Hi,

I am doing a major system reformat involving ALL my media drives. I have backed up all my files and now I am ready to put them back.

1. Is it alright to manually drag media files and combine them into OMFI folders? For instance, I want to combine media files from two hard drives into a single drive/volume.
   
   
2. Will Avid automatically recorgnize the files and relink them to the projects properly?

Please advise. I just want to make sure.

Thank you.

As long as you only copy the omif media files you should be ok. Do a quick count of your files first if you have too many in a folder it will slow your system down.

I've copied this from an Avid Doc about databases and omfi media files.

With the implantation of things like the MediaDoc320 and ‘HUGE’ arrays, Avid systems have the ability to setup and operate with media storage sizes upwards of 1.7 terrabytes and higher.  While the computer itself can support that much space, after 250+ gigs of storage has been taken up with media, the Avid begins to lose its way when dealing with Media DataBases. This can lead to the system ‘losing’ media or incorrectly show media as ‘Offline’. Also, very often the Media Databases may not be successfully rebuilding themselves (the ‘msm.MMOB’ and ‘msm.FMID’ files located inside each of the ‘OMFI MediaFiles Folder’), which is causing speed and stability problems as users begin to fill up the drives with media. 

Here is what is going on with your media, as you work within the Avid:

- Almost everything you are doing in Avid (from launching the Avid, saving any bins, leaving capture mode, or closing the application ) is causing the system to read and write data to your media drives simultaneously.

- Each partition will have one ‘OMFI MediaFiles Folder’ and/or one ‘Avid Media Files Folder’ (for MXF media).

- Each media files folder contains two database files (‘msm.MMOB’ and ‘msm.FMID’) which keep track of all of the changes to media files; keeping them constantly linked to the master clips in your bins (pointer files living on another drive in your applications folder).

- Every time you launch the Avid, save any bins, leave capture mode, or close the application it is forcing those database files to index all of the files in that media files folder.

- By having 2 database files on one very large partition containing 500GB 1 TB, etc of media , the Avid is indexing the hundreds of thousands of files included on that partition . That, in turn, taxes the database files beyond a reasonable level and they begin to either lose track of media, or fail to complete their updates.

- Media Databases no longer update correctly, causing things like “OMFI HP Domain INIT Failed” errors as well as ‘Media OffLine” messages, among others.

- By creating more, yet smaller Drive Partitions, the Avid can more efficiently and reliably maintain its Media Database files, giving overall stability and speed back to the system.

TO THIS END:

Avid Customer Support has found that partitioning down larger Striped sets to sizes of approximately 250-300 gig has TREMENDOUSLY helped overall Adrenaline performance and stability. We are recommending this for systems setup with larger than 300 gig partitions, in use with a 12 or 24 way stripe.

*** A note about Windows File Limit:

The Windows OS starts to slow down after 10,000 files. This is a limitation of the OS itself, not of the Avid.  After 10,000 files, the system cannot buffer it’s file count fast enough, as well as the Avid’s Media Databases also not updating correctly, if at all.

I couldn't find the original link since the website changed but it's full of gems. Apple don't have anything near as good for FCP.

Thank you!

Very helpful. I will take note of that. 

Right now, I have some 250's and one 500 (raid). I realize that bigger does not always mean better!

you can move your OMFI files at will, migrate them from one OMFI folder to another, from drive to drive, & Avid will automatically index & link the files to their proper projects.  the only way you can go wrong is to over-fill a drive, as in just too many files on a drive.  otherwise, Avid's media management is one of it's best features. 

it will be important for you to delete the "msm_MMOB" & "msm_FMID" database files from your OMFI folders before you move the media files.  (you will have both files in each OMFI folder)

do all this with Avid closed (not running), & then launch avid.  Avid will index the new OMFI folder, rebuilding the MMOB database & the FMID will be rebuilt the next time you enter & exit a project.

i've moved a lot of media in my day & just recently migrated a 150 Gb to a new drive, as you are wanting to do... all with no problems.  the worst part is waiting on the files to migrate!

shane

 shoot... Blue Crow just beat me!

isn't this forum great

shane

No problem. I appreciate all your responses.

I feel more confident now!

You're right...huge files! And those are just SD-DV25 projects. I can just imagine when we start working with HD.

God bless!

  Yes I love this forum. Whenit's late at night and your brain is fried somebody always has an answer

I'm with you there man!

I just happened on this thread now when I'm about to set up a 2TB RAID with x4 500GB drives.  Now I'm wondering if this isn't such a great idea??

I have been editing off straight 500GB drives and things have been ok.  Should I be worried?

Also, does this file limit affect only the OMFI folder?  Or does it effect the MXF folder as well?

 i can't say for certain that high MXF file counts will behave the same, as i assume that there may be a file-size difference.  that said though, i would think that the basic problem will still exist.

with respect to raid configurations, i'm not sure.  i can tell you from extensive personal experience that filling a stand-alone drive over 300Gb of OMFI files can defiitely begin to cause instability, performance problems like loss of a/v sync & even corruption of the database itself.  i've learned this the hard way!  i know that Raids store information differently however, so i suspect that different rules apply.  perhaps someone who has more experience with setting up Raid arrays will chime in soon.  you may wish to ask that question as a new thread.  it will probably get more attention.

good luck... & be careful with those 500Gb. drives!

shane

"Also, does this file limit affect only the OMFI folder?  Or does it effect the MXF folder as well?"

The problem is not so much with partition size, as file count, although the partition size can lead to higher file counts.  Both OMF and MXF have similar issues.  As the file count increases, so does the size of the media databases.  In simple terms, Avid can handle many, many, databases, just not big ones.

OMF will allow as many files as you choose to keep writing to the partition, and they all go into one OMFI MediaFiles folder.  To reduce the file count, you either have to 1)re-partition the drive into small units, or 2)use the Virtual Drive method described elsewhere on this forum.

MXF media is automatically capped off at 5,000 files/folder.  The media is in a folder structure:

Avid MediaFiles\MXF\# .... where # is a number.  The first folder is "1", then another gets created as "2", etc.  Because of this, a large partition can be used with no difficluty.  We typically partition our TerraBlock volumes as 1TB, 2TB, or larger.

Although, I have found through my own research that MXF file counts over 3,000 can still be problematic.  It can cause general database errors, as well as bogus Quarantine.  I've suggested to Avid engineering that they decrease teh file/folder count to 2,500.

lmerino:

I'm about to set up a 2TB RAID with x4 500GB drives

That's what I have and I broke mine into 250GB partitions... makes project management easier. 

On my 2TB RAID_0 I have: 5 partitions for Captured media, 2 for Imported media, and one for Transcoded media (ie from Compressor)

If your situation is the same as mine, I often have media files active from various projects at the same time.  If this is the case, then maybe download yourself a copy of MDV (Media Database Viewer) and take the projects that you are not working with offline, to keep the filecount to its minimum.

This link is on a Russian site that I downloaded it from (free!), but it's available elsewhere.

Of course, if your current project goes over the filecount, then a partition is probably the way to go.