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Activity Forums Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy best 2TB hard drive for storing massive amounts of video?

  • best 2TB hard drive for storing massive amounts of video?

    Posted by Nick Natteau on May 17, 2010 at 11:59 pm

    I will be upconverting dozens of SD tapes using my IO HD and Final Cut Pro and was wondering what’s the best 2TB hard drive I can get?

    I will need at least 2TB, at least 7200rpm. Initially I could add a 2TB internal hard drive in slot 3 of my mac pro desktop. Or is it better to buy an external unit that can fit multiple hard drives?

    I’ve been looking at Seagate, Hitachi, Western Digital and then I noticed the Apple Store selling a 2TB internal hard drive for $549. The other choices are a lot less expensive: Western Digital’s Black Caviar for $180. Western Digital and apple’s internal hard drives seem to have exactly the same specs so not sure why the huge price difference.

    Thanks in advance for any advice as to what 2TB hard drive you would recommend for massive storage.

    – Nick

    Tom Roberts replied 14 years, 4 months ago 9 Members · 8 Replies
  • 8 Replies
  • Michael Sacci

    May 18, 2010 at 12:36 am

    Never buy HDs from Apple they are the same drives that sell for under $200. I like WD Caviar drives myself.

  • Steve Eisen

    May 18, 2010 at 1:00 am

    Check out Fry’s. Hitachi is on sale this week. Get yourself the OWC NewerTech VoyagerQ quad interface docking station to place the drive in.

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

  • Shane Ross

    May 18, 2010 at 1:57 am

    I swear by Hitachi.

    Shane

    GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
    Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

  • Jim Mcnally

    May 18, 2010 at 4:05 am

    I swear at Western Digital.

    Jim McNally
    The Commercial Factory
    http://www.commercialfactory.com

  • Zane Barker

    May 18, 2010 at 5:35 am

    All hard drives will die. Buy two and use one as a back up.

    Hindsight is always 1080p

  • Jason Porthouse

    May 18, 2010 at 8:31 am

    Wot Zane said, in triplicate, with bells on.

    When you get into storing 2 terabytes, unless you REALLY love redigitising, buy 2 and backup. Make sure you kick the backup into life (plug it in and spin it up) every few months.

    Jason

    _________________________________

    Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
    Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes.

    *the artist formally known as Jaymags*

  • Walter Biscardi

    May 18, 2010 at 2:43 pm

    You’re going to capture all of this to a single drive or capture it to a RAID first and then transfer it to this drive?

    A single drive will definitely cause you issues during capture especially after you cross over 50% full. Speed will drop off and you’ll be dropping frames left and right.

    We capture media to our arrays and then transfer it to 1 and 2TB archive drives via the super sweet WeibeTech RTX trayless drive units.

    We use both Hitachi and Western Digital drives here, whatever is on sale and we duplicate all media to a second drive.

    And I have to say calling 2TB “massive amounts of video” actually made me laugh. We have 60TB of active media storage and about 20TB of media archived already. Just took delivery of another 20 1TB raw drives from MacMall.com. $79 each for 1TB drives. I think 2TB are $119.

    Walter Biscardi, Jr.
    Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
    HD Post and Production
    Biscardi Creative Media

    “Foul Water, Fiery Serpent” featuring Sigourney Weaver coming soon.

    Blog Twitter Facebook

  • Tom Roberts

    December 28, 2011 at 2:23 am

    Sorry for the late reply in this thread. Did you get those 2TB drives in the end? What was your experience with them?

    Personally, I’ll never get another Hitachi drive. Had 5 fail on me (diff batches, sizes and lots). I actually live right down the road from the Hitachi research division here in Tokyo. Not to disparage them, since they are a great company, but I’ve been told by engineer friends there that the drives are made in Thailand. That’s not surprising, but in the case of Hitachi, it’s with inferior quality control standards compared with many other brands that manufacture across there. Most Japanese I know are very familiar with this information and also don’t buy Hitachi drives. You can get them dirt cheap in Akihabara, usually half the price of a comparable WD or Seagate. Yet, they don’t sell well for the do it yourselfers. That says it all. So, I’m curious. If you went with Hitachi, did you also have issues with the drives?

    As for me, I’ve had great luck with WD and the old Maxtor. And I second the vote for OWC, mainly for their enclosures. Have several over ten years old and still run the drives no worries.

    Cheers.

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