Is RAID overkill??

[jennyandgreg]

I am buying a new PC and can't decide if I should spend the $$$ on RAID or not. I am getting a fast PC (P4 3.0, 800 fsb) with a sata drive. I am only going to capture digital video off my sony digital camcorder via firewire.

So help me oh gods of computer video.....is RAID overkill?

[wulf109]

Yes.it's overkill. Normal motherboard allows for 2 HD's and 2 CD/DVD drives. Unless you have some specific need for multiple HD's save your money.

[digitalguy1127]

Hmmm, a good question. I couldn't seem to stop dropping frames until I started using 2 ide drives in a raid 0 stripe set. Now I regularly get 0 drops during 1/2 - 1 hour captures 480x480 using huffy codec.

Your mileage may vary...

[jennyandgreg]

What kind of video capture are you doing? Digital?

[emats]

jennyandgreg,

I say put the money towards dual processors instead. I have onboard RAID but will look to 2 procs for my next computer. Maybe twin 2.5's instead of 3.06Ghz.

[txpharoah]

jennyandgreg, I say put the money towards dual processors instead. I have onboard RAID but will look to 2 procs for my next computer. Maybe twin 2.5's instead of 3.06Ghz.

For what he/she is doing, this may also be a waste. Dual processors don't always do that much on a video system. They were mostly made for 3D renderings and servers.

RAID only is capturing (not DV AVI transferring) high bitrate large resolution files AND the system tends to drop frames. Even then, dropped frames are due to other issues. I already wrote a thread on that.

[bolta]

Hey there . . .

Personally, I like RAID (check my specs). Since I dedicated a RAID 0 set to capturing/editing etc, I typically have zero dropped frames over the course of capturing, for example, a 3-4 hour tennis match (whose the world number 1 tennis player? An Aussie!!! oi oi oi . . .) using MJPEG codec at quality=19.

Cheers,

B.

[You_Are_Alive]

Of course it isn't. Because raid has more functions then you may realize. Go get it, especially if its just another $15 - $20. Usually integrated on the mobo. One really good reason to have it is for a more flexible and reliable system. here's an example many don't think about. When doing CD/DVD to CD/DVD on the fly copies, you want the IDE channel to be free from any interuptions, so have all your optical drives on seperate ide channels. That's what raid can do for you as well. Makes your life alot easier, just look at all the ppl complaining that they can't get the Pioneer A05 or Sony DRU500A working. You'll have no problems cause all will be seperate.

Another reason you ask, your channel is only as fast as your slowest device connected to that channel. So you could have an ata133 HDD but when you add your old or new optical drive, its probably only at ata66, now there goes your HDD speed cause your optical drive has just slowed things down.

Want more, here's more. You can add alot more storage that you will need when working with video. Sooner or later your going to have alot of movies on your HDD taking up space and you'll kick yourself when you start having trouble cause you run low on disk space. Did I mention blazing "sustained speed"? Best raid config is with 3 seperate drives stripped together, the 4th will added very, very little speed gain. Use it as the system drive, and have the other 3 in raid mode.

[mrtristan]

I'm putting RAID in my next computer, basically for the reasons that You_Are_Alive mentioned. I have a dual 1.67Ghz AMD machine and it's not nearly as fast as I thought. Adding RAID components is cheaper than adding dual cpu components and benefits capturing more, relative to the price of each.

The main benefit of dual processors is their ability to multitask. I have yet to see my sysytem bog down, even while capturing at 640X480 in the background. Surprisingly, the system is also more stable. I thought that two cpus would increase the chance of errors, but I'm guessing that there is some amount of redundancy between the two chips, to increase system stability.

[jennyandgreg]

I am getting a motherboard with dual SATA raid, its the cost of the extra drives that are killing me (SATA drives only). Not only is the question raid or not but do I do raid for the drives I want to capture on, or raid on the drives I want to put the system on.

[flaninacupboard]

digitalguy, if you were getting drops at 480X480 with huffy then there's something wrong! My old Athlon 650 would capture 480X576 huffy to an ata100 hard drive all day long, the longest being 11 hours of farscape, with no drops at all! anyway, if you just wanted more channels, you can get 4 channel IDE controllers for around £20.

