striped drives on xp pro

[Tom]

Hi

We just got a nice corporate video to produce, which I will edit on my computer. Now its been a while since I've done this, the last time was about 3 years ago, and 4GB SCSI drives were priced at around £600 for a Seagate Barracuda.

I used the Barracuda to perform all my digitising (full PAL 768x576 S-video) and used a slightly cheaper SCSI IBM drive to edit the master video together (playback is less crucial than capture).

I still have these 2 drives, and although they aren't the same specs, I was wondering about creating some kind of RAID array to make things simpler. Looking at XP help, it says that XP pro does not allow you to create a RAID array on the local machine. I have therefore just formatted both, and created a striped volume, which has 1 drive letter, and is an NTFS partition.

My question is, will this result in the 2 drives working as 1 slightly faster drive, or are there compromises and issues that I'm unaware of? If memory serves, I need the drives to write at about 5MB per second, which the Barracuda will happily do. Any pauses in writing will of course produce skipped frames on the video capture, which is unacceptable.

We are not using DV, we are shooting on Betacam SP, which in layman's terms is Analogue video.

Computer:

Fast AV Master (video capture)
Athlon 900
512Mb
Seagate Barracuda SCSI 4.5GB ST24501W (the first model, can fry eggs on it)
IBM DDRS-34560D SCSI
Win XP Pro fully patched

I realise this is somewhat specialised, but I'm certain some of you guys know about computer management in XP. Thanks.

 

[Testin da Cable]

it should work. be aware that you'll get higher performance from newer drives (you know this already, but what the hell) that also happen to be matched. purely on a hardware side...yeah it will work. be aware that there are things you can tweak in XP to speed performance ( I guess) that I know nothing about. drive indexing springs to mind. also if you _really_ want to scrape all the performance you can get out of the drives you'll have to put them on separate SCSI controllers. also (geez) I guess you're using XP's 'built-in' software RAID striping? be aware this causes your CPU to compute every drive access, detracting cycles from video stuff.

listen: you want some real advice? it will require you to spend, but not 600 pound heh. get a decent IDE _hardware_ raid controller like the adaptec one (make sure it's a _hardware_ based controller, ie computes the array by itself, not using the CPU). get 4 nice and fast IDE drives (matched - same make, model and preferably from the same batch) and stripe them on the adapter. you'll have massive overkill qua performance, but this will allow you to take the array you've made with you through several new computers far into the future. Seriously Tom, you'll use the SCSI's as doorstops foreverafter.

 

[Tom]

Thanks TDC, we don't get corporate videos very often, so I'm trying to save money and use existing equipment (that coupled with the fact that so far this year I've only done 30 days work, compared with 60 days this time last year)!

I'll have a play and let you know what happens.

 

[Tom]

OK well I just discovered the video card I use will not work with XP. They do drivers for NT and win98, but not XP. To dual boot the machine would be a major hassle, and I can't stripe those drives with 98 anyway, so I guess I'm gonna have to buy a new video capture card. Sucks.

 

[Testin da Cable]

aarg, that sucks indeed mate :/

 

[Scooba Da Bass]

Get rid of XP, you'd have to be literally insane to run any kind of intensive thing on it.

 

[Tom]

Aye you might have a point there, but windows 98 was terribly unreliable, crashes galore during the last video I edited.

 

[Scooba Da Bass]

2K is your friend

 

[kameleon]

XP pro is friendlier

The only problem is hardware compatibility, fortunately more drivers are becoming available every day. or some reason though , lots of capture devices have trouble with XP, but as with any job if you want the best results, you should buy the right tool for the job.

 

[Tom]

Well I'm looking at buying a Matrox Digisuite le, I found one for sale on Ebay that might be fairly cheap - just waiting for the client to sign on the dotted line before I go and spend the money.

The card I'm using cost £900 new 5 years ago. There is one on Ebay for £10.50 now.

 

[Testin da Cable]

Originally posted by Tom[SHOTTEH]

The card I'm using cost £900 new 5 years ago. There is one on Ebay for £10.50 now.

welcome to the wonderful world of computer parts. if you think they'll hold their value please think again.

 

[kameleon]

My abacus cost 200 shekels brand new 1500 years ago. It is now priceless.

Like your graphics card however, you cant get a bios update for it and online manuals are non-existant.

 

[smurkin]

Well, I have my first righteous voodoo 1 card in a cupboard here & I intend to keep it until its a valuable antique...

..its not often you get emotionally attached to a circuit board....its the memories that count, not the money

(even if I keep it till I'm 80..I probaby wont get the £180 quid I paid for it back )

 

[kameleon]

I dunno Smurkin, my ZX 80 is worth a fortune now

 

[Mellow-]

Bare in mind that seeing as it's a striped, if one disk fails, you're fucked. Although saving data to your volume will be faster as two little read/write heads are going like the clappers instead of just the one.

 

[Tom]

Aye there is that, but fortunately I will be able to recover all the edited material, as I batch capture it off tape, using timecode. The gfx and structure of the edit would be backed up as a matter of course. Losing a drive would cost me only a day or two, and there wouldn't really be that much work to do, just sitting at the computer putting tapes in the player, the computer does the rest.

 

[Tom]

OK I've had a bit of a think about this, see what you think:

I fancy buying one of these, and a couple of IDE drives to go with it, to give me around 80Gb of storage. On these two drives (which will effectively be one), I will put both XP and windows 98 as a dual boot system. I will use the drives I have at present as a backup while I transfer the system (actually a nice format and clean install would be cool).

This should allow me to get the kind of transfer rates I need, without spending more on SCSI devices, or worrying about 98 not being capable of striping/raid.

What do you reckon? Would this work? It would cost me around £150 at most, and I would still be able to use my old vid cap card.

 

[smurkin]

Is there something about video capture that takes a faster drive....I use DV thro firewire to capture....now I have a dual 40 Gb RAID anyway....but the impression I got from others is that a modern HD should be able to take the data ?

btw...these two 40 Gb striped drives are nearly twice as fast in benchmarks after a defrag...I am using onboard highpoint controller tho... fastest benchie 37000 kB/S

 

[Testin da Cable]

that looks like a nice card tbh. the chip promise uses on it is this one. seems decent enough

 

[Tom]

Originally posted by smurkin
Is there something about video capture that takes a faster drive....I use DV thro firewire to capture....now I have a dual 40 Gb RAID anyway....but the impression I got from others is that a modern HD should be able to take the data ?

btw...these two 40 Gb striped drives are nearly twice as fast in benchmarks after a defrag...I am using onboard highpoint controller tho... fastest benchie 37000 kB/S

The video I am capturing needs a data transfer rate of around 4.5MB per second. If I went the component route, I'd be looking at more like 7-8MB per second.

My motherboard is an Asus A7V133, UDMA/100 ready. I'm presuming that the card I mentioned, and a couple of 80GB ATA133 drives would work with no problems? Interestingly the manual says that the motherboard comes with an 'optional' raid support, but I don't think I bought that version. Is there a way I can check?

 

[Tom]

ok i opened my computer and found that it does indeed appear to have 2 'ATA100' sockets. The IDE hd I have is an UDMA66 I think (google search on an IBM DPTA 372050). Therefore I deduce by buying:

LN4539 40Gb Western Digital (WD400JB) ATA-100 (7200rpm, 8MB Cache, 8.5ms) Quiet Drive Technology 3Yr £48.00

2 of those and connecting them to the (currently empty) ATA100 sockets on the board, changing a couple of jumpers, and adjusting the bios to make it look for things on those sockets (I've looked and there is a setting to do this), doing all this should give me 80Gb of system and video storage, on a RAID array. The manual tells me what jumper to change. Amazing stuff

I realise this is turning into 'Tom's amazing voyage of computer discovery' but any tips etc would be appreciated. For instance, where can I get a good freeware HD benchmark tool?

And could I do myself a favour by buying 2 ATA133 drives instead of ATA100? Are they backwards compatiable?

 

[Testin da Cable]

yes Tom, the drives are backwards compatible inasmuch as they will run at the fastest speed the controller can take.

if your mobo already has a raid option then there's not really a point in buying a separate card....unless you really want bleeding edge (new) speeds. good luck! glad you're turning this into an opportunity to learn new things

 

[Tom]

Thanks, buying 133 drives will just make my system a little bit more future proof. I might just get a faster CPU, if the budget will stretch.

I'm not looking forward to reinstalling windows and everything :/

This is of course all dependant on whether we get the contract or not (99% deffo)

 

[Testin da Cable]

ooh those pesky 1% things eh? well do I know (and hate) them
a nice spinky fresh 'doze install is good though, I tend to do that lots ahem

 

[Embattle]

When I lasted used RAID I decided to purchase a proper RAID card, instead of onbaord or windows based software, and found it very effective when fooling around with some digital video, in fact it never droped a frame and this was using two slightly older Maxtor 7200 drives. I currently have the very latest Maxtor, series 9, which works just as well.

 

[smurkin]

I'm not looking forward to reinstalling windows and everything :/

Tom, m8y. Stuff that, play safe. I do this (1) plug in both new drives into enabled mobo...leaving old IDE drive connected (2) use controller to stripe new drives no need to format/partition iirc (3) Use Norton Ghost to clone your old drive and all data including OS onto the RAID array (4) smirk quietly at your backed up data and in the knowledge you saved hours intalling new OS/programs/data on your new RAID (5) set the bios to boot from the RAID (6) unplug old drive...your pristine backup.

Beware the following. Stripes are a gr8 way to lose all your data. Also, for me, XP would not recognise RAID with its own controller...which can be a shit if your installing the OS from scatch. If you Ghost the OS...that wont be a problem. If you decide to install XP and have this problem...make sure the controller is on a floppy and use insert the floppy every time XP moans that its own controller wont work.

Good Luck.

*ps..I use sisoft Sandra for HD benchmarking....however its not very accurate*

 

[Tom]

But I need a dual boot system. I have some scsi devices in there as well, but thats just too much hassle.

 

[Embattle]

Generally most RAID cards come with the floppy required to get OS support. While using them I never really had a failure resulting in loss of data, it is a possibility byt perhaps a little over hyped.

 

[smurkin]

Ahhh...I lost all my all my striped data to a crappy IBM Deathstar...hence I am now paranoid about stripe failures.

 

[Tom]

I have a tape backup drive, so I don't tend to worry about things like that.