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Powermac G5 with PCI-X slots
I need some advice. I use a powermac G5 Dual 2.0. It utilizes PCI-X slots. I need to upgrade my storage capacity and I am looking into the G-RAID 3 for an external hard drive option. I will be using this drive to edit 60+ hours of HDV. I have done some research and it appears that I will get the best performance from the G-RAID 3 by using the eSATA connection. Here comes the hard part for me, I can’t seem to find a compatible card that meets the following criteria. The eSATA card needs to fit into PCI-X slots and be compatible with the G-RAID 3 or equivalent hard drive (I think I found a Sonnet that was around $300 which is more than I want to spend). I need no less than 3TB of storage and ideally I would like to spend no more than $1000 total between the controller card and the hard drive.
I apologize for the lengthy explanation, but I am trying to figure this out as I go. Do I even need the eSATA to edit HDV or will FW800 do?
This is my first large scale project and I am completely alone on this one. I appreciate any help or advice that anyone wants to throw my way. Thank you
Teague
NOMAPSfilms.com -
10 Replies
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Can you afford this?
PS: I have the same computer….will finally upgrade in the winter, I think. Of course, it means new SATA card, new Kona card…etc. Ugh.
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that is exactly what i need and it’s in my price range, it only has internal ports though and i need external. i think the similar version from Sonnet with external ports is almost $300.
NOMAPSfilms.com
One Man. Two Wheels. No Maps.
NOMAPS Films is currently in post production on a feature length HD documentary film about a solo motorcycle adventure from CT to Panama… and back.
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sorry about that. But you might want to keep an eye on ebay rather than paying full retail for a new card for that machine.
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Try this, I’ve had one for years and several others here have them too.
https://firmtek.stores.yahoo.net/sata2even4.html
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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It depends on your workflow, but I have been using FW800 drives to online HDV with render set to ProRes. So no problem running the Prores renders as well as the HDV off FW800 drives. HDV is the same data rate as DV so drives are not an issue.
I work in 25fps so other frame rates may make FW800 marginal for ProRes.
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The first result in a quick Froogle search:
https://www.google.com/products/catalog?hl=en&q=pci-x+esata&cid=18110894764621343687&sa=title#p
PCI-X slots can take either PCI-X or PCI cards.
A PCI card like that will limit you to “only” 133MB/s (= 1Gbps). That’s enough for 42 concurrent streams of HDV or 6 streams of ProRes422. Even if the actual performance is half of that, I think you’ll be fine…
It looks like there are plenty of Mac-compatible PCI-X cards anyway:
https://www.google.com/products?q=%22pci-x%22+esata&hl=en&scoring=phttps://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816133002
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816318004
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[Teague Fleury] “Do I even need the eSATA to edit HDV or will FW800 do? “
FW800 is enough.
rafael -
I have a 2 port external SATA card, I’ll sell it for $75, if your interested, call or email me. 407-694-7077
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[Rafael Amador] “FW800 is enough”
“Enough” is a word that indicates that a solution essentially has the minimum required specs necessary.
It’s enough, but do you you really want to throw money at a limited technology with no upgrade path?
A SATA solution with four swappable drives at RAID-0 not only gives several times greater throughput from the very start, but it allows you to start out modestly, with four 500GB drives for example, and eventually replace those with four 2Gb drives. It has vastly better performance and gives you options that firewire just doesn’t have.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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[John Grilli] “I have a 2 port external SATA card, I’ll sell it for $75, if your interested, call or email me. 407-694-7077 “
You should take him up on his offer. You are not likely to find a better price than that, and you are minimizing your expenses on a computer that is largely obsolete. You will not be able to move a PCI-X card to a Mac Pro in the future, so you don’t want to spend too much on it.
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