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Activity Forums Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy Imac fire wire 800 and esata conection confusion

  • Imac fire wire 800 and esata conection confusion

    Posted by Enny Pizy on September 7, 2010 at 3:48 am

    Hi i am beginner editor and self leaning i have Imac i7 2.8 ghz 12 gb ram and FCP 7. My question is can i add eseta card to on my imac to get faster hard drive access, Faster then fire wire 800? or the connection has to be physical to my mother board. Another question i am planing to purchase g-raid raid HD to get faster HD speed but this post tells me its not possible Here what they say (Even if you get a RAID, it can still only connect via FW800, so that speed won’t change, even though a RAID system can work faster than FW800. The only reason to get a RAID FW enclosure is for RAID 1 to protect your data. But FW800 is the bottle neck on an iMac external drive, nothing you can do to make FW800 go faster than FW800.)

    Next week i am learning HD and i was told that i need faster HD i have about $300 to spend on a HD so i was thinking G-raid. what do you guys recommend? what is my best option here? I am looking for faster access do i go with g raid or just normal fire wire 800 connection.

    Here are my questions

    1- Can i connect eSata card to my imac and then eseta HD to it for better speed?
    2- Will raid HD be any faster via Fire wire connection?

    Thanks guys.

    Michael Sacci replied 15 years, 12 months ago 3 Members · 6 Replies
  • 6 Replies
  • Michael Sacci

    September 7, 2010 at 4:50 am

    [Enes Pizovic] “My question is can i add eseta card”
    No you cannot add anything other that memory to a iMac, they are a closed system, no expansion. There is a company that installs eSata into on iMac but that is a major modification that cannot be done by yourself.

    A Raid FW enclosure gives you a like extra speed over a single FW drive.

  • Enny Pizy

    September 7, 2010 at 4:57 am

    thanks for reply Michael one more question what would be the speed deference between standard fw 800 HD and raid 0 HD Will i see the deference when working with HD footage not uncompressed of course.

    Thanks again

  • Steve Eisen

    September 7, 2010 at 1:24 pm

    Other World Computing offers an add on esata port for 2010 27″ imacs only.
    https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/turnkey/iMac_2010_27

    Steve Eisen
    Eisen Video Productions
    Vice President
    Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group

  • Enny Pizy

    September 7, 2010 at 3:29 pm

    I am not sure if it can be done on my Imac i7 since it is the first gen i7 27 inch i think it can be only done on new imac 2.9 ghz procesor

  • Enny Pizy

    September 7, 2010 at 3:41 pm

    no it cant be upgraded to esata port what do you guys think should i sale it and buy one with esata port if i am just using it for learning. And i know warranty will be voided after they are done with esata port but man it would be nice to have one.

  • Michael Sacci

    September 7, 2010 at 4:26 pm

    You need to tell us in more details what you are editing. FW800 can handle ProRes HD and DVCProHD just fine, with the FW800 you can get a couple of streams. If you are trying to do a lot of multicam where you are pulling a lot of streams at the same time you may want to change.

    I like OWC a lot, buy all my RAM and HD from them. While you lose the apple warranty and it is covered by OWC, I fully trust them there is only one source for service work, just something to be aware of.

    But I will say that an iMac with a eSata port is a different beast all together.

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