Is faster storage worth it in this case?

We're running out of space on our main editing drive and I've been looking into either swapping the disks or getting a new drive.

Right now, we're using a 3 bay thunderbolt 1 Caldigit in raid 0 and according to BlackMagic speedtest, we get around 250mb/s read/write with our MacPro (4core/d300).

We shoot and edit multicam 4K documentary and we need to transcode to proxy because the drive cannot deliver a smooth experience even though we choose "better perfomance". It's okay for us to use proxy, though, so no big deal.

For some time, though, I've been interested in the 8 bay thunderbolt 2 Areca drive, as it delivers 1200+ mb/s read/write in raid 5, so faster and more secure in terms of raid.

But, of course, thise drive has it's price - in danish currency, it would cost me 6.000 dkr. to swap the 3 HDDs in our existing drive but around 24.000 dkr. (so 4 times the price) to get an 8 HDD Areca.

So my question is: how much more speed / time saving will we actually get if we invest in the Areca-drive?

I know it's 1200 vs. 250 mb/s "on paper", but how does that show up in EVERY DAY, practical use?

Will our exports be only 1/4 time because of the extra speed or is the MacPro just another bottleneck, then?

Will our editing be just as fast in "better performance" as we have in "only" proxy now?

Will import of footage be considerably faster ? If so, how much faster?

Living Smart TV wrote: ....we're using a 3 bay thunderbolt 1 Caldigit in raid 0 and according to BlackMagic speedtest, we get around 250mb/s read/write with our MacPro (4core/d300)...
We shoot and edit multicam 4K documentary and we need to transcode to proxy because the drive cannot deliver a smooth experience even though we choose "better performance". It's okay for us to use proxy, though, so no big deal.

My group shoots a lot of 4k documentary material and I have tested this a lot. If your content is H264 4k, the sluggish performance is probably CPU limited during decoding. 250 MB/s is probably enough to edit H264 4k (at least a single stream, maybe two cameras).

Your improved performance with proxy is likely due to the decreased CPU load from the 1/4 res proxy files. If it is any consolation FCPX is vastly faster than Premiere, so on Premiere it would be much worse.

Living Smart TV wrote: ...it would cost me 6.000 dkr. to swap the 3 HDDs in our existing drive but around 24.000 dkr....to get an 8 HDD Areca...how much more speed / time saving will we actually get if we invest in the Areca-drive?...I know it's 1200 vs. 250 mb/s "on paper", but how does that show up in EVERY DAY, practical use?...Will our exports be only 1/4 time because of the extra speed or is the MacPro just another bottleneck, then?....Will our editing be just as fast in "better performance" as we have in "only" proxy now?....Will import of footage be considerably faster ?

It is unlikely you will see major performance improvements in import, H264 4k editing or export attributable to a 1200 mb/s RAID. Likewise it is unlikely to make "better performance" 4k editing as smooth as proxy. It is most likely you are primarily facing a CPU limitation not an I/O limitation.

That said, if you are out of space it makes sense to upgrade your drive, and in the process why not get a faster one. RAID-5 has reliability advantages over RAID-0. But (assuming your source material is H264 4k or similar) don't think 1200 mb/s will somehow fix that because it's unlikely the cause.

I don't know the availability or price in Denmark, but something like a 24TB OWC Thunderbay 4 (in USD) is about 1/2 the price of the Areca and might be adequate for your needs: eshop.macsales.com/shop/Thunderbolt/Exte...ive/OWC/ThunderBay-4

Unless your final deliverable is in 4k, you have another option: import the 4k into a 1080p project using "leave files in place". This makes the import, render and effects very fast, since all temp and render files are 1/4 res (similar to proxy), yet FCPX is smart enough to use the underlying 4k content for zooms/pans. If you ever need to deliver 4k, you can simply copy/paste the timeline into a 4k project.

Thanks - so you're basically saying "run out and upgrade your MacPro to 10 core?" like I've seen quite a lot of youtubes video showing ??

