Getting the most out of the drive configuration

[Michael73]

Quick question...

I have 4 x 500GB in the ole MP. If I have 2 Video_TS folders and 2 instances of Handbrake, will I see any encoding rate (time) improvement if I move 1 of the Video_TS folders to Drive B and do the following:

Video_TS (1) sits on Drive A and is encoded in an mp4 to Drive C
Video_TS (2) sits on Drive B and is encoded in an mp4 to Drive D

I guess what I'm trying to do is think about the fastest way to tackle the encoding of 2 movies simultaneously and I'm wondering about whether seek / spin and R/RW time come into play such that utilizing all 4 drives is advantageous?

Any ideas?

 

[wpc33]

It makes perfect sense, and I will wait for someone else to prove you wrong, as I do the exact same thing.

 

[wheezy]

Interesting question, but 15-20 minutes is too long for you? I started handbraking (to iPhone, AppleTV) on my PB G4, took 8-10 hours to encode a 2 hour movie. Then I went to a Macbook 2Ghz C2D, it was basically real time, 2 hours for 2 hours. My newly arrived MP same as yours did a movie in 15 minutes.

I'm happy with 15 minutes.

 

[Michael73]

Interesting question, but 15-20 minutes is too long for you? I started handbraking (to iPhone, AppleTV) on my PB G4, took 8-10 hours to encode a 2 hour movie. Then I went to a Macbook 2Ghz C2D, it was basically real time, 2 hours for 2 hours. My newly arrived MP same as yours did a movie in 15 minutes.

I'm happy with 15 minutes.

HA HA! It's all perception my friend. Seriously. Trust me the newness of 15 minutes will wear off.

Remember when people made the jump from dial up to broadband and everyone tripped all over themselves going goo ga over the speed? It didn't take long for websites to start adding content that NEEDED that sort of download speed. Let's also not forget Apple themselves. It seems everytime there's a new software update the sizes seem to get larger and larger. Yeah, the download times are faster but the updates went from 25MB to 150MB, it blunts the speed impact.

Anyway, when it comes to Handbrake and encoding, sometimes it's not the speed to encode a single movie but there are times when I have a bunch of raw Video_TS files and I need to encode 8-10 (or more).

If I could save a minute using a better drive configuration on each encode, then for every 15 minutes, I could encode a 16th for no more time. Depending on how much encoding you're doing, over time this could really add up.