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michaelh73759560
Participating Frequently
March 18, 2019
Question

Live Capture and Edit growing files,what external drive is fast enough to use?

  • March 18, 2019
  • 4 replies
  • 3024 views

Hey,

I'm trying to get a setup working where I'm recording into an AJA IO box from my camera into an external drive that's connected to my computer.  I'm then using those growing files to edit in premiere.  The problem I'm experiencing is I'm dropping a lot of frames in the record.  After troubleshooting, and trying different methods, I believe my external drive just can't keep up with the demand. I'm recording 1080i files into a 6tb G-drive (write 206/read 197). Working on a brand new fully spec'd mac book pro.

This project was kind of thrown in my lap and now I'm trying to take what the company has and fix the solution. (I've looked into softtron movie recorder, which looks awesome, but I don't think the company is ready to spend that kind of money yet. though I pitched it, if this process keeps going).

For now, I'm looking for a better external drive hhd or ssd that can handle the situation.

B&H Photo Video

I'm currently looking at the lacie 2tb bolt 3 thunderbolt 3 external ssd, on b&h it's on sale for $599.  Is this the answer?  or does anyone have any experience with this and can push me in the right direction of the best drive to use?

Any help/guidance is much appreciated!

Mike

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4 replies

Legend
April 11, 2019

somebody here had a thread going about something called NVMe stuff...basically like a flash drive type memory that goes into pci-e slot …

I did some googling on it ( it's new stuff ) and there are real benefits with speed. There are also (unfortunately) issues with heat.

maybe check that out while you're looking around ?

Legend
March 19, 2019
Legend
March 19, 2019

whoops, mighta been too fast on that suggestion.. am trying to find out if you can reformat that without raid 0

duh...to make it full 4 TB

Legend
March 19, 2019

nahhh, looks OK the way it is....

Legend
March 19, 2019
Legend
March 19, 2019

I'm pretty sure I read that the new USB 3 stuff is comparable to thunderbolt re: xfer speed.  I think the idea is so they are sorta combined and both mac and pc can utilize the same xfer speed.

I did some internet stuff and pretty much came up with the same thing you did. Either the SSD you are looking at, if 2 TB is enough for you, or else just a bigger and possibly faster raid 0 thing like you already have, like 8 TB ...will stick in some links. But I couldn't find read write or seek times for the physical drives, just a kinda dumb 'max xfer rate' claim.

I'm wondering what kinda camera you got and what the outputs are on it... can you send signal to more than one external thing ?? like 2 SDI ? I don't know how that would work.. but maybe you could record sorta directly to an external drive ( for safety sake ) and also use the SSD ...and if you run out of space, the other thing would at least save you from having to cut and xfer data ( dump SSD data to another drive ) and so on ??

===========below stuff you probably already looked at ==========

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/858463-REG/G_Technology_0G02272_8TB_G_RAID_External_Hard.html

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1352775-REG/glyph_technologies_srtb8000ent_studioraid_thunderbolt_2_enterprise.html

Number of Bays
2 x 3.5"
Connections
2 x Mini DisplayPort (Thunderbolt 2 (20 Gb/s))
1 x USB Type-B (USB 3.1 Gen 1 (5 Gb/s))
Form Factor
Desktop
Maximum RAID Transfer Rate
360 MB/s
RAID Modes
RAID 0, 1, JBOD

Legend
March 19, 2019

a possibly dumb question: do you routinely defrag that external drive ?? between jobs ??

Legend
March 18, 2019

I always recommend using a self-built desktop with multiple internal drives for editing.  I would maintain that recommendation even for Growing Files.

Is there any reason normal recording and later transfer to an edit system won't work?

michaelh73759560
Participating Frequently
March 18, 2019

Thanks Jim for the response.

This setup is on a laptop. It will travel from location to location, at a 5 building campus and on the road all over the US. I'm looking to build something portable for travel and break down and setup.

The higher ups want to walk over at the end of a live seminar and have selections and a highlight reel ready to approve and send off. They want to turn clips quick like in a news environment.

Legend
March 18, 2019

computer is usb-c.


what camera are you shooting with ( exact info about camera, AND connection to AJA BOX ? )

connection from camera to box can be SDI single link, dual link ? HDMI, USB ? )  Info on bitrate helpful, also resolution ( HD, SD, 4K, etc.)

Is it SDI, HDMI, USB 3 or what ?? What codec is possible from your CAMERA ? Not just what you are currently using, but what others are available to use at the same resolution ?

Basically you are trying is to use your traveling stuff as a down and dirty DIT station AND / OR playback video station with recording to your own COMPUTER, to save as final recording to use in an export later after editing ( full HD, whatever ), AS OPTION, INSTEAD OF FROM SD CARD ON CAMERA OR HARD DRIVE ON CAMERA ... COMBINED with a visual reference to what's on the camera even when NOT recording while camera is POWERED ON, LIKE A VIDEO TAP THROUGH THE LENS, WHILE ON THE SET LIVE, BUT CAMERA IS NOT YET ROLLING .

Normally it's redundant. You record video to the card in camera (or hard drive on camera ) PLUS get live capture on your computer ( saved as clips when camera is turned on and off depending on your goal  ).  YOU choose when to record the live feed or the ROLLING FEED, etc. at your computer station.

Normally time is jammed on camera, slate, and sound mixer, to match timecode for future editing.

The dropped frames may have NOTHING to do with your external hard drive.  But nobody knows yet.