available time. The only thing on the SSD is your applications (the actual app files), the OS files, and the data that you write when you write it. Then, when the computer idles, it moves the written data over to the HDD.

[Thuc5dides]

Originally Posted by Katori

Yeah, that's not how it works. Your data isn't kept long-term on the SSD, it's moved to the HDD at the earliest available time. The only thing on the SSD is your applications (the actual app files), the OS files, and the data that you write when you write it. Then, when the computer idles, it moves the written data over to the HDD.

Actually the HDD is only used when and if the SSD is full.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/11...-fusion-drive/

[Chris Blount]

Originally Posted by msg362

I'm no expert, but I've had the 3TB fusion drive for a month now and use Premiere Pro CS6. I started with the files on a USB 3.0 external drive, but when I put them onto the 3TB I saw a vast increase in speed. I store backups now on USB 3.0 but everything operates from the 3tb fusion and it's just great. I'm sure someone will tell me why I'm mistaken but it's VERY fast and I'm very happy.

This is a good post from someone who has actually used a Fusion drive for video editing. I have a Fusion drive as well and am tempted to try it that way. Right now my render files and such are going to my external thunderbolt but I might let everything render on my Fusion drive to see what happens.

[Katori]

Originally Posted by Thuc5dides

Actually the HDD is only used when and if the SSD is full.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/11...-fusion-drive/

If you'll pay attention to the article that you posted, you'll see that's simply not the case. The drive moves chunks on the SSD that are inactive to the HDD, while moving active chunks to the SSD. He said the operation began after about 20s of idle time.

[msg362]

Originally Posted by Chris Blount

This is a good post from someone who has actually used a Fusion drive for video editing. I have a Fusion drive as well and am tempted to try it that way. Right now my render files and such are going to my external thunderbolt but I might let everything render on my Fusion drive to see what happens.

Thanks,
i suspect you may not find an improvement over Thunderbolt, but I'll be interested in the outcome. I didn't buy a thunderbolt drive because i live in Thailand and getting hold of them is a bit like finding snowflakes in the Sahara!. So I went for a USB 3.0, good, but the fusion drive is markedly better
Good luck

[hfg]

Originally Posted by Katori

If you'll pay attention to the article that you posted, you'll see that's simply not the case. The drive moves chunks on the SSD that are inactive to the HDD, while moving active chunks to the SSD. He said the operation began after about 20s of idle time.

I have built a "Fusion" drive in the Pegasus J4 enclosure which has indicator lights for each drive showing drive activity. It is interesting to watch the 2 lights (one for SSD, one for HD) as the Fusion drive does its thing. I do see the "idle" activity after some operations with the Fusion drive where it is promoting/demoting bits of files between the drives. I also notice times when I am pulling up a large file that hasn't been used recently, that the data is obviously coming directly from the hard disk ... at hard disk speeds.

[Thuc5dides]

Originally Posted by Katori

If you'll pay attention to the article that you posted, you'll see that's simply not the case. The drive moves chunks on the SSD that are inactive to the HDD, while moving active chunks to the SSD. He said the operation began after about 20s of idle time.

Scroll up from the one sentence of the article you aparently read and you will see this:

"I copied down about 120 GB of files, which would more than fill the SSD and force the system to show me its contingency behavior.."

The SSD keeps a 4GB "landing zone", but only when it's entirely full will it start copying to the HDD.

[robs91]

Ok so people are saying that using the fusion is fine for video editing. Then what was with the guy in my original post? I don't want that to happen to me! And significant performance boosts when having the render files on the fusion? Even if the external is thunderbolt?

Bah I don't know what to do.

[Thuc5dides]

Larry Jordan seems happy enough with the fusion for an editing suite, but still stores media on a raid. This short read should put you at ease:

http://www.larryjordan.biz/app_bin/w.../archives/2084

Personally I don't want any HDD in my pipeline, which includes motion GFX and lots of files I don't trust fusion to store where I want them (on the SSD), but for straight cutting I bet you will be fine with fusion.

[RHD]

I'm 3D, I need the best affordable specs for rendering. Ideally Artlantis but I'm still on 1.6 because later versions were too slow.
Can anyone advise?
Thank you

[Martin/x]

Might be a good way to go ?
Reading this: http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/335/46729 and the post by Chris Kenny "........Fusion Drive is just clever software, though. You can 'break apart' the HDD and SSD, if you want to, and just use the SSD for boot and applications and the HDD for bulk storage....."

and this in the same forum thread :
http://macperformanceguide.com/Fusion-partitioning.html

I'm thinking of getting the latest iMac for FCPX and would go with fusion for smaller projects if this works well (even though external drives for media are usually recommended), anybody think so ??.