sizing up new HDD - how large...? plus other queries

[Leoslocks]

A Raid 0 array writes to both drives at the same time.

I agree with a lot of Smurf's List.
Screw SONY (as a whole) Loves proprietary designs which inhibit the adoption of "standards"
Screw Maxtor (HD) No experience here but don't really want any either
Screw CMC (anything) I have no experience with them but trust LordSmurf's opinion
Screw Princo (DVD-R) same here
Screw Maxell (VHS, S-VHS tapes) I am getting first hand experience with old Maxell Svhs tapes crapping out
Screw RCA (tv, radios) Lots of real world experience with RCA, never again
Screw Magnavox (VCRs).

[Will Hay]

Bollocks.
I've never used their products but screw Matrox?
Man, words of wisdom if I ever heard any.
I have three Maxtor HDD's in my machine (and an IBM) and I wouldn't be without them.
Flawless.
Will

[Will Hay]

Much of the video processing is copying big files, like cut out commersials, demuxing, remuxing and authoring to DVD. So I have 2 hard drives and I try to read from one drive and save to the other drive. They are on separate IDE-channels. I don't understand how a RAID setup would make it faster? A RAID still use 2 hard drives but then you have simultaneous read and write on both drives when you copy a file. The speed should be about the same as when copying from one disc to another like I do, or have I missed something?

The principle is that during capture, because of the increased speed of the RAID array, their is less risk of frame loss.
Will

[racerxnet]

Ronnylov,

Raid increases the performance of the input/output by having less access time to the data storage on the stacked platters. The head seek time is reduced considerably by this approach in the array. The more drives connected to the raid the faster the input/output. People have to consider whether to have a hardware based solution in implementing the raid array or software. Processor-intensive RAID operations are off-loaded from the host CPU to enhance performance with a hardware based solution. More robust fault-tolerant features and increased performance versus software-based RAID.

I discussed the software issues in previous posts. The redundancy of the data stored on the raid array is also a factor to consider. Without the raid 0-1, JBOD, 5, or 10 an IDE drive has absolutely no chance of competing in data security if it crashes. It also cannot compete even remotely with the input/output of data using a hardware based raid card. It has been proven over a considerable time period that raid is a reliable and redundant source for speed and integrity of data storage.

For those individuals who are doing intensive work such as video file editing, graphical design, CAD/CAM, and the like should consider a RAID array. If you would like I can take a screen shot of a software based raid running and show the interupt requests to the CPU VS a hardware based controller. Raid cards are used extensively in the above applications throughout the above industries.


To Smurf,

You back up your position on why your card did not work with Rhetoric and strawman theory. If you like, I can build you a raid box for your use at a reasonable fee, considering you do not know how to.

[trevlac]

@ronnylov

I can't say I know the full path that the data follows, but with raid 0 I am using both drives regardless of what I do. (Capture, copy from network, rip dvd, copy from 3rd drive, etc....)

I don't want to over sell this. But I almost see it as a logical step if you are upgrading drives. For example, if you have 2 drives on seperate channels, you must not have any dvd/cd drives in that machine. If you do, you have an additional controller card or the drives are being slowed by the dvd/cd drive. If you have a card, why not get a raid card? Enough said.


@racerxnet

Now you are being a little hard on Smurf. He needed to get raid to work in his machine with his drives, and it did not. Just because you can build new with new parts, doesn't mean much. It's clear that there is crap raid , ok raid, and good raid. It's just nice to know the basis of someones complaint. I bet he knows more about VCRs than you ! Now say you're sorry!

[racerxnet]

Sorry

About the VCR? I'd like to hear the technical side of the equation regarding the DS8000U MKII and the PV-S98A decks I now own. The latter being a PC-VCR application with the software for video editing. As stated in a post of mine, I have the source code in C and will implement some open source filters into the application. I am quite capable of programming, using several different applications.

