{"id":42582,"date":"2017-10-16T11:25:50","date_gmt":"2017-10-16T16:25:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/?p=42582"},"modified":"2017-10-18T10:29:06","modified_gmt":"2017-10-18T15:29:06","slug":"crunch-time-editors-rely-on-security-performance-of-owc-solutions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/42582-crunch-time-editors-rely-on-security-performance-of-owc-solutions\/","title":{"rendered":"Crunch Time Editors Rely On Security, Performance of OWC Solutions"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In Austin-based production company Rooster Teeth\u2019s latest web series Crunch Time, a team of grad students using cutting-edge technology recklessly creates a small yet potentially world-ending black hole in their school lab. But while technology-induced chaos is unfolding on-screen, a look behind the scenes tells a completely different story.<\/p>\n

A Safe and Smooth Production<\/strong>
\nEditor and producer David Ward has long utilized OWC drives<\/a> via MacSales.com<\/a>. And when working on the new series Crunch Time<\/a>, he knew exactly where to turn to keep his data safe.<\/p>\n

\u201cOWC was our first choice because they\u2019ve never failed me before\u201d Ward said. \u201cOur cards [for capturing footage] will be used several times a day, so when it\u2019s handed off, we\u2019ve gotta make sure that it\u2019s backed up completely and securely, otherwise you\u2019re going to lose a half a day of footage.<\/em><\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd once it\u2019s backed up, we need at least two or three copies in a timely manner so the crew isn\u2019t sitting around waiting for that card to finish up. We went with OWC ThunderBay and Mercury Elite<\/a> drives because in all of my years of being an editor and data manager, they\u2019re the one drive I\u2019ve never really had any issues with.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

Ward knows that a drive failure during production can be costly in many different ways.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn any given set day, you have minimum of 30 people working. And if a hard drive fails, you\u2019re losing all the work of all of those people put in to getting that footage done,\u201d<\/i> Ward said. \u201cThe time and the cost of re-shooting because of a failed hard drive would obviously not be good for business.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

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To help prevent potentially disastrous losses, added measures were taken to keep the Crunch Time team\u2019s data safe during production. Fortunately, the OWC ThunderBay 4\u2019s built in SoftRAID capabilities<\/a> provide another level of security not possible with hardware alone.<\/p>\n

\u201c[With ThunderBay and SoftRAID] if everything goes down, [and] I can get those hard drives hooked up in any other way … up [the data] comes. They just give me the options to be able to recover in case the absolute worst happens,\u201d<\/i> said Crunch Time media manager Gary Huff.<\/p>\n

Eliminating Performance Anxiety<\/strong>
\nThe OWC ThunderBay 4 was put to work on Crunch Time primarily for its security. However, the drives also provide the speed needed to keep up with the fast pace of production. And when shooting in 5K, drives fill up very quickly meaning data on the drives needs to be offloaded more often.<\/p>\n

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(Two OWC ThunderBay 4 solutions on the set of Crunch Time.)<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe shot the show on two Red Epics at 5K resolution. Because of that we were cranking out close to 1.5TB of footage a day. We needed to make sure that we had drives that could quickly and securely back up all that footage so we could get the cards back to set. That way our crew wasn\u2019t sitting around waiting and everything ran smoothly,\u201d<\/i> Ward said.<\/p>\n

The ThunderBay 4 family of storage solutions with SoftRAID provides read\/write performance in excess of 1300MB\/s for compressible data workflows when using SSDs in a RAID 0 configuration. Rebuild times are also exponentially faster than comparable hardware based RAID arrays. All of this means editors spend less valuable time waiting on files to copy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has been one of the smoothest shoots I\u2019ve ever been on with the amount of data that we\u2019re generating,\u201d Huff said. \u201cAnd I just haven\u2019t been sitting for two hours or five hours. I don\u2019t have to worry about getting stuck with a 300GB card at the end of the day because that only takes 25 to 30 minutes to copy off to go into those ThunderBay RAIDs.\u201d<\/em><\/i><\/p>\n

But it wasn\u2019t only OWC\u2019s drives that were utilized to ensure a speedy production. The team also used the OWC Thunderbolt 2 Dock<\/a> in post- production for quick connectivity. Ward said that the Thunderbolt 2 Dock with its 12 ports is an ideal solution for a production that\u2019s constantly on the move.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring post I used [the Thunderbolt 2 Dock] for connecting multiple ThunderBay RAIDs as well as using the HDMI output for video playback,\u201d<\/i> Ward said. \u201cWe even used it as a USB hub when needed. It was great knowing we\u2019d have a spare Thunderbolt or USB 3 port if we needed to quickly plug in a drive to copy over a new piece of media.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

Solutions That Just Work<\/strong>
\nProduction for season one has wrapped on Crunch Time and \u2014 at least behind-the-scenes \u2014 the \u201cend of the world\u201d scenario has been avoided.<\/p>\n

And thanks in part to OWC\u2019s award-winning solutions, the producers\u2019 data was safe during shooting and delivered to editors in a timely fashion. This consistent performance and security gives Ward the confidence to continue using OWC gear from MacSales.com on upcoming productions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact the OWC drives we have used have just always worked, we don\u2019t see any reason to switch over in the future,\u201d<\/i> he added.<\/p>\n

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And be sure to check out the trailer from the upcoming documentary DEALT<\/a> co-produced by Crunch Time producer Andrew Lee with the help of the OWC ThunderBay 4.  <\/p>\n