RAID 1 and Capturing

[HRMaddie]

A long time ago I purchased a Highpoint Raid card for two IDE drives so as not to lose pictures, video, etc. Well once I installed it and got it up and running I could no longer transfer home videos through IEEE1394 without dropping frames. I did some testing and the only thing that would work is if I disconnected the RAID card and captured without the software portion running in the background. I then purchased another harddrive and connected it directly to my motherboard and tried capturing directly to that hd, no success. I emailed Highpoint tech support and was given the answer, we have never had this problem. My last attempt was trying to configure the PCI IRQs, no success. So I blew it off and now I am here. I am planning on building a new computer and definitely want a RAID 1 system. 3ware is the only company that I know that makes true hardware raid cards, which they are my leading option at the moment.

Has anyone built a computer using a hardware/software raid card and is able to transfer video withough dropping frames? What set-up are you using, CPU, mobo, raid card, hard drives, etc?

[FulciLives]

Many have found that a RAID solution does not work very well for video capture. I don't know why per se but I've seen many complain that it just doesn't work very well.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[edDV]

RAID 1 is in effect double capturing with added processing overhead so it will run a bit slower than a normal single drive. What format are you capturing? There should be sufficient performance for DV, HDV and MPeg2 devices.

If uncompressed capture is desired, look for the hardware RAID cards recommended by AVID, Adobe and Apple. These won't be cheap but they will work well.

In my experience, the Promise RAID cards work fine for huffyuv capture in RAID zero mode. I never tried RAID 1.

[rallynavvie]

The only thing I could think of that's wrong with that setup would be the RAID controller. I'm assuming the two drives you were mirroring on the array were the exact same model? You absolutely have to use the same model drives when building an array like that no matter what others may say. Otherwise we're back to the controller being the issue. Is it software based then? Not all Highpoint cards are like that. There are more hardware RAID cards than just 3ware.

I like the fact that you're mirroring your drives like that but perhaps you should leave your redundant array for final cuts and capture to a "scratch" drive. I've used the same 74GB 15k SCSI drive for captures for the last 4-5 years and have never had an issue I could trace to the drive itself. I think any decent drive could be used for that purpose. Then edit/transcode your final cut to your safe array. For this setup you'd need 4 drives in a setup something like this: one medium-sized drive for your OS and apps, one drive large enough to hold your caps and temporary data, and then two large identical drives for your mirrored array for your final documents.

[KBeee]

If you are building a new computer from scratch, you'll find that Raid capability will probably be included on the motherboard, negating the need for an outside PCI/PCIe Raid controller card. This can help because there is no need for bolt-on software Raid controller drivers to be added to your system, or hooked into your BIOS.

[HRMaddie]

Harddrives - both harddrives are the same (brand and size).

Transferring MiniDV to AVI.

I have a third harddrive connected to the motherboard (IDE) and have attempted capturing just to that drive, but with no success. It has to be the software portion of the RAID that is the problem. I can stop the background application using ctrl-alt-del, and can capture without dropping frames. Which doesn't make any sense since the 3rd drive has nothing to do with the Raid configuration. Highpoint was no help with this issue.

The Raid solutions that are attached to motherboards are software based raids, not true hardware raids. Maybe by building a faster computer (processor, SATA II drives and using 2gigs) I can capture using the Raid utilities that comes on the motherboard. I just wish I could try it out.

[Cornucopia]

Sounds like you need a refresher on RAID, as mobo RAID can be hardware or software, and software ain't that bad...

Read:http://www.adaptec.com/en-US/products/raid_tech/_education/RAID_level_compar_wp.htm and http://www.adaptec.com/en-US/products/raid_tech/_education/hw_raid_vs_sw_raid_wp_link.htm

I've never had the kind of trouble you're having, and I've used RAID0 for video applications since '96. Back up and start from scratch with the right components and check to make sure there are no bandwidth bottlenecks or unneeded overhead.
There is a reason AVID has used Adaptec, they've got great quality cards. But, as you have just read (link), you may not even need a card.

For DV stuff, you don't even need a RAID system at all, and you should still be getting NO DROPPED FRAMES.

Scott

[HRMaddie]

I am using RAID 1 for family pictures, music collection and various other things. After losing two to three months of my daughter's first year, due to harddrive failure and not having them backed-up, I won't let that happen again. So I use a RAID 1 system, backup to DVDs and backup to an external harddrive. Overkill, heck yes, but easier than listening to my wife or the money it is going to cost me to recover those pictures one day.

I am not trying to use RAID 1 for video capturing, just my RAID 1 system is causing my problems. Yeah, if I set-up a RAID 0 I probably wouldn't have any issues.

See attached listing of raids, as you can see the Intel and NVidia chipsets that are being installed on motherboards are the hardware/software raids.
http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Hardware/sata.html
Which they may work, I just don't have a motherboard to test the capturing out on. I don't have an issue with software, hardware or the combination raid. I am just trying to find something that will work.[/url]

[Soopafresh]

You can still have a one hard drive backing up the other without having to do Raid1. Regardless, you've grown out of your current system. Have a look at PoppaMeth's recent thread and see how much $300 got him.