IDE or SCSI for Video Editing?

[JoshRtek]

Hello all,

I have a little delimma. I can't decide whether yo go IDE or SCSI for my computer that I will build for college. I do quite a bit of video editing already with my P3-450 and a Pinnacle DV500 capture card. I already have SCSI on this machine with Adaptec's 2940U2W controller and 2 9.1 Gig U2W Quantum SCSI hard drives. They work just fine for editing and I have not run into any problems whatsoever. However, when I build my new system, I fear the building SCSI into it will make the price skyrocket. I need a lot of storage space, and the cheapest I can find a SCSI hard drive with 36 Gigs is the Quantum 10k for about $360 (that's with the 68-pin connector). Anyhow, I could also go the IDE route, which IDE drive should be fast enough now to do video editing with their 7200 RPM spindle speeds, 37 MB/sec transfer rates, and 8.5 ms seek times. If I go the IDE route, I will purchase 2 IBM 75 GXP's at 75 Gigs each, giving me 150 Gigs for a much better value than SCSI. Also, I do a lot of CD burning. The results with my Acer 4x4x32 burner have been horrible on IDE, and I heard SCSI burning is excellent. Any suggestions on which way I should go?

P.S.--I also have to decide whether to go AMD or Intel with this new system. And it has to be built in July, so I'm afraid of the Intel because the new P4s will change sockets a month later. But AMD have been known not to work with video editing very well.

Thanks,
Joshua

 

[Celstar]

for video editting, RAM is more of an issue than anything else. scsi is marginally better than ide anyway... *ducks*

 

[Pariah]

If you're on a budget, for what you are doing you are a good candidate for IDE RAID. Keep your SCSI hardware for boot/apps/OS and get 2 7200RPM IDE drives for video editing. These drives should be dedicated for the sole purpose of capture/editing and should be empty if not being used. There shouldn't be a reason to go with 2 75GB drives. 2 40GB WD or Maxtors should be plenty. With DV being 3.6MB/s, 150GB would store over 11 hours of footage which sounds like severe overkill. If you find you need more storage in future, you can always tack on another drive which will give you a little bit more performance as well as the extra space.

 

[Xe0n]

ide raid would be a good choice (prefiabally non-htp, like promise or ami), because for video editing it wont be jumping around a lot, it needs transfer quickly, usually in a relitivally close place, so seek time isnt nearly as important

 

[JoshRtek]

Actually, in the world of non-linear editing, the term overkill doesn't exist. With a mere 18 gigs, I am hard pressed, as I have to turn down offers for jobs and friends because I have limited hard drive space. I usually have about four five fifteen minute projects going on at one time, each with about 30-60 minutes of stock footage. So the 75 Gigs would definately allow me more flexiability and opportunities. Secondly, how exactly do I set up an IDE RAID? Is there hardware I need to purchase? Who makes it? Any lastly, does anyone have any recommendations on what processor I should get when I build the system (late July)? Thank you all.

-Joshua

 

[Sir Fredrick]

If you're recording multiple streams simultaneously, onto the same hard drive, seek times will definitely come into play. How much "scratch space" do you need at most? I'd suggest a good SCSI drive with enough space to serve as your scratch pad, and nothing more. Get a big IDE drive for long term storage, and perhaps even for your OS & apps.

If I misunderstood and you're not multitasking...IDE should be ok.

 

[Radboy]

Re: "Actually, in the world of non-linear editing, the term overkill doesn't exist."

Got that right.

I noticed a dramatic perf increase after upgrading my boot drive from 7200rpm IDE (IBM Deskstar) to 10Krpm SCSI (IBM Ultrastar). One of the most satisfying upgrades.

Started software editing w/ the DV300 (Pinnacle/Miro) .. now have the RT2000 (Matrox) .. hardware, realtime spoils you fast.

Have one SCSI drive running the OS & app (Premiere) .. another dedicated for capture drive (.AVIs) & a 3rd for audio (.WAVs) & gfx. [The RT2K automatically separates the audio & picture components]

Have 2 45-gig IBM 75GXPs for basic storage needs. Amazing how fast they fill up.

 

[JoshRtek]

So should a fast IDE drive or possibly an IDE RAID be fast enough to my digital video editing? If push comes to shove, I might buy a Quantum Atlas 10k II 9 Gig for OS and Premiere (v6.0). I like to keep the SCSI for burning and whatnot, but if I can go IDE for the capture, without the loss of performance from the SCSIs I already have, I will definately make the switch. Also, I already have an IDE/SCSI hybrid system right now, is there any performance drop by combining the two interfaes on one machine? Thanks again.

