Best Media Drive for MBP 17″ (250-320gb)

[Simon Blackledge]

You have quite a few options here. Depends on how much extra “stuff” you wish to carry around and where you’ll need to use the drive.

1st is power. You can get external drives that have a power supply. and you also have bus powered drives. Bus powered get the power from the computer.. but zap the battery on ya laptop quicker.. but mean you can use the disc when not near a power supply.

2nd. connection.
USB2
Firewire400
Firewire800
eSata

I’d stick to FW800 or eSata. These are both pretty quick. eSata will require a can to go into the side of your macbookpro. FW800 will just go straight in.

I’d stay away from Lacie myself, always had problems with them, but thats me.

Other option is to build your own.. you can buy a case and then choose a specific drive.

For eSata you’d need one of these
https://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempo_sata_express34.html
Pretty sure any eSata enclosure will need a power supply though.

All depends on size/bulk
You could max one of these out with 2x1TB drives 🙂
https://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=519893

For smaller maybe..
https://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=519893
Powered from USB .. data via eSata on the card above.

Drive wise..
maybe https://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=604615

If your dragging media on and off though some of these smaller cases are fanless you maybe better going for something with a fan/cooling system.

These are more expensive, but very neat..
https://www.g-technology.com/Products/G-RAID-mini.cfm

Hope that helps a bit..

[Beau Brotherton]

Pennello,

Thanks for the reply. Sorry, but I am very green and I have never built my own drive before. Is the G-Raid the way to go, are they hte most reliable? And if I were to build my own drive route, can a place like Fry’s help me with this?

And also what is eSATA anyway?

Thanks.

Beau

[Ben Holmes]

After many years experience of building and purchasing drive arrays, I would suggest NEVER building your own mobile array. Use a reputable external array from a media drive company like g-tech, lacie or sonnet.

What you get depends on what you need. Fundementally you have two choices, a firewire array (FW800 is faster if you have the option) or eSATA. An eSATA array has the capability of supporting higher bitrate material (including some HD codecs) but must be connected using an Expresscard eSATA adapter. They have two other advantages: 1) They operate independently of the FW bus so this is kept free for either a FW camera or deck and 2) The array can be easily transferred to a desktop system fitted with an eSATA card for ongoing HD/Uncompressed SD work. An eSATA array could be all you’ll ever need.

A FW800 array can cope with uncompressed 8-bit SD (and I have run 10-bit uncompressed PAL on a G-Raid). They are robust in the main, and you may even find slower ones that are bus powered, although generally these are too slow for good media capture, unless you want to work in DV.

Finally – look for ARRAYS, not drives – these are, by definition, a linked collection of more than one drive. This is important because in the most general sense, more drives = more speed of transfer. Most portable arrays like the g-raid use 2 drives. The 4 drives setups above this are generally much quicker.

I would suggest as a start that you look at http://www.g-technology.com – even if you don’t want one of their products, they sell the whole range, and also tell you for each type what kind of media capture/playback they support. You can then compare similar products from other companies once you know what will suit you.

Ben

Editec Broadcast Editing Ltd

EVS & FCP specialists for live broadcast.

OB Server 1 HD – Mobile FCP editing done right.
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[Ben Holmes]

eSATA – Just an external SATA array, which is the same type of array found in newer computers. It uses a faster Serial bus allowing for much more rapid data transfer. A newer and cheaper alternative to SCSI and fibre arrays, although without some of the capabilities and top speeds of the latter.

An eSATA array would suit you perfectly since your camera will connect to the Mac via Firewire, correct? You need an eSATA Expresscard adapter (such as the Sonnet one) to connect the array to the MacBook Pro.

Look for a Pro reseller, like Promax.com if you’re in the US for advise and sales, not a consumer reseller like Fry’s.

Editec Broadcast Editing Ltd

EVS & FCP specialists for live broadcast.

OB Server 1 HD – Mobile FCP editing done right.
https://www.editecuk.com/OBServer2.html

[John Fishback]

We’ve been using a G-Safe dual drive that is RAID1. That means that when you copy your P2 data to the drive it copies that same thing to both drives at the same time giving you an instant backup. Ours has two 750GB drives so you can capture up to 750 GB. BTW check out P2 Genie which is excellent simple (and inexpensive) software to off-load P2 cards to your drive.

John

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