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Editing in Final Cut Pro with a Hard Drive Dock
Hi everyone.
I have recently noticed that external hard drives with firewire 800 interface are “disappearing” from the stores and being replaced by disks with usb 3 interface only. These are useless to me since I can’t use them at usb 3 speed on my iMac.
I do all my work on a Mac Pro and a iMac i7 and I’ve found that the use of external hard drives with firewire 800 interface is the best setup for my editing and storage needs.
I’m trying to find an affordable alternative to external drives with firewire 800, and I came across the NewerTech Voyager Q ‘Quad Interface’:
https://www.newertech.com/products/voyagerq.phpIs it possible to use this Hard Drive Dock as a media drive for editing purposes?
Thank you for your time
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6 Replies
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Where are they disappearing from? OtherWorldComputing.com has TONS of options with Quad interfaces, including FW800. The Mercury Elite drives.
G-Tech still makes drives with FW800, as does CalDigit, LaCie, Glyph. You have plenty of options.
I have one of those drive docks at work. But we use it for archiving…haven’t tried editing from it.
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
I use a similar dock for backing up files as well. While I was researching them I read reviews that some users had experienced heat related drive fails from prolonged, heavy use. Even though the top part of the drive is exposed the 25% or so that’s in the dock doesn’t get any ventilation. I’d rather use a an enclosure that is well ventilated for editing.
-Andrew
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I have been using these Voyagers for a few years now without any issues.
In fact I quite ofter use 2 as a software raid connected via esata.
On a macpro there are some spare esata ports on the motherboard I extend out to the front using the unused 2nd DVD drive slot.
Only problem is that these motherboard esata ports are not ‘hot swapable’ so a power down/restart is required.
But I also have a 2 port raid card in one of the slots which IS hot swapable.
I also use the Voyagers for working with shows delivered on hard drive that need work. And the FW800 port on them comes in handy when working on my MacbookPro where I am using the Expresscard slot to run the Matrox MXO2
I don’t know about any cooling issues…. -
I use a FW800 Voyager and two other docks connected by eSATA all the time. Occasionally a drive won’t mount when I put it in, but powering down the dock and reseating the drive usually fixes the problem. I’m constantly pulling media from older projects, so it’s pretty much a no-brainer. Media on the Voyager’s FW800 sometimes balks, but footage on the eSATA docks plays smoothly.
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[Michael Matthias] “I have recently noticed that external hard drives with firewire 800 interface are “disappearing” from the stores and being replaced by disks with usb 3 interface only”
Stop shopping at local computer stores.
Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Vice President
Chicago Creative Pro Users Group -
You all have been really helpful, thank you all.
Shane, I used to find firewire 800 disks in all local stores but now it’s really hard to find them, that’s why I said they are “disappearing”, I assume that they are going to gradually stop selling them and replace them for usb 3 disks.
Steve, I used to buy my disks online but now I prefer to buy them at local stores because of a bad experience I’ve had (the disks arrived damaged and it was a big hassle to return them and get some new ones).
Also, here in Europe we have few (if any) good online stores that sell these disks, and buying them from the US is always a problem because of the customs.
I’ve decided to go for a OWC Mercury Elite enclosure, it seems to be the best solution for me (thanks for that Shane).
Once again, thank you all
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