How to capture more than 300MB/s

TheBigCheese

TheBigCheese

TheBigCheese

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6 Sep 2005
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Hi everyone

I'm in an interesting little pickle...

I need to be able to capture footage and store it on disk for later editing, the footage can be written at anything up to 330MB/s.
There are options to lower the amount recorded per second, but I want the option of full quality should I need it.

The obvious answer is an SSD but these files can be 200GB+ for a few minutes of recording so I would literally wear out an SSD in a few short months, so I'm looking at good old HDDs.

I did think of the WD Velociraptor drives but they don't seem to be made any more, so now I'm thinking of the WD Black 'performance' drives.

From what I can gather, they can write at up to 171MB/s so I'm thinking maybe two of them in a RAID 0 would do the job.


What do you guys think?

I was also thinking, would I be best to buy a dedicated PCI-E card to plug them into that could handle the RAID and take any extra strain away from the CPU? I haven't had one before so I don't know if that's how it works...or how they are set up either, come to think of it.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!


Thanks.
 
nightwish said:
SSD endurance worries are overblown, especially these days. Get an SSD and see how it goes.

See http://techreport.com/review/27909/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-theyre-all-dead
Click to expand...

Not so much when you are talking hardcore video capture/editing though... when using a beta version of ShadowPlay before they changed how the temporary file worked I did more than 8TB of writes in a couple of weeks or something on mine - compared to only an additional 3TB in the 2.5 years or so of normal desktop use since.

Ultimately though probably the cheapest and simplest solution is to go SSD and be prepared for the fact that you might have to change them out every couple of years or so. (Usually they will start warning you a long time before there is any actual problem with life left).
 
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Thanks guys, those are some really interesting perspectives, and a really good link nightwish!

Ah it's a difficult one, are you say Rroff, space is eaten away in seconds...I'm looking at a video here that's 262GB for 83 minutes of footage, but even with a 1TB SDD which would set me back around £250, I'm only looking at maybe five hours of recording before it's full.

I think I need to test some more settings and see if I can reduce the output file significantly, then an SSD would be by far the simplest option, no pausing waiting for it to spin up either then.

I'd still be interested to hear from anyone who has opinions on the WD Blacks and a potential RAID 0 setup.


Thanks.
 
Where is the data source? If that's over a network then you're looking at serious kit there too.

I'd suggest a disk shelf with a stack of NAS disks in it in RAID - possibly 10 to get the speed. eg. 10 WD red 3.5" can write at well over 300MB/sec and gives plenty of capacity.
 
The stated throughput of spinning disks is the absolute best value you will ever get. As you get closer to the centre of the disk, throughput goes down (by quite a bit, up to 50%), and as fragmentation increases, throughput goes DRAMATICALLY down. What would happen if your HDD-based solution choked? If losing footage is bad, then don't use hard drives. With hard drives you may also find yourself constantly pursuing an elusive target (e.g. buying more and more expensive RAID cards). With an SSD you are more or less guaranteed success.

Also, if you are so worried about keeping the original footage, does that mean it is somehow precious? If so, RAID 0 is definitely out. Even a single SSD is fairly risky.
 
A good SSD will last a long time even if you're maxing it out over and over.

Even consumer-grade SSDs last pretty well ( http://techreport.com/review/27909/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-theyre-all-dead ) though for your uses I'd invest more in a longer lasting drive assuming you're wanting to do this a lot.

Edit: Removed a link, seems it was pretty dated :p still I'd not totally discount SSDs as an option.
 
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