What are the limitations of my decks in comparison to the JVC Smurf recommends? How well do the decks play in comparison? What are the playback capabilities of the JVC decks compared to the editing decks I list? What software limitations am I up against with the PC based unit? Has Smurf checked the input/output signals with a Tektronix Oscilliscope before, a master tape for path alignment and signal output? Used a Tentel spindle guage?

Those are the tools and knowledge that help in determining what is wrong with a unit and the ability to insure the optimum playback capabilities with a pro/ consumer VCR deck.

I doubt most here even heard of a PV-S98A professional deck. If you have any service manuals or owners manual regarding this deck, feel free to touch base with me and I will pay you for copies.

[trevlac]

@racerxnet

You know i did read your post on the NEC. I stopped at a few searches when I saw they were about $1k used. A bit out of my league! It wasn't clear if you got the deck for $20 or just the code.

If you have Quantel/Tektronix/etc equipment, I'm extremely jealous. I can only read the great "white papers" at the sites of those type of companies.

I don't even know what a "Tentel spindle guage" is. Looks like it cost about $200 on ebay. I have a $100 JVC3911U to play my kids "truck" videos graciously provided by the local library.

My current interest is color correction. I'm reading a book by Steve Hullfish on the subject. I doubt my wife will back the purchase of either a waveform monitor or a vectorscope. I have Vegas and maybe I can get a copy of avid.

And the technicals from Smurf? I think he's a writer, not an engineer. He may point out the spelling of gauge before he tells you how to service a vcr. I'm a banker.

I hope to learn from you and provide useful info if I can.


@All,

Sorry to 'dirty up' the thread. But sometimes you learn more from the 'sidebars' than the original topic. Hope the original poster got his audio questions answered.

[racerxnet]

Hi Trevlac,

I got the VCR for $20.00 and the software and code was supplied by the original programmer for free. My original intent was to used the 7 head upper drum for the DS8000U, but when I did the research on the net I found the PV-S98A to list at $1800.00 US dollars. I now own 2 units that can edit frame by frame and do sound overlay on a VCR tape without destroying the original encoding. Playback in the SVHS mode with a quality tape is excellent. Comparison to DVD DVD=10 SVHS= 9.5 with svideo cable usage.

I'm not trying to slam anyone at this site, but to point out the reason for the failure regarding software based raid applications from a technical point of view. I have a tremendous amount to learn with encoding analoge and digital images to the PC.

Have A Safe Holiday To ALL!!

[duhmez]

I had 2 80 gig drives in raid 0. Full of huffyuv captures, annd some edited work (mopeg 2 files, ac3 tracks etc.

One hard drive died.



Much of the captrued material was from VHS and the vhs has since been deleted.

that's a huge mozza ball to swallow.
BTW, these were both new drives too, one 6 month old one rand new.

Raid 0 is a bad idea in every case.
Mirrored raid with 4 drives could be OK, but forget raid 0 for anything useful. Raid 0 useful for a temp path and swapfile only, which is overkill and should not be done either. Point is without redundancy its completely useless and a huge risk.

[trevlac]

I had 2 80 gig drives in raid 0. Full of huffyuv captures, annd some edited work (mopeg 2 files, ac3 tracks etc.

One hard drive died.



Much of the captrued material was from VHS and the vhs has since been deleted.

that's a huge mozza ball to swallow.
BTW, these were both new drives too, one 6 month old one rand new.

Raid 0 is a bad idea in every case.
Mirrored raid with 4 drives could be OK, but forget raid 0 for anything useful. Raid 0 useful for a temp path and swapfile only, which is overkill and should not be done either. Point is without redundancy its completely useless and a huge risk.

Good point. I think about that often. I guess I'm livin on the edge. Most others I know that do use raid, do go for redundancy.

But if you think about it, if you had 1 160gig drive and 1 HD failed, you may still loose everything. The way I see it, disk mirroring is an extra bonus.

