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External Hard Drives For Video Editing

X

X-JRO

macrumors member
Original poster
Dec 18, 2008
75
0
Australia, Victoria, Melbourne East
Hey guys - didn't know where else to post this

Just a quick question about hard drives

I'm doing small time video editing but plan to get some bigger and better stuff happening. I'm pretty green so you'll have to get with me.

I'm looking at getting hard drives for videos and to use for scratch. I was also looking at getting one to put my music and photos on, would that be better kept with my apps and such on my main machine? It's only 320GB.

Oh and I was looking into RAID (obviously not very hard) and I still don't know if I fully understand it. A noob friendly explanation would be wonderful ^_^

Thanks
 
X-JRO said:
Hey guys - didn't know where else to post this

Just a quick question about hard drives

I'm doing small time video editing but plan to get some bigger and better stuff happening. I'm pretty green so you'll have to get with me.

I'm looking at getting hard drives for videos and to use for scratch. I was also looking at getting one to put my music and photos on, would that be better kept with my apps and such on my main machine? It's only 320GB.

Oh and I was looking into RAID (obviously not very hard) and I still don't know if I fully understand it. A noob friendly explanation would be wonderful ^_^

Thanks
Click to expand...

For video you would want Raid 0 which would be 2 harddrives operating as one big drive thus (in theory) giving you twice the performance. This would be great for a scratch disk for your work, but because you have 2 hard drives if one dies you lose all your data. Thus the likelyhood of this happening is twice as much as a single drive.

For your data you would like to back up Raid 1 would be your best bet. It uses 2 Hard drives and mirros your data across both of them. If one dies, the other is still intact to keep you going.
 
Tweak3D said:
For video you would want Raid 0 which would be 2 harddrives operating as one big drive thus (in theory) giving you twice the performance. This would be great for a scratch disk for your work, but because you have 2 hard drives if one dies you lose all your data. Thus the likelyhood of this happening is twice as much as a single drive.

For your data you would like to back up Raid 1 would be your best bet. It uses 2 Hard drives and mirros your data across both of them. If one dies, the other is still intact to keep you going.
Click to expand...

I have a time capsule running time machine, so that should be alright, but once I move my video to any other drives, I'll be at risk of losing it.

Anyway, what's the cost of a raid 0 setup, what gear would you recommend?
 
You don't need a Raid 0 for most consumer video editing, and the fastest port on your iMac is the Firewire 800 port, which has a maximum throughput of 65 to 75MB/s, a speed most HDD today can sustain without even mirroring them.

To really get Raid 0 speeds, you need an e-SATA port.

Also what kind of footage are you gonna editing? SD or HD?
Where does the material (footage) come from? DV/HDV tapes, SD or other Flash cards, HDDs, XDCam disks, ...?

What software do you want to use to edit?

At work, we have several FW800 HDDs to store DV footage and it is no problem editing that kind of footage, as the data rate of DV is 3.25MB/s.
We also edit Digi Beta (uncompressed SD) video, but sue to amount of tapes, we capture it in a lower quality and batch capture only the finished sequence with uncompressed video. Digi Beta takes up approx. 20MB/s if it is uncompressed.


Only uncompressed HD footage really requires a Raid 0 setup, as that HD material gets data rate of up to 220MB/s.


edit.gif


I see from your sig that you may be planning on getting a Mac Pro, a machine that can offer you Raid 0/1/5 if you want.
But still, Raid might be a little bit over the top, as that entirely depends on your source footage.
 
spinnerlys said:
You don't need a Raid 0 for most consumer video editing, and the fastest port on your iMac is the Firewire 800 port, which has a maximum throughput of 65 to 75MB/s, a speed most HDD today can sustain without even mirroring them.

To really get Raid 0 speeds, you need an e-SATA port.

Also what kind of footage are you gonna editing? SD or HD?
Where does the material (footage) come from? DV/HDV tapes, SD or other Flash cards, HDDs, XDCam disks, ...?

What software do you want to use to edit?

At work, we have several FW800 HDDs to store DV footage and it is no problem editing that kind of footage, as the data rate of DV is 3.25MB/s.
We also edit Digi Beta (uncompressed SD) video, but sue to amount of tapes, we capture it in a lower quality and batch capture only the finished sequence with uncompressed video. Digi Beta takes up approx. 20MB/s if it is uncompressed.


Only uncompressed HD footage really requires a Raid 0 setup, as that HD material gets data rate of up to 220MB/s.


edit.gif


I see from your sig that you may be planning on getting a Mac Pro, a machine that can offer you Raid 0/1/5 if you want.
But still, Raid might be a little bit over the top, as that entirely depends on your source footage.
Click to expand...

I'm editing uncompressed SD (hell, I'm pretty sure it's uncompressed, that's how much of a noob I am), it's all on SD cards, I have a really bad panasonic : ( Saving for a Sony FX1000 before anything else (other than HDDs).