[mrtristan]

I would set your capture drives to use RAID. You don't need the speed for the OS, but you do want it when capturing.

I am getting a motherboard with dual SATA raid, its the cost of the extra drives that are killing me (SATA drives only). Not only is the question raid or not but do I do raid for the drives I want to capture on, or raid on the drives I want to put the system on.

[jennyandgreg]

But if Digtal video off of firewire is already compressed I was told 10 MBs was the data stream. Any decent drive these days can do 10 MBs

[andkiich]

Until they come out with something better, striped RAID is the only way I will go. I tried using just regular hard drives with DMA and found that the RAID is just better for me. The regular setup is OK for standard stuff, but capture works better, games don't take long to load. Just as an example, with the striped RAID on my MSI motherboard, I can from start to finish have Windows XP Professional loaded and running in 15-20 minutes.

Anytime that you can get a piece of your system better than it was before, what does it hurt? With the relative inexpensive price of storage nowadays, I don't see the downside.

[MrKGB]

jennyandgreg, I would suggest to use RAID for system drives, so all programs will load faster.
The speed of video stream is maximum 30mbps, whereas any decent drive can do 100mbps, so having RAID for capture is an overkill.

[jennyandgreg]

I thought the video stream is 10 MBs (for digital video from a camcorder with firewire). Am I wrong on that?

[ptmurphy]

MrKGB is quoting mega-BITS per second. Note the small "b" in mbps.

When I load a DV file from my camcorder and analyze it in Premiere, it gives me an average bit rate of 3.61 MBs (mega BYTE per second).

To answer your original question, RAID is overkill for capturing. I have a 1.5Ghz system with ATA 133 drives (a Maxtor and a Western Digital) and don't remember EVER dropping a frame capturing Analog video.

It is a moot point with Digital since you aren't really capturing, but transferinf a file.

Save you money on the Raid and buy some more DVD-Rs!

Hope this helps.

[Dragonsf]

.... I have a 1.5Ghz system with ATA 133 drives (a Maxtor and a Western Digital) and don't remember EVER dropping a frame capturing Analog video.

....

What WD drive are you using?I've been told by WD, that they won't produce ATA 133 drives, which could mean, you're using ATA 100 on both drives (if they are on the same channel)

[MrKGB]

BTW, this ATA 133 is also an overkill for capture.
It stands for 133 MBps (which is 1000 mbps) , and most of the drives make about 30 MB. This 133 MBps makes sence only for short bursts when data comes from harddrive cache, whereas for capture we need sustained data flow.
What is really important is that the drive must be defragged and run in Ultra DMA mode.

[jennyandgreg]

So maybe the best of everything is get RAID for the system/program drives, and keep a dedicated hard drive for capture.

[drewson99]

If you need to do more than me, maybe, but this is waht I can do with an AIW 7500, an Athlon XP 1800+, a 60GB 7200 8MB buf drive, 768 (non-DDR) RAM with ZERO dropped frames:

Capture (at 720x480):

15,000 mbps (not 1500) MPEG-2 captures (2 hours plus)
Uncompressed AVI/PCM audio (2 hours plus)

Xfer (720x480 w/ type 1/2 DV codec):

Digital8/MiniDV (1 hour tapes)

again, never dropped frames, I usually broke up the files per 2 hours or less, but as you can see, if you need to do these things (or less) you do not need a RAID.

Andy

[scottvf]

My mb doesn't have a Raid, but I bought a Belkin Ultra ATA/133 PCI card to add up to 4 more hard drives. I already have a plextor burner, Sony dru-500ax burner, and 2 hard drives (1 is 120gb - c: for windows only and e: music only, 2. is 120gb - d: programs only) So I added a 3rd F: HD for Video only on the raid card. and I can add 3 more in the future since video takes up so much space (9gb for a dual layer DVD). I get between 5-10 DVD's free from the Library and rip them all to my HD, take them back, then create my dvd-r