AJA System Test

The AJA System Test is a complementary application to the AJA Data Rate Calculator. Where the Data Rate Calculator determines how much drive capacity is required for a given format and frame rate, the AJA System Test can be used to determine if a selected storage device provides sufficient bandwidth for the selected media and its associated format and frame rate. In the pictured example, the drive performance is fairly consistent in terms of write and read speeds as denoted by the graph, but the drive is unlikely to support formats beyond compressed HD (DVCProHD or HDV) and some uncompressed SD formats due to the low performance numbers. The AJA System Test should only be considered one tool when evaluating storage performance—not the sole criteria. Many factors should be considered when selecting suitable storage. For example, the performance of the drive in the cited example might be more than sufficient for an offline editorial workflow.