Do I really need eSATA?

[David Roth weiss]

Josh,

Single SATA drives have more than twice the throughput of firewire 800 and they are much more robust. Stripe two, three, or four together as Raid-0 and you’re boosting throughput dramatically and we’re talking huge realtime performance benefits and faster everything. If you’re a pro you should be seriously thinking about leaving firewire behind or to a backup role.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Josh Evans]

Ok thanks.

Its just a matter of cost at the moment then.

Is there some sort of a performance chart somewhere I can look at… for editing with FCP using Firewire 800 Vs eSATA?

[David Roth weiss]

Check out this article at Barefeets https://www.barefeats.com/hard35.html, and look around the Net for others.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Zane Barker]

[Josh Evans] “I edit using HDV footage. Is it worth upgrading to eSATA drives? Or is it not really worth it. Im guessing it would only really be worth it if I was editing in True HD ??”

If you ever work with multiple streams of video it can definitely make a difference. And if you want to get out of the HDV format (there are many reason to do so) and capture using prores, then it makes even more difference.

There are no “technical solutions” to your “artistic problems”.
Don’t let technology get in the way of your creativity!

[Josh Evans]

OK So from what I can gather,

it will speed up everything, including scrubbing, rendering, and also the realtime effects?

[Alan Okey]

[Josh Evans] “OK So from what I can gather,

it will speed up everything, including scrubbing, rendering, and also the realtime effects?”

Yes, proportional with the number of drives you have in your external RAID. An 8-drive RAID will have a much higher throughput than a 2-drive RAID, given the same RAID level.

I would strongly suggest educating yourself about various RAID levels and their respective pros and cons.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID