Connecting eSATA drives while using Mobile Rocket

[Ryan McGregor]

Is it possible to connect eSATA hard drives while using the Mobile Rocket on a MacBook Pro? If not, how are people connecting multiple hard drives while also using a FW800 CF card reader?

Another question totally unrelated... Can you do aspect ratio crops in RocketCine?

[Sam Winzar]

Ryan, this is the same problem I had with the Mobile Rocket. What good is it if I can't attach any high speed storage? Thankfully, MAXX Digital appear to be well aware of the problem and are working on a product called the Mobile Rocket RAID

http://maxxdigital.com/shop/index.php?cPath=153&osCsid=c2e63342696abc50da83f5a9a5ec6ca1

It combines the Mobile Rocket with an 8 Drive RAID enclosure, which also has some spare PCI Express slots so you can add eSATA ports, AJA cards, etc.

I have to admit, what I'd really like is just a Mobile Rocket with eSATA ports and FW800 ports.

[Kaku Ito]

Not as fully customized as the maxxdigital but you could have Magma ExpressBox2 with Red Rocket and SATA/eSATA PCIe card then include a 2.5 inch RAID in the box and have the eSATA drives connected.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Yeah, but if you have to share bandwidth with the Rocket and the SATA controller, you're screwed. The pipeline back to the system is still the equivalent of a laggy PCI-E 1X. IMO, if you're on a Macbook Pro, your best bet is to run the mobile Rocket and connect to an external drive via FW800.

Or you can get into other mods to the system like replacing the optical drive with a SATA port or installing two fast 256GB SSDs in the system (one in place of the optical drive). Or even just a 500GB 7200rpm HDD in the optical bay. MaxUpgrades or someone like that sells a bracket to mount a drive into the form factor of a slimline optical drive for this purpose.

If you're up for removing and reattaching a SATA connector on a cable, you can slip a flat SATA cable through the optical drive slot, cut it to the desired length and fix it with the right connector to tie onto the one that connects to the optical drive. Just be careful, it's not a true eSATA connection, so you won't have proper grounding or full hot-plug ability.

[Kaku Ito]

yep, I'm trying to be careful about that, too. I'm taking the mobile system is not full fledge but better than CPU based environment. Still adds a lot. Also this exact set could be used with Mac Pro and it adds SATA and eSATA.

I'm also thinking Dream Color laptop is probably works better than current Mac Book Pro configuration because it already has eSATA port and it's quad core.

[MichaelP]

For on set use I agree - a Dreamcolor laptop is the way to go. Speed, color calibrated, eSATA and connection for a Rocket card.

Michael

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I have to agree too... For on-set use, especially with mobile rocket, PC laptops are the way to go for the extra connectivity. The HP Dreamcolor laptop is a fine choice as it's pretty full featured all-around and has the benefits of the nice screen.

[Kaku Ito]

I hear the new model is going to have a choice of internal RAID like other brand already has.

Also, my internal RAID in the Magma is pretty much for backing up and I configure it as RAID1 most of the time. So, it's used as the back up from the RED media. As Jeff explains, it's the best to utilize the bandwidth spread. So when you are backing up then bandwidth of PCIe won't matter so much when RR is not on its duty.

[Jason H]

jeff thats SWEEEET! Thanks for the tips.
here's a link to that tray that will hold a extra drive in your macbook in place of the optical drive

http://www.maxupgrades.com/istore/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&Product_ID=186

good find!

http://thecoloringroom.com/pointblankBANNER.gif

[Kaku Ito]

jeff thats SWEEEET! Thanks for the tips.
here's a link to that tray that will hold a extra drive in your macbook in place of the optical drive

http://www.maxupgrades.com/istore/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&Product_ID=186

good find!

http://thecoloringroom.com/pointblankBANNER.gif

I bought the trays for Mac Pro for this company and the quality was great.

[Jordan Livingston]

The limited connectivity of the MacBook Pro is indeed a serious issue. If production isn't requiring dallies on-set, I use my Sonnet eSATA adaptor and connect two eSATA drives, leaving the FW800 port for CF reader or RED drive. If, however, I'm using the Mobile REDRocket to generate transcodes on-set, the only stable configuration I've found is using two FW800 drives daisy-chanied (but no more than two) and connecting my CF reader and/ or RED Drive via FW400. Obviously, the transfer speeds are slower, but the only other option is to constantly switch between eSATA for data transfer and Mobile Rocket for dallies, and I find constantly switching and re-cabling to be more inconvenient itself than the slower transfer speeds with everything hooked up.

A MacPro tower definately is the best way to go, but there's not always room on location, or in the budget. Also, two systems with shared storage is even better. One system archives data while the other transcodes and provides playback. If you can get shared storage that is fast enough, he two-system approach is really slick.

- Jordan