http://blog.backblaze.com/2014/01/21/what-hard-drive-should-i-buy/

1) Setup:

• Fast PC (Threadripper, 64GB RAM, system on M.2 SSD, Windows 10 64bit,...)
• 2x HGST He10 HDDs (10 TB, 7200rpm, 200+ MB/s sustained read/write speed!, SATA 6Gb/s)
• Testfile: 50 GB folder with a CDNG image sequence from BMPCCK4k (each image is about 8 MB)

2) Pre-Test:

I tested both HDDs individually => sustained sequential read/write speeds close to 250 MB/s (empty disk) for the 50 GB folder

3) The goal:

I want to Raid 0 those two 10 TB drives to get higher sustained transfere speeds especially when the disks approche 50% capacity (I need arround 300 MB/s).

Videofiles (stored on another HDD) will be copied to the Raid for the time I work on them in Davinci Resolve, only to deliver the data to Resolve. Rendering results will be stored on a SSD (so there is no risk of loosing data even when the raid is totally destroyed). I need at least 10 TB of fast storage, as the RAW CDNG image sequences in 4k are quite large - and I don't have the money to do the same with SSDs.

4) The Problem:

When I convert the two drives in Windows 10 to one "striped-volume" I get a nice 20 TB software Raid 0, but when I test the transfere speed by simply copying the 50 GB folder I get 200 MB/s MAXIMUM transfere speed (thats even below a single drive!). The throughput starts at 400+ MB/s for the first 2-3 seconds filling up the disk caches and some system memory and then plummets to arround 100-200 MB/s, where it stays for the rest of the time.

5) I tried:

different stripe-sizes, an (old) hardware raid controller (even worse results, 150 MB/s max), checking for new system drivers (the Windows HDD disk drivers seem to be from 2006 and are only 32 bit!), checking HGST website for information and of course searching the internet for many many hours (either its a different problem or there is never a solution posted to the problem).

I can't try/use the onboard raid controller of the motherboard (because of Windows bullshit and I can't do a fresh system installation at the moment).

Why isn't it working?! (Setting up a Raid 0 is nothing extraordinary...so I thought.)

UPDATE: After some fiddling with Windows and a system reboot, read performance is high as it should be - only write performance is still bad.

Useful if you have lot of large drives with backups, media and such.

Price: $125

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ORICO-3bay-3-5-SATA-HDD-Mobile-Rack-Capacity-Up-to-15TB-6205SS-Free-Shipping-/271206886460

Below is a chart that was published in IEEE Transactions on Magnetics, which shows that the decline has been going on since 2010. This means that the price erosion of hard disk capacity, which has been about 30% for the past 50 years will slow down to less than 20% if we depend on bit densities. This reduction in price erosion will have a dramatic impact on the cost of storage unless we find other ways to reduce storage costs.

How to increase densities if performance is not a factor:

• Spin the disks slower and put more bits per track
• Use more of the recording surface
• Add more disks to the disk enclosure (Western Digital)
• Seal the enclosure in inert gases to add even more disks (Western Digital)
• Shingled recording where tracks are overlapped to increase track densities
• Combinations of bit pattern media and heat-assisted magnetic recording

Like:

Replacing regular air by helium gas inside hard disk drives is the next step to increase their capacity - not yet with better areal density - with the possibility to add more disk platters and heads into the same form factor.

The density of helium is seven times less than air, then reducing all mechanical frictions into the unit. Furthermore the oscillation of the rotating disks is reduced. Also there is a gain of energy of 45% in watt per terabyte or a reduced power consumption of 23%, a lower 4°C (7°F) temperature inside the box, and less noise (reduction of 0.9 bel in sleeping mode). Being a better conductor of heat than air, helium produces a more uniform temperature on the platters, protects the coating of the head and disk to lengthen the life of rotational drive, and allows a lower flying height for the heads. Less drag force acting on the spinning disk stack reduces mechanical power into the motor.

Consequently, it will be possible to push the number of platters from five - as it's the case for current 4TB 3.5-inch HDD from HGST - to seven, and to reach 5.6TB in the same volume and then at 7TB with 1TB platters. Maybe it could be more that in the future because tracks can be placed closer together, said HGST.

http://blogs.hds.com/hu/2013/02/hdds-and-nand-flash-will-be-around-for-some-time.html

If you carefully look around, progress in big capacity 3.5" HDD is very slow and small. And this is very bad.