@racerxnet

If you see a "Tektronix 1720 & 1730 Dual Combo" for $20 buy it! I'll give you $40. The best I can find is $1300.

[lordsmurf]

I'd like to hear the technical side of the equation regarding the DS8000U MKII and the PV-S98A decks I now own. The latter being a PC-VCR application with the software for video editing. As stated in a post of mine, I have the source code in C and will implement some open source filters into the application. I am quite capable of programming, using several different applications.

What are the limitations of my decks in comparison to the JVC Smurf recommends? How well do the decks play in comparison? What are the playback capabilities of the JVC decks compared to the editing decks I list? What software limitations am I up against with the PC based unit? Has Smurf checked the input/output signals with a Tektronix Oscilliscope before, a master tape for path alignment and signal output? Used a Tentel spindle guage?

Those decks are too expensive for my needs. Up there in what I call the "Panasonic league" of high end toys for those that are rich or in business.

I know most of the $1000+ decks are better, but I wouldn't call the quality 3x-5x the value better. Spending $400-500 for a good JVC is bad enough, but $1000-2000 is hard to swallow, especially if S-VHS and consumer VHS is the primary application.

These JVC decks do decent at analog editing and do have RS-232 control options available, with software from JVC.

I have had my machine tested at a facility with oscilliscope readings, though unsure which one was used. Quality was outstanding, even surprised the guy that did the tests. Ran master tape tests, actually SEVERAL tapes where run in the test, various kinds.

I have no clue what a "tentel spindle gauge" is. Had I seen it outside these forums, I'd have guessed it was either made up or some kind of instrument used on an octopus. .... ACTUALLY I just looked it up on google.com, and yes that was done to it too when it went misaligned once. Same place, same person as the oscilliscope.

Hope that helps.

[racerxnet]

Hey Smurf,

I got a chuckle out of the octopuss line.

I paid very little for both of these decks, $20.00 for the PC based and $75.00 for the other. Both were used of course, but in excellent condition.

Have A HAPPY HOLIDAY Kevin and be safe.

MAK

[trevlac]

Have A HAPPY HOLIDAY xxxxx and be safe.

No fair No fair Too easy. He puts his life story on the web. He's not trying to hide. Thank goodness you didn't post his phone number !

Cheers MA(r)K or should I say 'Fravia'

[ranvil010]

I was wondering graphic cards who can capture better than capture cards like radeon or canopus?

[racerxnet]

Hey Trevlac,

Yep my name is Mark and you can call me at XXX-XXX-XXXX with any question you have.

MAK for the first, middle, and last initials.

Have a good one!!

[trevlac]

Hey racerxnet,

Good guess on my part for the wrong reason. Now I have to come up with the A and K. Anyway, looks like you know some good hw/sw stuff. I hope to hear some good stuff from ya here at old (vcdhelp).

BTW: My name is Trevor. And when I called you the line was busy! I'll use PM in the future. :P

Trev

[8trackkid]

Hi everybody,
Hey if you want extra hard drive space, Circuit City has 120GB Western Digital generic packaged drives for $19.99 after rebates! At around $0.17/GB, its the best darn deal around.
Secondly for LordSmurf, Maxell tapes going bad?!? Damnit, I hope this isn't true, as I have hundreds of 80's Maxell VHS tapes archived waiting to be captured. Thought they were the best brand for this purpose at the time. Thanks...

[gmatov]

I have to agree with the non RAIDers. You just spent prettyy big bucks to buy a 250 gig drive,a nd you are a RAIDer, you imediately have to buy a second matching drive to stripe or cut your overall to your smaller drive, or you have to mirror, and so you bought 2 250s to hve a total of 250.

As this site is dedicated to backing up videos, and we only backup owned videos, we always hve our source files on DVD. So why do we require RAID?

We're not worried about losing irreplaceable data. We already own a disk of it. And noone has said they backup, on their off hours, Bank of America's transactionss for the day

So what is this redundancy good for, for our hobby? Bragging rights? The speed isue doesn't come into pla, as even the slowest drive today is more than fast enough to cap, or write pass through DV.

