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Small middle school that does a lot of video editing with FCP and 8th graders. We are going to purchase a new fully loaded 27 inch imac for our editing. We want to add an external drive. We have about 10 OWC triple interface drives that we have been using. Want to move to a raid set up (I think, not an expert on that). What is the best raid drive to purchase for use with FCP? Is raid the way to go for speed?
Intel Imac, Mac OS X (10.6.6), Lab- Intel iMacs
RAID is the way to go for speed, but if we're talking about editing on a middle school level I don't think that kind of speed is needed. What kind of cameras are you shooting with, what codec are they editing in, and how many simultaneous layers of video will they be playing at once?
My knee-jerk reaction without the details requested above is to get G-Drives, and maybe have a G-RAID/G-Speed or two around incase someone is working on a project that needs the extra horsepower. If you have a given amount of funding the extra money could be spent on some other equipment or some plugins.
Now, that said, what kind of content are we talking about editing?
We shoot with Canon HFS20 cameras. We ususally shoot with 4 cameras and edit using multiclip. Our basic workflow is like this ( I am new at the HD thing).
1. shoot with 4 cameras
2. Copy the Canon folder to our backup drive
3. Import to FCP as pro res proxy on another drive
4. Edit using multiclip
5. Create offline, reimport the HD media
6. Export HD quicktime
7. Compress for either HD output or SD output, depending.
8. Create SD DVD with DVDSP
9. Create HD with Toast for now, looking into Adobe Encore as it doesn't look like Apple will support the BluRay authoring for BRD.
That is the basic workflow.
You didn't say multitrack before, which changes the game. Given that you're working with iMacs you may find your options pretty limited. Most RAID arrays connect using a port other than what an iMac offers. The next big question is do the iMacs have the Intel Lightpeak ports? Apple has some proprietary name for them that I can't think of right now. If they're brand new they have Lightpeak, if they're a few months old they don't. If you have a computer that is without your best option might be the G-Speed Q over FW800.
Thunderbolt
A RAID will help you with the HD multiclips. If you're on Mac Pro's, eSATA interface will be nessisary. RAID over FW is less than optimal, as the FW800 speed is barely enough for HD footage, much less multiclip use. With a good RAID from OWC, G-Tech, any of the known brand names, you will be able to bypass the ProRes Proxy, and just ingeast as ProRes 422, and your workflow will be ProRes 422 from start to finish.
You don't have full authoring, but for 8th grade, Share's Blu Ray export/burn has some interesting menu templates with minor customization. But if you want them to have full Blu Ray authoring, Toast 11 Pro will be everything you need without spending to much money, or over bloating the Mac's with excesive softeare installs.
Sorry for the lack of background info. Our intention is this.
1. Purchase a brand new 27 inch, upgraded to the best we can afford. (we just don't have the funding to move to a tower yet)
2. Purchase a drive system to go with it, depending on what we find out here.
With the Proxy workaround FW800 is probably sufficient (Proxy at 1920x1080 60i is about 45Mb/s, 200Mb/s for all 4 streams), but you're right in that bypassing FW800 and ProRes Proxy would be a much better scenario.
So, in summarry, with this machine:
Configuration
We will boost the ram to 16 gb but not from Apple.
And a good raid drive connecting via Thunderbolt we may be able to avoid the proxy step.
Will we be able to avoid the proxy step with the same iMac and a firewire 800 drive?
The trouble is there aren't any Thunderbolt RAID drives out there that I'm aware of, and first generation technology isn't always a good idea.
If you do Firewire you will HAVE to do Proxy, and I'm only estimating that it will work. When you factor in 800Mbps being an ideal maximum and that the drives have to seek from place to place so it isn't always moving data you're really pushing it to get FW800 to do what you need with ProRes Proxy on 1920x1080 60i footage - which is what I am guessing you are working with. Multiclip editing isn't really my thing, so I'm stepping out on a limb when I say FW800 will cut it.
Perhaps a refurbished MacPro with a RAID setup is a viable solution?
Thanks for all your input, I think I have a vision of which way to go. We can get multiclip to work with proxy settings, does and ok job. I think for now I will get the iMac and add a FW800 raid drive until the thunderbird thing matures. Thanks
Sounds good. If you have additional questions I'd recommend checking out the FCP forum at Creative Cow.
Good External raid drive for video?