-Joshua

 

[JoshRtek]

Oh, am I don't think I'll ever do any multitasking. Whenever I capture video and audio while in Premiere I have ever other program closed for optimal performance. Oh, and I heard with SCSI burners you can be on the internet and play a game, all while burning a CD, any truth to this?

-Joshua

 

[esung]

I'm running on a hybrid IDE/SCSI system as well.. IDE for large cheap storage, and SCSI for all the important work. but the 7200RPM IDE might be enough for capturing.. depends on the datasize (screen resolution, colordepth, framerate).

IDE uses CPU cyles, and can only be access 1 per channel at the time, SCSI had a host controller doing all the work.. so SCSI will free up more of your CPU cycles for other tasks.. I haven't tried to play games while burning CDs(but I did try everything else), and since my unit doesn't have burn proof, it might not work. but with burn proof burners, you might just be able to play games.. but I have a 12x burner, and burning a CD only takes about 8 minutes.

there's no performance drop running a hybrid system.. as long as you organize your data/programs correctly.

 

[invasivedoc]

Regarding Raid 0, what is the performance difference between 5400 and 7200RPM or is this not germaine since the 5400 drives can't handle the steady I/O (those two second coffee breaks)??

e

 

[badguy]

If you want to do something seriously, SCSI is the only choice.

 

[Radboy]

Re: So should a fast IDE drive or possibly an IDE RAID be fast enough to my digital video editing?

There are two diff functions when it comes to editing video. The first, and key, is capture. DV is fixed at 3.6MB/s. If you're talking about capturing, any drive manufactured within the last year of two (even 5400rpm drives) can sustain the 3.6MB/s that DV needs. As the drive fills, the x-fer rate slows, and some claim to have probs if they try to fill their drives mor than ~85% full.

But when it comes to actual *editing*, the OS & app will shuttle files as fast as your drive can support.

So in the first case, anything over ~5MB/s is wasted, but in the second (editing) you can never have too much HDD horsepower. This is particularly true as the timeline grows. Usually we try to keep our projects less than 6 mins. If we're gonna make a 24-min project, we'll break it into 4 separate parts.

Since the majority of time spent in actual editing (not capturing), NLE will use all the HDD horsepower you can muster. But, if you can't get the footage onto the drive, you can't edit it.

I have friends who had probs capturing/outputting *long* projects (12 mins or longer). After switching to a SCSI capture drive, they had no such probs .. altho, in theory, it shouldn't matter.

Videoguys.com has a bunch of tips at their site.

 

[invasivedoc]

How much is a SCSI drive gonna hurt me to buy?

 

[Sir Fredrick]

Radboy knows a good deal on an Atlas 10K II, I believe.

 

[Radboy]

Can get a Quantum Atlas 10K II for $205 HERE. Can get free shipping with THIS deal. There's also a rebate HERE, altho I don'tr know if you can combine that rebate with that drive from that reseller.

 

[Pariah]

Though I agree that an Atlas10K II will outperform an IDE drive for editing, I disagree that it will outperform a well equipped IDE RAID 0 array. STR is the most important stat for video editing as you are often dealing with single files taking up multiple GB's of space. The past summer I got the chance to mess around with a Media 100 editing bay. The systems runs over $50,000, so cost isn't exactly a deciding factor when picking components. For storage the system used a 6 drive 7200RPM SCSI drive array.

If you're looking to get 150GB of space (which I don't think is necessary), a 9GB SCSI drive will be pretty useless. With that drive you will be stuck copying everything you want to edit to and from the drive which will waste a significant amount of time. Plus, you're going to need the massive IDE disk space anyway to store your footage, so you might as well put all the money towards making that option the best it can be.

My recommendation would be to cruise over to hypermicro and pick up a 3ware escalade 6400B IDE RAID controller for $240. Then buy as many 20GB Quantum Fireball AS drives as you can afford (up to 4). They run $110 a piece at Buy.com, plus Quantum has a $20 rebate (up to 5 drives) dropping the cost to $90 per drive. A 3 or 4 drive array would significantly outperform a 10K II in video editing and simply your setup as well.