You want to brag what Sandra says, go ahead, but it means nothing in real life.

Cheers,

George

[racerxnet]

Gmatov,

You are incorrect on the matched size for a raid array. In a raid 0 array, the lowest drive size will be doubled. In other words if you have a 120 gig and a 80 gig on the raid card, the size would be 160 gigs. Yes it is a waste of space, but the raid still functions as it should. This is what JBOD is for on a 3ware card. If need be you can purchase another identical drive as time permits. I would not advocate buying a differnt brand, drive speed, or cashe size for the drive though.

Used 3ware cards in the 6000, 7000, or 8000 series can be purchased on Ebay at reasonable prices. They are all hardware based. No bragging rights are needed when faced with the facts and data regarding raid. At 20.00 for a 120 gig hard drive from Circuit City after rebates, I have not spent enough money on the drives to worry about redundancy. They are CHEAP these days.

As a software or hardware engineer, I am always worried about the bottleneck in the system. Does not matter where it occurs, but eventually it will cause a problem somewhere down the line in regards to performance.

[lordsmurf]

Secondly for LordSmurf, Maxell tapes going bad?!? Damnit, I hope this isn't true, as I have hundreds of 80's Maxell VHS tapes archived waiting to be captured. Thought they were the best brand for this purpose at the time. Thanks...

The older SILVER and GOLD tapes were great, some of the best consumer tapes you could buy.

But when they changed to the current packaging in late 1999, they also changed the formula and case type, both are cheaper crap.

The S-VHS line-up is all crap, regardless of age, at least from anything I've used produced since 1998.

[Will Hay]

As this site is dedicated to backing up videos, and we only backup owned videos, we always hve our source files on DVD. So why do we require RAID?

I think you know that's not true George, its rather that this site has become over-run with youngsters copying the latest blockbuster title and proclaiming they own the original.
But who cares?
Good luck to them.
You know very well that the people for whom this site is based, the ones on a budget who are archiving those old VHS and camocrder movies, would love the speed of RAID 0 and the lesser risk of frame loss, but I think maybe you got a bit of cold in those old joints of yours today, and are felling a little shit.
Cheer up George, like you've experienced for the last 25+ years I'm about to share the same joy and have my first real Christmas (he was too young last year) with my son.
He's 22 months now and man, I can't wait!
Get rubbing that 'deep heat' into those muscles George, you'll feel better
Will

[SatStorm]

Count me on those who don't like Raid

Also, some "screw you" for me:
Screw ATI (for the PAL users)
Screw Via (for chipsets)
Screw M$ (need explanation?)
Screw DVD+R (Because I don't like it)
Screw you Neighbours (who don't let me hear techno after midnight loud!)
Screw mom (who didn't married a rich guy so to be a spoiled today, like the one next door)
Screw Euro (this adaption killed my bank account)
Screw MTV ('cause doesn't air european music)
etc


Also, I'm reading here for new HDs about 120GB or 160GB...
Those HDs are ancient history, go buy 200 - 250 GB discs from WD.

Let's say that you have to capture a 8 Hour LP VHS tape, using PicVideo (19). Then you have to proccess it (filters) and save it to a new avi. Then encode it.
You need about 300GB for this...

And If you are like me, and have a huge VHS collection (video clips and cartoons from the last 22 years!), you need a life time to convert them to digital... Hell, I start thinking buying a standalone for this, it never ends!!!

[Will Hay]

Screw ATI (for the PAL users)
Screw Via (for chipsets)
Screw M$ (need explanation?)
Screw DVD+R (Because I don't like it)
Screw you Neighbours (who don't let me hear techno after midnight loud!)
Screw mom (who didn't married a rich guy so to be a spoiled today, like the one next door)
Screw Euro (this adaption killed my bank account)
Screw MTV ('cause doesn't air european music)

I'm with you all the way man (apart from the first one - utter bollocks)
Will

[PolarBearWY]

I'm not UP on capturing....so 120gigs sounds MORE than reasonable to me... But you should know that all those gigs don't mean SQUAT if the HD is not formatted in NTFS. FAT32 format only allows you 4gig files TOPS.