We won't touch here SSDs and flash as it has bunch of other problems, some of them I already covered here.

Here's a product review. http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/pc-components/storage/disk-drives-hdd-ssd/startech-com-usb-3-0-to-sata-ide-hdd-docking-station-1082546/review

USB 3.0 seems fast enough for editing small clips. http://nofilmschool.com/2013/05/macworld-benchmark-battle-usb-3-vs-thunderbolt/

ebay http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-StarTech-com-SuperSpeed-USB-3-0-to-Dual-2-5-3-5in-SATA-Hard-Drive-Docking-St-/161037665603?pt=US_Computer_Cases&hash=item257e97c543

Usually I transcode MTS files into MP4 then edit from Adobe PP and AE. How about saving trascoded files in the external drives and creating PP and AE project files directly on the drives? Does this seem a viable solution?

I'm looking for a new external harddrive. For some months I've been editing on Premiere CS6 using a Macbook Pro non Retina (you probably know the drill: i7 2.6 8Gb Ram and 750 Gb HDD). The footage is in 2.5" USB 3.0 Western Digital HDDs which I know is a suboptimal solution but I normally have all the HD footage (mostly GOP1 and GOP3 from a hacked GH2) on one track and playback is smooth 90% of the time. Since things are not always going to be that simple and Lightroom (which I also use profusely) would certain benefit from a faster harddrive I'm thinking about buying one. Caldigit has some solutions that are expensive but seem sturdy and reliable. I have my eyes on the AV Pro wich they sell on HDD and SDD flavors with USB3.0 and optional Firewire. They claim that with the UASP USB 3.0 protocol the SDD option can reach speeds of 430 Mb/s on new Macbook Pros and 200 Mb/s for the HDD option. There are a couple of reviews around the web that seem to confirm that. Normally manufacturer's speed claims are not reliable at all, so one can't never be sure. But, if we were to trust their speed claims, these are my questions:

Do you think that the SSD option is overkill for my current setup? Should I be better spending the premium on more storage? (The 4TB HDD option costs more or less the same as the 256 SSD one.)

Here's the product page:

http://www.caldigit.com/avpro/

By the way, I live in Berlin so the fact that Caldigit has a European Store is a plus (the dreaded customs and whatnot). That's why I ignored some other nice options out there. Of course if you know of other offers here in Europe, they will be more than welcome!

Thanks!

Available at:

• $99 - http://www.amazon.com/Vantec-3-5-Inch-External-Enclosure-NST-640SU3-BK/dp/B007XJIYI6
• $126 - http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vantec-NST-640SU3-BK-Quad-3-5-SATA-to-USB3-0-and-eSATA-External-HDD-Enclosure-/261011141852

Mediasonic Pro Box enclosures

4 disks, USB 2.0 - Mediasonic HF2-SU2S2

Available at:

• $99 - http://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-HF2-SU2S2-ProBox-Enclosure-Drives/dp/B002UUPWP6/ref=sr_1_5

4 disks, USB 3.0 - Mediasonic HF2-SU3S2

It has simple and RAID versions.

Available at:

• $119 - http://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-HF2-SU3S2-ProBox-Drive-Enclosure/dp/B003X26VV4/
• $216 - http://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-HFR2-SU3S2-ProRaid-External-Enclosure/dp/B003YFHEAC/

8 disks, USB 3.0 -Mediasonic H82-SU3S2 ProBox

Available at:

• $269 - http://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-H82-SU3S2-ProBox-External-Enclosure/dp/B005GYDMYG

Price: $42

Available at: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Orico-PHB35-5-Bay-3-5-Tool-Free-HDD-Hard-Drive-Protector-Case-Box-/110902025736

Good way to have all footage organized :-)

http://www.starusrecovery.com/partition_recovery/software-4.html

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dual-Bay-2-x-2-5-SATA-HDD-Hard-Disk-RAID-0-1-JBOD-Rack-/250870706605

Quite interesting internal rack with RAID option. Also useful if you have external recorder or upcoming BM raw camera.

Is that hdd dying? I didn't know that dying hdd can damage video files internally.

Price: From $5

Available at: http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_sacat=0&_from=R40&_nkw=ORICO%203.5&LH_PrefLoc=2&_sop=15&_clu=2&_fcid=168&_localstpos&_stpos&gbr=1&afsrc=1

does anybody know if it is possible to use this to record directly on an external Harddisk?