2tb x 8 bay raid 6 with areca card mini-sas causing fcp problem

Hi everyone,

I have a stardom st8-U5 with mini-sas containing 8x wd black 2tb in raid6 connected to areca 1222x in my pcie slot

My macpro is early 2009 8 core with 8 gig ram installed running fcp studio3

i have nothing but problems ever since I upgraded to this stardom drive and I'm very much desperate for a solution. The drive is fast by itself but not when im editing in fcp...

When I first bought the drive, it was filled with 8 x 3tb hitachis and it the drive was very inconsistent. It would edit very fast in one time, and lag a few minutes later to the point where I have to restart my system to bring back the speed. The seller said that it may be the problem with the 3tb drives is not very compatible with the driver yet so we decided to do a drive swap with the mighty caviar blacks.

However, the problem persists.. It would be fine in one time and be very slow and choppy a few minutes later. It is generally fine when I'm editing in "low" quality RT but I don't go out and buy a 3000 dollars system to edit in "low" res...

When I skim through the footage in the timeline, it produces preview images very fast, but not during playback.

I'm editing AIC codec from dslr transcoded footage.

Areca support is nil.. they never replied my emails... stardom claims that the problem is not with their drive but rather with the card/fcp itself.. I somehow agree...

furthermore, I have run digital rebellion software, disc utility with no success..

ANY help will be hugely hugely appreciated.. thank you in advance

Santo

[Paul Jay] "You said it yourself. Problem since stardom product.
Edit a few AIC files from internal sata drive. If this works your stardom is the problem. Call your dealer."

That's not actually true Paul. The test you mention above does not isolate the problem to the enclosure as you suggest; it only points to the RAID subsystem as a whole. The problem could ultimately be with the enclosure, the controller, one or more of the hard drives, the mini-SAS cable, the drivers, etc. Santo will have to systematically test every component separately and in combination to determine where the issue lies.


David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
http://www.drwfilms.com

Don't miss my new tutorial: Prepare for a seamless transition to FCP X and OS X Lion
http://library.creativecow.net/weiss_roth_david/FCP-10-MAC-Lion/1

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums.

Very confused. I'm gearing up to build a 2tb x 8 bay raid 6 like Susanto as well but between different STARDOM managers I'm getting the exact opposite info.

Jon, you say the ATTO R680 is the one to get with the ST8-U5, someone else in STARDOM told me the ATTO R680 seems to have some issues with drives and thus pointed me to R380 or Areca 1222x (though neither of those are 6Gb/s).

Similarly I'm getting conflicting info regarding WD RE4 vs Hitachi Ultrastars.

Can you or Walter please clarify?

Much appreciated.

Thanks,
CG

Susanto,

Where did you get the ST8-U5 and the Card.
Please make sure the 1222X card is loaded with the latest firmware.
We also need the serial number, HDD model number and firmware version.

I just discuss with Areca, you can turn off NCQ.
Go to GUI (https:localhost:81) or go to MRAID folder and launch ARCHTTP
Default user name: admin, password:0000
Then go to System configuration, then disable NCQ.

In the mean time, Areca is working on a firmware fix for this issue.

Susanto,

I'll get this one for you as my associate, Walter, hadn't responded to you yet.

Native Command Queuing (NCQ) is a technology designed to increase performance of SATA hard disks under certain conditions by allowing the individual hard disk to internally optimize the order in which received read and write commands are executed.

Not only is it safe, it's recommended to use.

Jonathan Schilling | Sales & Marketing Manager
RAIDON-USA Technology
STARDOM Storage by RAIDON since 2000
15356 East Valley Blvd., Suite B
City of Industry, CA 91746
Tel: 626-333-7888
jon@raidon-usa.com
http://www.stardom-usa.com

Jon Schilling COW LEADER - Stardom Storage Forum

[Susanto Widjaja] "I have these two on my other pci-e slots:

- NewerTech MAXPower 6G PCIe eSATA RAID Controller card with port multiplier support

- caldigit 2x usb3 pci express card -> connected to drobo and esata dock"

The Areca card almost certainly has conflicts with one or both of the other two cards. That's standard for many RAID controllers. If you take the other controller cards out of the system I'm sure your new RAID will function as expected.


David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
http://www.drwfilms.com

Don't miss my new tutorial: Prepare for a seamless transition to FCP X and OS X Lion
http://library.creativecow.net/weiss_roth_david/FCP-10-MAC-Lion/1

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums.