2x Sonnet Echo Express Pro, 2x RED Rocket Cards

[Anderson Boyd]

So, like Christmas morning, two RED Rockets arrived this morning. Totally psyched. I've had 2 Sonnet Echo Pros waiting in the wings for them.

Using one, I get supreme real time playback at 1/2 res in Cine X and Premiere Pro. Don't know how I lived without a Rocket for this long.
Using two, I get a terrible bottleneck which locks and freezes both REDCine X and Premiere Pro (when used independently of each other and no other programs running.)

Macbook Pro 2011 Thunderbolt --> Echo Express Pro --> Echo Express Pro --> Promise 12TB RAID --> Thunderbolt display. Obviously well under the 6 periph limit for Thunderbolt. I will try again when my Retina Macbook gets here in a week or two, and if that proves not to help the bottleneck continue using one RR and wait for Thunderbolt optical cables later this year. Hopefully can get both up to speed, but I'm sure the 4X slots have something to do with the bottleneck.

Anyone else attempted to double up on the cards with a laptop and Thunderbolt? Love to hear some folk chime in.

[Mike Halper]

Well, one Rocket is beyond the x4 lane capability of a TB port, so that's likely the reason. RCXP and PP are probably both seeing both Rockets and thinking they can just send everything 2 Rockets in a tower could handle, but obviously the TB can't, and so it hangs up.

[Anderson Boyd]

Yea, makes sense. Do you think the two independent thunderbolt ports on the Retina will accommodate, since it won't be in a daisy chain? I'm thinking this, with no more than two peripherals giving throughput on each port, coupled with the fiber optic Thunderbolt cables (whenever they arrive) would be a good solution. I bought two RR and Chassis with the contingency being I'll split them between the two systems I have, one dueling as a transcode/assistant station. Thanks for your input.

EDIT: Forgot to mention once I changed my RAM settings I get realtime, 4K playback (even with graded footage) with the one RR card in both programs, for whoever is deciding whether to pull the trigger or not on Sonnet Chassis.

[Johnny Friday]

Well, one Rocket is beyond the x4 lane capability of a TB port, so that's likely the reason. RCXP and PP are probably both seeing both Rockets and thinking they can just send everything 2 Rockets in a tower could handle, but obviously the TB can't, and so it hangs up.

Does that then mean an 8x slot (magma) will not give anymore performance than the Sonnet Pro?

[Neil W. Smith]

Does that then mean an 8x slot (magma) will not give anymore performance than the Sonnet Pro?

The limitation is due to the current copper based implementation of Tbolt (will change when vendors bring out the optical version) ... essentially, copper Tbolt is only x 4 lane PCIe ... we have the Sonnet Express Pro with single RR and another card (ESATA RAID or FC HBA) and it works just fine .... haven't tested the Magma ... be interested to know if any one has benchmarked single RR in both boxes and measured if there's any performance gain with the Magma.

Also, haven't tested two separate Sonnets with the two separate Tbolt ports on the RetDisp MBP .... be interesting to know if that gives double performance with two RR cards when using Resolve 9 and EPIC 5K .r3ds ... anyone done that yet?

Neil

[Matthew Yaeger]

Likely it's too much bandwidth with both the Rockets and the Raid being on the same bus.

Have you tried putting your source media on a Ram Disk to see how the rockets work without the source read speed being an issue?

[Mike Halper]

Yea, makes sense. Do you think the two independent thunderbolt ports on the Retina will accommodate, since it won't be in a daisy chain? I'm thinking this, with no more than two peripherals giving throughput on each port, coupled with the fiber optic Thunderbolt cables (whenever they arrive) would be a good solution. I bought two RR and Chassis with the contingency being I'll split them between the two systems I have, one dueling as a transcode/assistant station. Thanks for your input.

EDIT: Forgot to mention once I changed my RAM settings I get realtime, 4K playback (even with graded footage) with the one RR card in both programs, for whoever is deciding whether to pull the trigger or not on Sonnet Chassis.

You could try separate Thunderbolt ports, one for each Rocket. I'd be curious to hear how well that works, especially if you're copying to a RAID via Thunderbolt at the same time.

What did you change your RAM settings to?

[Tom.Wong]

rocket performance on magma vs sonnet is identical. they use the same amount of bandwidth. rocket showing up as 4x with sonnet has no effect on its performance. it only uses 4x at a time separately for playback and rendering. magma just gives you the 8x options so that cards that do have issues when they show up in a 4x slot have a chance to work their best at being recognized as 8x. and the extra slot lets you juggle more cards.

daisy chaining expanders on the same port isn't a good idea. 2-3 cards alone along with raid and other devices will already flood out your TB port. you'll need a full second tb port for another expander for this not to happen. retina mac or imac will be a good test of this. but if they are truly independent ports you should get double the speed.

however i don't know how rocket protocol works when it comes to combining rocket power when both are showing up a 4x. that may cause glitches I don't know.

on another note, anybody know if dual rockets perform at double the speed when one is in 8x and the other is in a 4x config?

[Anderson Boyd]

Likely it's too much bandwidth with both the Rockets and the Raid being on the same bus.

Have you tried putting your source media on a Ram Disk to see how the rockets work without the source read speed being an issue?

Thanks for the idea Matthew, just tested this out with amazing results. Dropped some R3D's onto my local HD and disconnected all Thunderbolt peripherals except for the 2 sonnet boxes, chained into my one port.

Transcode times increased substantially, going from 4K to 1920x1080 proxy, a 1:44 minute clip took 55 seconds. with one card is was about 1:17 seconds. Playback is realtime full res, same as with one card.

I'm definitely pleased to know that doubling up on Rockets is a possibility for laptops, especially with multiple ports on future iterations of the Macbook Pro, and as the Thunderbolt cables convert to fiber. The rule seems to be not to daisy chain "up to 6 devices" as they say is possible when dealing with the heavy machinery such as RAID arrays and Rocket cards. Thank you guys for your input and ideas. A promising future for sure.

[Mike Halper]

What are your RAM settings to get real time full debayer at 5K? Is that in RCXP? How about in Premiere Pro? I can get 5K at 1/2 debayer and 4K full debayer realtime with default settings.