Music
Hands On: OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 external RAID
By Jim DalrympleDecember 2, 2009, 1:55 pm PT
I’ve been testing Other World Computing’s (OWC) Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 RAID system for the past few weeks and have been very impressed.
Instead of running through all of the speed tests and explanations of what a RAID is (you can find that info all over the Web), I’m going to give you a real-world example of using the unit and how it held up during my tests. Ultimately, I think that will be more useful for you to determine if the system is right for you.
I tested the Elite as my dedicated Pro Tools hard drive. I have been a guitar player for 20 years, and like many other musicians, made the move to the digital realm years ago.
As with many creative professionals, one of the biggest problems I have is with hard drive space. Each one of my Pro Tools projects grows to between 10GB and 20GB each — that’s a lot of space.
But I didn’t want the Elite simply as a storage unit — any drive would work for that. I wanted Pro Tools to work with it live. In other words, I wanted to read and write to the drive as I changed the project.
Pro Tools users are well aware that Digidesign does not support internal or external RAID drives for use with Pro Tools. However, the Elite worked out of the box with no problems. That was absolutely huge for me.
Digidesign recommends using an alternate drive than the one Pro Tools is installed on, but not a RAID. Obviously, having the hard drive space a RAID provides is crucial for recording multiple music projects.
The next step was to see if the system could actually keep up with live recording. In reality, if the Elite couldn’t keep up with live recording, I might as well just move on and use it for storage.
I started off just recording one track of guitar with no plug-ins — admittedly, a pretty simple test, but it worked just fine. Typically, I usually record a couple of guitar tracks — either from mics or digitally — at the same time.
The last song I worked on had over 60 tracks that were used at different times during the project. Most of the tracks were recorded audio (guitars, drums, french horns, violins, etc.) that were recorded directly to the drive.
But that’s not all. I also have many gigabytes of drum data from Toontrack’s drum kits stored on the drive. So, not only is Pro Tools reading and recording audio from the drive at the same time, it is also regularly reading files for the drum kits as well.
After a few small tests, I let loose and used the Elite for everything. It stood up to everything I threw at it and continues to.
I have used OWC products for years because I trust the company, service and products. The Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 RAID proves that I made the right choice.
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Discussion
6 comments so far
-
are you using it with a firewire 800 port?
also what raid level did you use? 0 or 5? 5 is safer for data, but 0 is fastest.
-
I am using FireWire 800 and RAID 5.
-
Can it work in a non-RAID config (mounting 4 individual drives)?
-
My Qx2 can't be seen by my eSata card, 2nd one i bought from OWC. Anybody had this problem ? please email me laurent at 3mille com
-
Misha: No…the Qx2 can not see 4 individual drives…only non Raid mode is SPAN…which sees all four drives as one volume.
laurent: We are contacting you directly for sake of timeliness and privacy of your personal information…there is a list of recommended eSATA cards that we have tested and qualified for use with the Qx2 on each product page. Looking into whether or not the card you are buying from us is on that list. Will post back here conclusion of this issue to help others.
-
I am having a good experience with Sabio's DM4. Similar specs to the Qx2 and a lot cheaper ($260 at Fry's). It also has a clean case design that some might find more attractive.
Post a comment
Hands On: OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 external RAID
By Jim DalrympleDecember 2, 2009, 1:55 pm PT
I’ve been testing Other World Computing’s (OWC) Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 RAID system for the past few weeks and have been very impressed.
Instead of running through all of the speed tests and explanations of what a RAID is (you can find that info all over the Web), I’m going to give you a real-world example of using the unit and how it held up during my tests. Ultimately, I think that will be more useful for you to determine if the system is right for you.
I tested the Elite as my dedicated Pro Tools hard drive. I have been a guitar player for 20 years, and like many other musicians, made the move to the digital realm years ago.
As with many creative professionals, one of the biggest problems I have is with hard drive space. Each one of my Pro Tools projects grows to between 10GB and 20GB each — that’s a lot of space.
But I didn’t want the Elite simply as a storage unit — any drive would work for that. I wanted Pro Tools to work with it live. In other words, I wanted to read and write to the drive as I changed the project.
Pro Tools users are well aware that Digidesign does not support internal or external RAID drives for use with Pro Tools. However, the Elite worked out of the box with no problems. That was absolutely huge for me.
Digidesign recommends using an alternate drive than the one Pro Tools is installed on, but not a RAID. Obviously, having the hard drive space a RAID provides is crucial for recording multiple music projects.
The next step was to see if the system could actually keep up with live recording. In reality, if the Elite couldn’t keep up with live recording, I might as well just move on and use it for storage.
I started off just recording one track of guitar with no plug-ins — admittedly, a pretty simple test, but it worked just fine. Typically, I usually record a couple of guitar tracks — either from mics or digitally — at the same time.
The last song I worked on had over 60 tracks that were used at different times during the project. Most of the tracks were recorded audio (guitars, drums, french horns, violins, etc.) that were recorded directly to the drive.
But that’s not all. I also have many gigabytes of drum data from Toontrack’s drum kits stored on the drive. So, not only is Pro Tools reading and recording audio from the drive at the same time, it is also regularly reading files for the drum kits as well.
After a few small tests, I let loose and used the Elite for everything. It stood up to everything I threw at it and continues to.
I have used OWC products for years because I trust the company, service and products. The Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 RAID proves that I made the right choice.
Email This Post
⋅ Print This Post
⋅ Post a comment
Discussion 6 comments so far
-
are you using it with a firewire 800 port?
also what raid level did you use? 0 or 5? 5 is safer for data, but 0 is fastest.
-
I am using FireWire 800 and RAID 5.
-
-
Can it work in a non-RAID config (mounting 4 individual drives)?
-
My Qx2 can't be seen by my eSata card, 2nd one i bought from OWC. Anybody had this problem ? please email me laurent at 3mille com
-
Misha: No…the Qx2 can not see 4 individual drives…only non Raid mode is SPAN…which sees all four drives as one volume.
laurent: We are contacting you directly for sake of timeliness and privacy of your personal information…there is a list of recommended eSATA cards that we have tested and qualified for use with the Qx2 on each product page. Looking into whether or not the card you are buying from us is on that list. Will post back here conclusion of this issue to help others.
-
I am having a good experience with Sabio's DM4. Similar specs to the Qx2 and a lot cheaper ($260 at Fry's). It also has a clean case design that some might find more attractive.
Post a comment