BlackMagic Intensity Raid question

[marada]

Many people on this forum say you need Raid setups for uncompressed capture with the BlackMagic Intensity. This may be true now but for how much longer? I have been doing some research on solid state drives, where some drives seem to have extremely impressive read and write speeds. There are already 1 TB solid state drives on the market - see:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/182865/1tb_ssd_drive_available_now_a_steal_at_just_over_3000.html

I know these are expensive now, however in time there price will rival that of normal drives. With these solid state dives is a Raid setup really necessary for uncompressed HDMI capture?

[lordsmurf]

SSD's aren't big enough, or at sane prices. Even 1TB is kind of puny for uncompressed.

[marada]

well 1 TB seems big enough

[lordsmurf]

Maybe if you're wanting just an hour or so of video. I forget the exact specs, but 1TB is puny.

[marada]

Yes 1TB is puny, but this technology can only improve and come down in cost. Think of the prices of 1TB normal drives 5 years ago, and compare today. Do you really think people won't be using Solid state drives in mass over the next 5 years?

[jagabo]

1 hour of 1920x1080 30 fps uncompressed YUY2 video is about 450 GB and requires at least 125 MByte/s sustained write thoughput.

this (SSD) technology can only improve and come down in cost

Hard drives too.

[edDV]

In other words, ITB will hold just over two hours of uncompressed 1080i.

The "Colossus" solid state drives you referenced above claim 220 MB/s (1,760 Mb/s) sustained transfer which should be enough.
http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/solid_state_drives/ocz_colossus_series_sata_ii_3_5-ssd

SSD drives are known to "wear out" with erasure cycles so performance may degrade with use.

[marada]

2 hours of uncompressed capture would seem ok, as you would only use the drive during capture, and then archive the footage somewhere else.

I take the point about performance degrading with use, however from what I have read manufacturers are addressing this, and some even claim their drives are as reliable as conventional hard drives. I guess with conventional drives you have the added problem of moving parts etc. Also a Raid 0 setup is not the most reliable thing in the world. I have just had my setup die caused by a malfunctioning hard drive. Surely it is better to rely on one solid state drive for capture rather than use multiple conventional drives in a Raid, as statistically you have a much higher rate of failure.

[Cornucopia]

If you're going to do HD with BMIntensity, and do it without major compromises, you'll need the space.

The Colossus 1TB SSD mentioned above is ~$3500 with tax. For that amount of money, I could get 4TB!! of Raid 6+0 in a 4-way stripe (with Hotswap tower enclosure). This would have a ~>250MB/s sustained xfer vs. the SSD's 220, AND would have multiple drive hot-swappability (at least 2 drives would have to simultaneously go bad for there to be any loss at all ; great odds - it IS one of the most realiable on earth!). The SSD doesn't have any redundancy at all.

For a particular job that must be done, and for a particular budget, it just makes more sense to use a proven current (and cheap) technology than to be wowed by sleek, tiny newer technology. (Thinking like an engineer, not a consumer)

Scott

[jagabo]

From what I've read, SSDs are nowhere near as reliable as claimed. Failure rate in the field is much higher than hard drives.