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eSATA storage solutions for 17″ MacBook Pro?
Howdy. I’m currently building a FCP laptop editing system, for SD editing (at the moment), with plans to eventually cut HD with it.
At the moment, I’m using a 17″ 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo MBP with 2 GB SDRAM. Cutting with FCP 6.
I’m holding out on purchasing the ioHD for ProRes capture of HD footage, with hopes that there may be other options on the market soon. News from NAB regarding Matrox’s MXO2 looks promising, though it lacks onboard ProRes 422, as far as I can tell — something I’ll be relying on for laptop HD.
At the moment, I’m capturing SD footage via firewire. I purchased a CalDigit ExpressCard (FASTA-1ex), and am now looking for suggestions for affordable, reliable eSATA drives.
It seems to be a big market out there for eSATA raid arrays. Any suggestions?
Thanks in advance.
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4 Replies
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From personal professional experience I would recommend the G-Technology family of drives. I currently use 2 G-SPEED es arrays on the main edit, and several G-RAID and G-DRIVE units for onset and location work.
I use a pair of G-DRIVE Q’s raided on the e-SATA expresscard because they’re more portable and faster than a single G-SATA.
I have never had a single failure using this company’s products, and I own a number of them. I would not touch Lacie, however, with a sizable barge-pole after multiple failure.
Other G-SATA solutions are available. I don’t work for G-Tech by the way!
Ben
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Ben, thanks for the informative response. Just to be clear… you’re not using the G-SPEED es enclosures on a MacBook Pro, right? And you’re using the two G-Qs without redundancy (RAID 0), or with? What sort of speeds are you sustaining, and what type of video are you working with?
I recently purchased the CalDigit single port adapter, for use with a single eSATA drive. Looks like I’d need one of those Firmtek dual port Express Card adapters to use those drives together though, right?
I’ve also been looking at these SATAVaults from Coolgear…
https://www.cooldrives.com/usb2-sata-mini-raid-system-sata-raid.html
Not quite as portable, though.
Thanks!
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CalDigit also has an express card for ePCIe, this will allow you to use one of their HDPros, or HDOnes on the MacBook Pro. This in the only 100% hardware RAID solution for the laptop.
You can get sustained speeds of 195 MB/s this way, and that is RAID 5 protection. This is a more substantial solution compared to eSATA, and I think you might be very happy with the added performance. It’s at least something to check out.
https://www.caldigit.com/HDOne/hdone_mobility.html
Jared Picune
Idea Spring Editing, Inc.
Denver Final Cut Pro UG
Geeky Mac | FCP Tips & Tricks -
I am also just starting to build my 17″ macbook pro, intel with snow leopard.
I have a desktop system with fcpstudio2 unfortunately it is pre intel, by a month 🙂
anyhow, I am tossing up whether i need fcp studio or can do with the stripped down express hd. I am an off line editor, so don’t need all the bells and whistles. I will be getting a dual sonnet eSATA card for one of my GTech 4Tb drives or may simply use fw 800 with a 2tb la cie.
Any thoughts on this.Richard Clark’s kiwicafe.com
Film Editor & . . .
https://kiwicafe.blogspot.com/
NY & LA & . . . Featherston?
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