Something to think about, thought it may be too late. If you are like me, you have already bought your HDD.

If you have the SATA controller on your PC, consider going through route instead of the IDE, if for no other reason than the nice flexible cables. But, something else to consider is the speed. Sure, today's SATA speeds aren't that much better than IDE, but some of the larger SATA drives, like the WD 250GB are capable of so much more in the way of speed. You may only be able to get 150MB/s (max) out of the drive today, but next year with a new motherboard you may be able to get 600MB/s. The newest SATA drives are capable of more than today's motherboards can give them. That isn't true with IDE drives. If you spend your money on a 133MB/s drive, then it will ALWAYS be a 133MB/s drive. At least, that's how I understand things.

Just something to think about.

[PolarBearWY]

Screw M$ (need explanation?)

I always love people who are anti-M$, though they haven't a clue.

We'd still be living in the dark ages if it weren't for M$. Heck, I'd probably be typing on an Amiga 8500 using Lotus Works if it weren't for M$. M$ put the rockets up the computer industry's ..... without M$, there would be no computer industry.

[trevlac]

@PolarBearWY

I like it!! Anyone who doesn't jump at the chance to bash evil Bill must be a real trail blazer.

Let's all argue about SATA vs PATA.

George may have some good thoughts on that !!



How do you like your 300 disc changer?

[SatStorm]

@PolarBearWY: And I love people that thinks that I 'm stupid....
And followers. I love followers!

BTW, because of Apple we are not on the dark ages! Don't mention the 8 bit PCs and the 2 amazing 16 bit ones (Amiga / Atari)

And that's exactly I don't like M$. Because set up an industry, the one we know today. 15 years ago, there where more platforms to choose from and hell, lot's more fun!

Time to play again with my Amiga 500 and my ZX Spectrum 128k!

[trevlac]

And I love people that thinks that I 'm stupid....

Who thinks you're stupid? Tell me and I'll smack 'em!

I'm always surprized you have stuck around here so long. At some point, isn't it just leftovers for you?


I hate McDonald's! (gives me gas)
I hate Michael Jackson ! (can't say why)
I hate work (not really since they got I-net access)

Oh yeah ... I hate slovaks (how did that one slip out?)

[duhmez]

I have to agree with the non RAIDers. You just spent prettyy big bucks to buy a 250 gig drive,a nd you are a RAIDer, you imediately have to buy a second matching drive to stripe or cut your overall to your smaller drive, or you have to mirror, and so you bought 2 250s to hve a total of 250.

As this site is dedicated to backing up videos, and we only backup owned videos, we always hve our source files on DVD. So why do we require RAID?

We're not worried about losing irreplaceable data. We already own a disk of it. And noone has said they backup, on their off hours, Bank of America's transactionss for the day

So what is this redundancy good for, for our hobby? Bragging rights? The speed isue doesn't come into pla, as even the slowest drive today is more than fast enough to cap, or write pass through DV.

You want to brag what Sandra says, go ahead, but it means nothing in real life.

Cheers,

George

Umm... how about captured video from TV ?
How about hours of painstaking work, avisynth scripts, audio and video files in various levels of processing, project files. hs list goes on and on. It's not all about DVD ripping..........

[duhmez]

The newest SATA drives are capable of more than today's motherboards can give them.

This is so untrue it makes me laugh.
No hard drive today can push 133 MB/sec. Nor 100 even. The limitation is NOT the sata bus of 150, it is still the physical drives.

The 150 MB cap COULD be used if a bunch of drives are set for raid 0 however. (Like 6 or more)