Hopefully a quick question.

I have v3.5.4 running on an HP xw8400. Some internal SATA media drives were swapped out for newer larger drives (Seagates 1.5 TB). The system drive was connected to port 1 rather than port 0 as recommended by Avid so I connected the optical to port 0 from where it was on port 2. I then connected four identical 1.5 TB drives to ports 2-5.

The system runs fine and all software works except for MC which issues an Access Violation error on startup during the splash screen before reaching the project window. There are no drives mounted on the system at the moment other than the system drive (everything else is momentarily disconnected).

I tried to repair the application via the installation disc (only MC - everything else is fine) to no avail. I uninstalled and re-installed to no avail. The same error message is produced. Nothing was changed to the operating system other than having it momentarily initializing 4 media drives which were then disconnected.

Could this be a MC system preferences issue? I haven't tried to delete those files. Also to note, there are no media files on the system at the moment - not even an Avid MediaFiles folder.

The system crashes with two identical error messages followed by application shutdown. I didn't write down the error messages yet (don't have access to the system at the moment) but they are produced when the startup of MC is going through the Media Streams initialization procedure.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance. David.

David,

Those error messages would certainly help.  The only other time I have heard of this is when a customer had a Jaz drive attached. 

The editor was seeing an Access Violation error while the app was initializing the Media Streams Manager at the startup screen.   removed the Jaz drive and the error went away.    

Send messages when you can....

marianna

Marianna,

thanks for your reply. Contrary to Avid's specifications, the two devices attached to the system are teh system drive and the optical drive with the latter attached to port 0 on the system and the system drive attached to port 1.

Is the Avid trying to create a media volume on the optical drive? Maybe moving the optical drive to port 5, the system to port 0 and the media drives to ports 1-4 will solve the problem. My only concern is whether moving the system drive from port 1 to port 0 will cause the system to fail to boot. Should I be concerned?

I'll try to swap the optical drive to port 5 and report back. If it works, then I might venture in moving the system drive to port 0 crossing my fingers.

David.

Problem solved. Thanks for the hint Marianna!

For reference, xw8400's DO NOT like having an optical before the boot drive. This is mentioned in Avid's configuration specs for this machine, however, the system came from the reseller misconfigured with the boot drive on port 1 rather than port 0. This made the configuration of devices not very logical in layout.

I had no problem moving the boot drive over the port 0, where it should be and the optical drive to port 5. Everything booted up fine and the MC started up without issue. Media Streams was now able to create a media volume on the system drive on port 0 in the absence of any other hard drives.

Of course, 4 x 1.5 TB media drives were then added to ports 1-4, striped into 4 partions in RAID 0 and the system drive media volume was erased for ever after. Empty drive bandwidth with this configuration ranged from ~450 MB/s (I/O) on the first partition and dropped to about 350 MB/s on the last. Needless to say, impressive for 4 striped SATA drives connected straight to the MB!

Playback of uncompressed 10 bit 1080p/23.98 was like butter. I have however experienced dropped frames from a similar configuration on an xw8600 SDX when drives were over 90% full (a no-no as we all know) with 10 bit 1080i/59.94.

I don't actually think that there is any bandwidth difference requirement between 8 bit and 10 bit but I might be wrong. If I am, clarification would be appreciated Marianna.

One follow up question: Is it possible to, via eSATA connectors or a multiple mini SAS connector (as there is no more space for internal drives), connect external SATA drives directly connected to the SAS ports on the xw8400? In other words, can one use the MB SAS ports to directly connect SATA drives. I'm under the impression that the connectors are the same or cross-over cables exist and that even if this is a Serial SCSI controller, it can control SATA drives. Please advise.

Many thanks,

David.