The blurred line between a desktop and a portable editing system just got a little more blurry.
Sonnet Technologies has released the Fusion F2 640GB portable hard drive, a storage solution aimed specifically at MacBook Pro editors who are working with large amounts of data where medium-rate throughputs are required.
In a package about 6" square and less than 3?4" high, the F2 delivers two eSATA drives that interface to the MacBook Pro via an Express34 eSATA card. But what is most ingenious about this device is that it draws its power from the MacBook Pro’s FireWire 400 port.
The drive enclosure contains two 320GB 2.5" drives from Western Digital. One might object that the WD drives are 5400 rather than the faster 7200 rpm drives. It is important to note, however, that speed is only one factor. The density of the WD drive actually makes these drives faster than a Hitachi 7200 rpm drive. I tested a pair of Hitachi drives striped in RAID 0 and found that the striped WD drives were 10mb/s faster!
For those who might not be aware, the difference between four-pin and six-pin FireWire connectors is that those two extra pins carry power. Thus, with a supplied FireWire 400 cable, Sonnet has solved the problem of eSATA connections not carrying power and the need for a cumbersome external power supply.
But, you might ask, what if you need to use the remaining FireWire ports? First of all, if you need to connect a FW400 device, it is as simple as using an FW400-800 adapter. But what’s most significant here is that all the F2 is drawing is power from that FireWire port. That is vital for the product that this drive compliments: The Io HD.
The Io HD from AJA Video Systems allows field capture of HD material with a real-time transcode to Apple ProRes 422 or ProRes 422 HQ via the computer’s FireWire 800 port. The Io HD consumes the entire bandwidth of the FW bus and thus no other devices can be connected to the Mac simultaneously. Fusion F2 is only drawing power and not transferring data. Thus, Io HD and Fusion F2 work perfectly together.
Sonnet sells a separate eSATA controller (under $100) that connects to the two ports on the F2 unit. Note that this unit is not port-multiplied. Port multiplication does reduce throughput by up to 10 percent, as well as adds bulk owing to the additional controller board. Sonnet has opted for speed and a compact footprint over single-port solution.
Supplied accessories include two eSATA cables, a padded slipcase and a FireWire 400-to-miniplug power cable.
The drives are formatted in MacOS Extended format, and the user must then utilize Apple Disk Utility to set up a RAID, if desired. If working in DV or DVCPRO HD where a single drive is more than adequate, you might opt to set up a mirrored RAID 1 for redundant backup. If you desire more layers of real time or wish to work in Apple ProRes 422 HQ, I would strongly recommend setting up a RAID 0 and then backing up critical data according to your usual backup strategy. (You do have a backup strategy, I hope).
I opted to test the unit in a RAID 0 configuration.
I first applied the AJA System Test using a DVCPRO HD sample. Read-write speeds were 114.7 MB/s while read speeds were 114.3 MB/s. This falls well within the tolerance required for ProRes 422 HQ but just short of the 125MB/s (or so) throughput that would comfortably allow editing of 8-bit uncompressed HD. In all fairness, there really is no two-drive RAID that could edit uncompressed footage.
I put this drive through its paces in Final Cut Pro 6 on a MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo 2.33GHz with 2GB of RAM.
Installation merely required installing the driver software for the Express34 controller card and launching Disk Utility and configuring the RAID level.
It indeed performs as advertised with the Io HD and does not interfere with the FireWire transfer that the Io HD performs.
In prior tests with single drive eSATA solutions, I could capture and edit ProRes 422 without a hitch. ProRes 422 HQ, however, would drop frames and never play adequately on one drive. So my first test was to transcode material to ProRes 422 HQ using Compressor and then editing in FCP.
I was pleased to discover that not only would the F2 in a RAID 0 configuration record ProRes 422 HQ without dropping frames (as noted in the Io HD test above), it would play back any material transcoded to the faster HQ variant of the codec. Furthermore, I kept adding layer upon layer and got to six layers of ProRes HQ before the “orange bar”appeared in the FCP timeline in Unlimited RT mode. In Safe RT, I would get the “red” render bar after five layers. However, after rendering, I could play back without dropping a frame.
I did transfer some uncompressed 8-bit 1920x1080 60i footage to the drive. As expected, it dropped frames. The outcome was certain enough; still it needed to be tested.
I also tried to force DVCPRO HD 720p footage to a render state. It finally “went red” on me after 10 layers in FCP.
Sonnet is an experienced player in storage technologies, and they have not missed a trick with this remarkable little unit. The drives are mounted side by side not just to create a more portable unit for your computer bag but for an important design reason. Drives mounted on top of each other can create a “cross-coupled vibration” which could drop frames. Increasing the footprint also allows for fanless and thus quiet operation of the unit. The use of FireWire power is ingenious. Of course, keep in mind that the F2 could also work on a desktop Mac with a compatible eSATA card.
The Sonnet F2 has the potential of changing the way mobile Mac editors work. Sonnet’s choice of the latest Western Digital mechanisms, the largest 2.5" drive currently on the market, is to be praised. Sonnet’s unique design makes me scratch my head wondering why nobody else had thought of it yet.
The only potential negative that I could see would be for those who need the Express34 slot for Sony or Panasonic (with Dual Adapter) solid-state cards. The only workarounds I could propose would be either copying files to the internal drive, transferring to the F2 for editing, or copying to an external FireWire drive.
Still, the Sonnet F2 ranks as one of the most innovative storage products in years and is well worth the consideration of Mac editors who need a small, powerful storage solution at a reasonable price.
By the way, the Express34 card also has drivers for Windows 2000/XP/Vista, and the drives can then be formatted through Windows.