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Has anyone used any of the RAID units from OWC with Final Cut Pro? Are they good for editing? What should I look for?
OWC looks like they have some good products, and from what I read it looks like these would be good for editing.
Has anyone used:
• OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dual
–https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/MESATATBEK/
• OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2
–https://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/MEQX2KIT0GB/I just want to get a bare RAID unit to put my own drives in as it seems like it would be cheaper (my budget is extremely low while I’m doing an internship). Is there anything I should look for in particular for use in video editing? I know I want something “hot-swappable” and the quad-interface is convenient.
This is stupid question.. but if I buy a 4 bay RAID unit, particularly one of the ones listed above, can I potentially use it with only 1 hard drive at a time? And fill up a certain drive with backup files and then put it aside to toss in some other time?
I just a unit that was not what I’m looking for and I don’t want to make the same mistake again. Excuse my ignorance
Thanks!!
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4 Replies
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The spec says these enclosures can be configured as individual drives as well as RAID 0 or 1. So it looks like you could just use it to house a single drive and add to it later, but if you did that you can’t then RAID. RAID 0 is fast but doesn’t offer error correction for a drive failure. It doesn’t mention RAID 5 which is my preferred for error protection with good speed.
The enclosures are esata so a RAID makes sense to get maximum drive speed for best performance in FCP.
I personally haven’t used these enclosures or heard from anyone using them so others may have better advice based on personal experience.
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I own two OWC Mercury Elite Pro Duals. I bought my most recent one about a year ago primarily for use as a RAID for an iMac I bought around the same time. I use the iMac mostly for general computer work, but I have done a little video editing on it. (Most editing is done on a four year-old MacBook Pro while I wait…..and wait……and wait for Apple to come out with a new Mac Pro. Needless to say, I have my fingers crossed.) On the occasions when I’ve used it for video editing, the drive has performed flawlessly.
My other OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dual unit is used only periodically, as a system drive backup. I’ve had it two or three years, and it, too, has performed flawlessly.
I’m very happy with their enclosures. I put 7200 RPM Hitachi drives in them, and they are plenty fast. Hitachi drives are highly regarded as high quality.
I also bought a small, portable OWC drive about six months ago. It works great.
Needless to say, I’m a very satisfied OWC customer. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
As for using a four-bay unit with a single drive at a time, I honestly don’t know the answer. (I once thought of doing that, but never pursued it.) What I would suggest is calling OWC and asking them. They will certainly know the answer.
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I used the Mercury Elite-AL Pro Dual-Bay raids on a feature I cut a few years ago.
The drives were a bit noisy, but other than that, worked perfectly.The customer service at OWC is also fantastic.
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I have one. Maxes out the drives in term of speed. I have two Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB (because of supper dense platters those drives are arguably the fastest 7.2k hods) I get up to 230MB on AJA speed tests. 210-220MB/s are regular results depending on files types and sizes.
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