 

[JoshRtek]

Thanks Pariah. I think I might seriously consider going IDE RAID. You're suggesting that I use my two 9 gig SCSI for the OS? Also, can I disable the on-motherboard IDE controllers? I will desperately need their IRQs if I plan to have my computer running stable. My DV500 capture card requires two IRQs (unshared), and my SCSI card requires one. I suppose I could disable the IRQ for the PS/2 mouse port and get a USB mouse (they're faster anyways) and I won't need a modem at college, so I can save myself an IRQ there too. How fast are IDE RAIDs exactly? They're also good for the switching and shuffling of files in the actual editing process, not just capturing? Keeping that SCSI controller would be great for the OS (Windows 98 SE) and games...which I play quite frequently. Also good for burning CDs. Thanks again.

-Joshua

 

[JoshRtek]

One other thing. When you capture to an IDE RAID, which drive does the file go to? All four, does it divide the data up into segments? Or does it go to one of the four specified drives?

-Joshua

 

[Pariah]

Yes, I would recommend keeping your SCSI drives for OS and apps. You never want to capture or edit on the same drive that contains your apps and OS. If you have no other IDE devices, you can disable the controllers in the BIOS and gain back the IRQ's. The speed of an IDE RAID array is highly dependent on the controller you choose. Yes you can cut corners and pick up a cheap Promise controller or get a motherboard w/ a built in controller. But, I would highly recommend picking up the 3ware escalade 6400B as the STR benchmarks StorageReview produced were phenomenal. Using 5400 RPM Maxtor Diamondmas 80's they got 35-60MB/s, 52-86MB/s, and 70-104Mb/s with a 2 drive, 3 drive, and 4 drive array respectively. The Quantum Fireball AS is a decent amount faster than the DM 80's, so performance should only be expected to improve even further. These numbers are most important for the editing and manipulation process. The STR #'s are useless as far as capturing goes, as even the slowest rate on the 2 drive array (35MB/s) is 10 times faster than you need for DV capturing (3.6MB/s).

With RAID 0, all drives receive equal amounts of data, so if you capture a 2GB file to a 4 drive array, each drive will have 500MB. The array will appear as one drive no matter how many drives are involved.

One other thing to add, if you need more space, after rebates, the 30GB Fireball AS is only $10 more than the 20GB version.

 

[JoshRtek]

One more question. Do the drives I buy for the RAID have to be the same size? If yes, am I limited to 20 gigs per drive, or, if I can afford it, can I go for 4 30 gig drives? Thank you, I appreciate the help.

-Joshua

 

[jonmcg]

Joshtek!

So much to tell. #1, provided you set the RAID up in a RAID 0 configuration, that is stripping without parity, your data written will be spread across the multiple disks roughly equally. To give you a very basic definition of RAID and why it is faster just imagine you are reading a 10Gb file onto one hard disk. Say it takes 1 second to read it from the drive. Now imagine you had a RAID array setup and you are using 4 hard drives that are the same spead as the one you previously had. Well, since there is 2.5Gb's on each drive and since all drives read the data simulatenously, you now can read the whole 10Gigs in 1/4" of a second theoretically. Granted, there is some overhead so the gains are not quite as significant but you get the idea.

Sounds to me like someone on your budget and equipment should definitely go with an Intel setup and use a motherboard based on the i815E chipset! Stock if FULL of 512Mb of RAM (you won't be able to add more). You can buy all of that RAM for as little as 192.00 bucks from Crucial.com (2-256Mb CAS-2 PC133 DIMMS @ 96.00/each). Ram is probably the most significant factor in your editing experience. Also, the i815E chipset is remarkebly stable, flexible, very compatable, AND has a special hub architecture that is said to help IEEE transfers significantly.

I'm a big supporter of AMD but for video editing this i815E/P3 Combo is hard to beat for the high quality/low cost editor.

As for the drive to chose, I agree that IDE RAID might be your best option. Your using a DV500 and capturing is not going to be an issue at normal DV rates. Video editing might be an issue, but remember, the newest IDE drives, RAIDe'd up properly offer 90% of the performance at about 15% of the cost. You make the decision, but seeing as the type of editing your doing, I can't see SCSI making sense.

Jon

 

[Radboy]

SCSI boot, IDE RAID dedicated capture, DV500 .. you'll be styling.

Go for the bigger IDE drives.

 

[JoshRtek]

Great, thanks for the info Pariah. I plan on having all my optical drive on the SCSI bus (SCSI burner and DVD-ROM drive, and maybe a SCSI Zip). Oh, can you get an adapter to use an external SCSI Zip with a parallel port?

-Joshua

 

[MuffD]

See, I would think scsi if you have the loot for it. I am thinking of bailing all my ide devices for both computers that I use at home in favor of scsi so I have no ide devices. IDE hard drives are really fast now but scsi drives i think are still made better which is why some manufacturers give you longer warranties on the hard drives.