We shoot BlackMagic URSA 4K prores 422 LT

joema wrote: Unless your final deliverable is in 4k, you have another option: import the 4k into a 1080p project using "leave files in place". This makes the import, render and effects very fast, since all temp and render files are 1/4 res (similar to proxy), yet FCPX is smart enough to use the underlying 4k content for zooms/pans. If you ever need to deliver 4k, you can simply copy/paste the timeline into a 4k project.

Brilliant tip !!!!!!!!

We actually shoot 4K because we like to be able to crop without sacrificing image quality but almost always deliver in 1080p.

joema wrote: I don't know the availability or price in Denmark, but something like a 24TB OWC Thunderbay 4 (in USD) is about 1/2 the price of the Areca and might be adequate for your needs: eshop.macsales.com/shop/Thunderbolt/Exte...ive/OWC/ThunderBay-4

Huh?? How can the thunderbay be almost as fast as the Areca (850+ vs. 1200+ mb/s) when only use 4 drives, vs. the 8 in Areca? My rule of thumb would be "double amount of drives = double speed".

Living Smart TV wrote: Thanks - so you're basically saying "run out and upgrade your MacPro to 10 core?" like I've seen quite a lot of youtubes video showing ??

We shoot BlackMagic URSA 4K prores 422 LT

OK this changes my advice a bit, in favor of more I/O. ProRes 422 LT is less CPU intensive than H264 and I/O demands will be greater. The question is how much more I/O bandwidth actually translates into real-world editing improvements.

It makes sense to get a faster disk array but there will be a diminishing law of returns with each successive I/O improvement. Unfortunately I can't state whether 1200 mb/s will deliver any real-world advantages when editing over 850 mb/s or 600 mb/s.

FYI: Mac Pro, 8 core, 32 GB RAM, D700 GPUs, Promis Pegasus P2 4 bay RAID 5 with 4TB drives in each bay.
I can edit 4K H.264 with no problem, and 4K ProRes 422 4K multicams with no problems.

Besides cores, those GPUs are weak. If you upgrade, look at the new iMac 5K.

And yes, RAID 0 is pretty outdated, and RAID 5 would be the way to go. Unless you get more than 4 bay RAID, then you want RAID 6.

Living Smart TV wrote:

joema wrote: I don't know the availability or price in Denmark, but something like a 24TB OWC Thunderbay 4 (in USD) is about 1/2 the price of the Areca and might be adequate for your needs: eshop.macsales.com/shop/Thunderbolt/Exte...ive/OWC/ThunderBay-4

Huh?? How can the thunderbay be almost as fast as the Areca (850+ vs. 1200+ mb/s) when only use 4 drives, vs. the 8 in Areca? My rule of thumb would be "double amount of drives = double speed".

It's not faster, but the issue is price vs real-world application performance. Within the overall application environment there are various intrinsic bottlenecks -- CPU, GPU, internal buffer management, thread synchronization, etc. As I/O bandwidth progressively increases, real-world application performance does not increase in lockstep. E.g, I have a 2013 iMac 27 with 3TB Fusion Drive and a 2015 iMac 27 with 1TB SSD. On some FCPX actions I cannot tell any performance difference attributable to I/O -- despite the 2015 iMac being several times faster in I/O bandwidth.

For most media I use an 8TB Thunderbolt Pegasus R4 in RAID-5, and it works fine. I will probably upgrade that eventually to larger OWC Thunderbay 4 array.

It is fine to upgrade your disk, just don't pay more money for more I/O than actually translates into a real-world advantage. What the threshold is varies with the workload, codec, and many other things so an exact number isn't possible.

In general you need more/newer cores and a faster GPU. I wish we knew the specs or ETA for the next nMP, but we don't. As of today I'd generally recommend a top-spec 2015 iMac 27 for most video editing tasks on FCPX. For Premiere I often recommend just getting Windows, since it's so much slower than FCPX you often need a faster machine. If you can afford an 8-core D700 or above nMP that is OK -- even today -- with the caveat that it may be replaced this year and the top-spec iMac 27 is "nipping at its heals" in performance.

I think Ronny answered this sufficiently in the other thread you posted about upgrading your Mac.