[TheGreyPilgrim-1985]

Hey guys. New here. Hope to find some good information. As I am just starting out, I was hoping to get some storage preferences for the Blackmagic camera. I've got a budget of one-to fifteen hundred bucks. Was looking at this one:



http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=promise+pegasus+8tb&hl=en&safe=off&prmd=imvns&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&biw=1280&bih=679&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=8850003294689265021&sa=X&ei=07s1UNvWDMPJ6wGDhIHoBg&ved=0CGYQ8wIwAQ

What does everyone think? I like the fact that I can daisy chain more if (when) more space is needed. Oh, and if this topic has been covered somewhere else, I apologize.

[mario]

I always find the Promise drives to carry a price premium, in addition thunderbold drives are still a lot more expansive than eSATA drives.

This is what I have done: LaCie Thunderbold to eSATA hub (http://www.lacie.com...ct.htm?id=10574), this gives me two eSATA ports and now I have a lot of flexibility. For the drives I use the OWC Mercury Pro (http://eshop.macsale...s/RAID/Desktop/) where I am getting 330MBs and the LaCie Big (http://www.lacie.com...ct.htm?id=10313). Both are running in a RAID5 config.

To read out the BMC drive I have orded this, but not arrived, so can not say how well it performs: http://www.amazon.co...45708905&sr=8-2
Looks like you can just slip in the SSD and have it available via Thunderbold.

[BlackmagicUser]

It's a really good subject. This is arguably going to be your next primary concern after essentials like lenses and power supply.

If you're stacking up half-hours one at a time it won't be long before you start getting thirsty for more space.

I do like the Promise Pegasus and had a look into them. Someone who I was looking into recently was using it. Can't remember who at the moment. Thought it was David Hurd, but he's using a combination of Cubix GPU-Xpander and ATTO R380 SAS controller card, connected to 16 Seagate SAS drives in two CI design cases through a Mac Pro. He's post production.

http://www.blackmagi...w/#.UDYA26BEN8E


I've liked Lacie for a long time. Because whenever I find someone with their drives it always strikes me how silent they are. Last weekend I visited a friend and he's using the Toshiba 1Tb drives which retail at around 70 quid (140 dollars) for a portable solution and I love'em. It’s not much bigger than a card and fits nicely into a top-pocket :
 

http://www.google.co...ved=0CD0Q8wIwAA

Two or three of those taped onto each others backs would make an excellent mobile solution.


Sounds like Mario has done a lot of looking around which I haven’t had time to do, but I’d consider G-Raid.

http://www.amazon.co...keywords=G-Raid

Come up a lot.

http://www.amazon.co...45717035&sr=1-7

[mario]

I received the Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt docking station today. Very nice. You can just slide in the SSD and you are ready. 383MBs read, 245MBs write on a crucial m4 512GB drive.

This is perfect for taking the drive out of the BMC and copying the files for processing.

Now we need a bus powered raid array to store all the files on the road....

Attached Files

•  SSD.jpg   201.31K   9 downloads

[Dojo]

Hi all, I have a question that follows on from the discussion on back-up.

Anyone got a smart solution to backing up media without going through a laptop scenario?

The thing is, I travel to some place off the beaten track where power is unreliable. Whilst I can get by needing to drip-feed camera battery using solar panels at times, am wondering what efficient mobile storage solution would work going from the camera to some battery powered external storage. I know these devices exist for card readers/mobile storage, anyone got any ideas for efficient SSD back-ups in the field?

[ianim8]

Hi all, I have a question that follows on from the discussion on back-up.
Anyone got a smart solution to backing up media without going through a laptop scenario?

There are options like that.

Sorry I dont have links handy.

I would like them to be more like NEXTO DI style but its a dock like unit with a built-in HD.

[Dojo]

Hi all, I have a question that follows on from the discussion on back-up.
Anyone got a smart solution to backing up media without going through a laptop scenario?

There are options like that.
Sorry I dont have links handy.
I would like them to be more like NEXTO DI style but its a dock like unit with a built-in HD.

Thanks - yes am looking, I've used the NEXTO DI, very hand for SxS cards, something similar, nice and robust would be good - I'll keep searching - Cheers

[Marcel B.]

@TheGreyPilgrim-1985

I set up a simple NFS on my local network at home, currently at 8TB of storage space but you can go up to 16TB or 32TB even connect several devices together.



Synology DS412+ ($649 wo/ HDD's)

It was easy to set up and if your working with tons of RAW files its a great way to transfer tofrom several computers. I also edit directly from it via Ethernet.

But thats more of permanent system.

Cheers
M

[TheGreyPilgrim-1985]

Mario and BMUser, I actually decided on the LaCie. A lot of guys were saying pretty good things about it. Right now, I got the 6TB, and soon(ish) my partner in crime will get another six. And the Seagate I've heard good things as well, so I'll be looking into getting two of those!

[mario]

For on the road storage on the laptop, I have decided to go with OWC Dual Elite Pro Mini (http://eshop.macsale...FW800_FW400_USB) and put in 2x 1TB 2.5 HDD inside (I picked the WB ones). In RAID 1 it will give me 2TB offload storage on the road, all bus powered. For backup I may get a second one or resort to main powered drives.

[Tech]

Looks really nice. Is it on its way to you? Will you run it on arrival and let me know what the sound is like? Might get one too.

[mario]

Arrived yeterday and works just fine using FW800 - I get 80MB/s consistently.

Could not get it to work with the Sonnettech (http://www.sonnettec...eexpress34.html) eSata card yet, but I think that is more a problem with the card than the drive.

[Maarten Toner]

Storage, the big issue ever since switching to a tapeless workflow almost 5 years ago. Even with just a couple of Canons and a Sony EX3 I end up with so much stuff to store, at first it seemed smart and safe to go for NAS solutions. But nothing is safe, so after buying a QNAP 809, I had to buy another one as a backup. Both systems failed, everything except the third backup: single drives, WD and LaCie, did not fail. So now I switched to 3 drive brands and make triple backups on single volumes.

Two stupid issues you run into with any harddisk backup is this: wen you buy a NAs and fill it with lovely 3TB drives, and even if you get two drive redundancy, like on the QNAP 809 you can still run into these problems: First version was a iSCSI setup, after a power out and NAS crash the iSCSI confg became unreadable and in the end the only option was to format and start again. Tried it as a time machine backup, it can fail as well, started again. Seperate drives, just a NAS with RAID: here you run into a simple reality: if one drive from a series fails, chances are the others can fail as well. And because you need the same drives from the same series for best performance, it becomes a game of chance.

In the end I dropped all QNAPS and switched to WD 1TB, 2TB, 3TB and 4TB (they have hitachi drives inside by the way) drives, with triple copies on Seagate and Samsung drives (same sizes) The one I like the most: Well the new Go Flex Mario mentioned are cool because you can switch interface. I use the FW800 on my Mac Pro and Thunderbolt on the MBP17.

During a shoot I ran into a storage specialist and he said that in the IT world it is now rule of thumb: store everything on multiple drives, it is more reliable then tape and RAIDs. It is not as easy as having a giant island of data with 24TB of projects, and you need a solid folder tree drive structure to keep track of things (still looking into a good database solution)

Also just found the Segate 2.5" 1TB drives with removable interface, you can switch between USB3, FW800 and Thunderbolt, for my laptop I got a USB3.0 card because it seems to be more common then the eSata, looks like newer drives are dropping it in favour of USB3.

Will be interesting to see how things are going to pan out when my BMCC arrives, have 3SSD's ready to rumble

Talking about SSD's: had a Crucial 256 SSD as boot drive for the Mac Pro and the day before I was going to pick up my new Samsung 830 512SSD it died. Smelled like burned rubber, the shop replaced it with a Crucial 512 M4 but still, 20 months is not very good. (saved by time machine)

Ok now the moral of the story and something most will know: backups and storage is nice but only if you stick to it and ALWAYS backup.
you can't explain to a client you have to re-shoot things because it all got lost, it's the moment where I get reminded of the Steve jobs story: reasons don't matter.

Also tried all sorts of backup online options, but uploading 24TB of data will take about 370 days, by that time another 24TB of data will probably be ready. Also started handing clients drives with their projects on it just to make sure at least one copy is off-site.

Anyway.. Hi BMCC users
/rant

[Navin Ramaswaran]

Arrived yeterday and works just fine using FW800 - I get 80MB/s consistently.

Could not get it to work with the Sonnettech (http://www.sonnettec...eexpress34.html) eSata card yet, but I think that is more a problem with the card than the drive.

I like these drives too, for mobile storage.
Did you get the power cable with it? (http://eshop.macsale...puting/MOTGPWR/) Or use a firewire to power the drive - Needed for the eSata connection:

Note: When using eSATA connection, the use of a powered FireWire port or optional AC Adapter (not included) is required. When using FireWire or USB connection, the Elite Pro mini autoswitches to bus power via FireWire or USB connection.

[Michael Sandiford]

With the recent announcement that USB3.0 will double it's speed in 2014 upto 10gb/s for flash storage devices, it really makes the choice between thunderbolt and USB 3.0 a tougher question.

[johnjvogel]

Hey guys. New here. Hope to find some good information. As I am just starting out, I was hoping to get some storage preferences for the Blackmagic camera. I've got a budget of one-to fifteen hundred bucks. Was looking at this one:



http://www.google.co...ved=0CGYQ8wIwAQ

What does everyone think? I like the fact that I can daisy chain more if (when) more space is needed. Oh, and if this topic has been covered somewhere else, I apologize.

I bought this very one from macmall, I actually bought a "refurbished" model and saved a few hundred dollars about a year ago. Love it. 8 tb, raided together. It's been flawless so far.

[thinktank]

Hi Guys - I have just used a couple of promise Pegasus R4 raids to data manage a TV series shot on two Alexa's, meaning data heavy.

64GIG sxs cards are able to be data-managed in 8 minutes using thunderbolt and Al3XA data manager two three MD5 checked destinations.

The drives themselves are rock solid and well built. The drives are interchangeable, so larger and faster drives can be used.

They are worth every penny that you pay, for reliability, size and speed.

I would highly recommend them to anyone who can afford them.

Shooting now with my BMCC in RAW 2.5k - the data is stacking up quick. Shooting any short film in RAW will require a raid drive of this size or larger to manage the data, speed for checking the data onset before on from setups - realistically the slower you go in data-management these days the great the risk of having to shoot pickups if a problem arises.

THINKTANK

[thinktank]

With the recent announcement that USB3.0 will double it's speed in 2014 upto 10gb/s for flash storage devices, it really makes the choice between thunderbolt and USB 3.0 a tougher question.

Just to follow this up as well, usb3.0 is currently ok - and yes with the announced update it will unlock the 10gbs on a single band for throughput. This will probably max out the protocol.

You have to cheep in mind that thunderbolt is current dual band 10gbs per second and has been capped there to stop burning out your hard drives.

This is because at the moment there are very few raid systems that are large in size that run on ssds. When this golden goose's egg gets cracked - then we will see the full potential of the thunderbolt system - move from copper cable back to its intended optical cable and the speeds sky rocket through the roof.

THINKTANK

[Rex Orwell]

Just putting this out here I haven't used one, but read lots of good things.