I'm using a legit but REALLY OLD '05 Final Cut Pro Suite. I bought it off eBay it has already been upgraded from Final Cut Pro so I'm not sure if I can update it again >_>

What would you recommend?
 
SD is short for Standard Definition, the predecessor to the current High Definition (HD) in the TV broadcasting system.

What you mean by "SD card" is something else entirely, SD is short for Secure Digital and is a name for a memory card format.

This the footage of that SD card is unlikely uncompressed, unless it is really, really big (16GB, 64GB) or the clips are short, very short.

Uncompressed SD footage takes 1.6GB/min of storage space, HD footage varies due to the different offered solutions, and can amount to almost 13GB/min.

So what camera do you use exactly and what format are you shooting in?
SD with PAL or NTSC, or HD with 720p, 1080i, 1080p or HDV?
 
I have a couple of 2 TB WD Studio drives connected in a FireWire 800 chain.

These are the drives: http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Book-Studio-WDH2Q20000N/dp/B0016P7H3Q/ref=pd_bxgy_e_img_b

The neat thing about them is that each 2 TB drive is built using two 1 TB drives. This enables you to configure each unit as a RAID 0 or RAID 1. The drives are probably as fast as you can get considering their size. You could probably achieve faster throughput if you had an ExpressCard slot in your MBP and used it to add an eSata port. But unless you're doing a full 1080P transfers, you should be fine with the FireWire 800.
 
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spinnerlys said:
I see from your sig that you may be planning on getting a Mac Pro, a machine that can offer you Raid 0/1/5 if you want.
Click to expand...
RAID 5 is only possible via a RAID card, not under OS X's software RAID functions in Disk Utility (which only 0/1/10 is available).
 
spinnerlys said:
Thanks for clearing that up. But still a Mac Pro is needed for Raid 5.
Click to expand...
There are external devices that have it (i.e. FW, Ethernet,... interfaces - not getting into how well it works, as they may not address the write hole issue associated with parity based arrays), but for a PCIe card, absolutely.
 
nanofrog said:
There are external devices that have it (i.e. FW, Ethernet,... interfaces - not getting into how well it works, as they may not address the write hole issue associated with parity based arrays), but for a PCIe card, absolutely.
Click to expand...

That's true again, but to get the full speed out of a Raid 0 or 5 configuration, Gigabit Ethernet and FW800 are much to slow.
I should have mentioned this in my earlier post though, so thanks for bringing it up.

I'm afraid though, that all the tech talk might have frightened the OP as she hasn't reported back yet.
 
spinnerlys said:
That's true again, but to get the full speed out of a Raid 0 or 5 configuration, Gigabit Ethernet and FW800 are much to slow.
I should have mentioned this in my earlier post though, so thanks for bringing it up.
Click to expand...
Given there wasn't any indication max speed was required, I only went with devices that can provide a level 5 array.

But when max throughputs are needed, PCIe is the best way to go, followed by eSATA and PM enclosures (fine for some, as it's faster than FW400/800, USB, or 1G Ethernet). Both require slots, and only PCIe are available in Intel based MP's. Cost is a major consideration of course.

At any rate, if you need a card capable of a level 5/6/50/60, I can steer you in the right direction.

spinnerlys said:
I'm afraid though, that all the tech talk might have frightened the OP as she hasn't reported back yet.
Click to expand...
RAID is complicated (and gets expensive fast), and must be researched thoroughly to avoid mistakes (which are costly and time consuming).

So there's been a lot of information to digest. Hopefully, the OP will return with more detailed questions that can be used to dial in a solution to fit his/her needs.
 
spinnerlys said:
SD is short for Standard Definition, the predecessor to the current High Definition (HD) in the TV broadcasting system.

What you mean by "SD card" is something else entirely, SD is short for Secure Digital and is a name for a memory card format.

This the footage of that SD card is unlikely uncompressed, unless it is really, really big (16GB, 64GB) or the clips are short, very short.

Uncompressed SD footage takes 1.6GB/min of storage space, HD footage varies due to the different offered solutions, and can amount to almost 13GB/min.

So what camera do you use exactly and what format are you shooting in?
SD with PAL or NTSC, or HD with 720p, 1080i, 1080p or HDV?
Click to expand...

Hey man, give me some credit, I know the difference between an SD card and SD footage. I don't know how you read it to imply I didn't. But alas you're probably right, I'd be compressed, my bad.

Eddyisgreat said:
Stay away from g-tech.

If you don't heed my advice atleast get another drive and back up every day/twice per day. Oh and make sure you bookmark their support page...It'll save time.
Click to expand...

AHAHA I was actually looking at http://www.g-technology.com/products/g-raid.cfm

spinnerlys said:
I'm afraid though, that all the tech talk might have frightened the OP as she hasn't reported back yet.
Click to expand...
OP is a man, there are no girls on the internet.
 
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