external drive choices

[Jerry Hofmann]

External SATA is the ticket these days. it’s a ton faster than FW… and really doesn’t cost much more. G-Tech makes single drive setups that are da bomb, and for multiple drive setups I’d look at Cal Digit for the best.

Jerry

Apple Certified Trainer

Author: “Jerry Hofmann on Final Cut Pro 4” Click here

Dual 2 gig G5, AJA Kona SD, AJA Kona 2, Huge Systems Array UL3D

[Craig Alan]

Jerry,

On what Macs and for what type of footage would switching to SATA be worthwhile? Is there any advantage when using DV footage? Would buying a card for a G4 or G5 be worth the investment? What specifically would get better performance than continuing to use 800 firewire? Would a 400 or 800 firewire drive play nice with a sata external? Could I copy and share media and project files between them? I see g-tech has a quad interface but is there a sata to firewire cable that would be a cheaper solution? Thanks

OSX 10.4.7; Quicksilver Dual 1 gig; FCP 4.5, 3.0.4; Sony camcorder vx2000/pd170; write professionally for a variety of media;teach video production in L.A.

[Walter Biscardi]

[eyecamiam] “On what Macs and for what type of footage would switching to SATA be worthwhile? Is there any advantage when using DV footage? Would buying a card for a G4 or G5 be worth the investment?”

For all Mac and you get more realtime with faster drives. So yes, even with DV, you’ll notice more realtime filters and multi-streams of video with a faster SATA array.

Most SATA units come with a card, check the specs before you purchase to see if it’s included. Our LaCie S2S units both came with a card included.

[eyecamiam] “What specifically would get better performance than continuing to use 800 firewire?”

Depends on the speed of your array. I have both, SATA is 100MB/s or more faster than my fasted FW 800 RAID.

[eyecamiam] “Would a 400 or 800 firewire drive play nice with a sata external?”

Yes.

I’ll second Jerry on the SATA recommendation, they are fast and cheap. FW800 is a good 2nd choice though.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Broadcast and independent productions.

All Things Apple Podcast! https://cowcast.creativecow.net/all_things_apple/index.html

Read my blog! https://blogs.creativecow.net/WalterBiscardi

[Craig Alan]

Thanks Walter

[eyecamiam] “Would a 400 or 800 firewire drive play nice with a sata external?”

Yes.

I see some more expensive units have both kinds of ports, is there a sata to 800 or 400 wire that will allow the transfer?

Craig

OSX 10.4.7; Quicksilver Dual 1 gig; FCP 4.5, 3.0.4; Sony camcorder vx2000/pd170; write professionally for a variety of media;teach video production in L.A.

[Steve Radley]

If you are going FW800, I just purchased this 500GB drive for a big project. I formatted it RAID1. Which was a little tricky, they have instructions you need to dig at the site to find. Remember the RAID cuts the drive space in half. There is a good selection of SATA and FW drives here. We’ve had some problems with LaCie drives now and then.

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/RAID/

Steve Radley
Digitec
Orlando, FL
https://www.digitecinteractive.com

[J. Tad newberry]

do you only need the SATA speed (which is how fast anyway?) if we’re doing full HD editing? i still only have a BetaSP deck, so the “biggest” codec i work in is NTSC 8 bit, but more often even just DV50. i’m about to start a show that will be shot in HDCam and HDV, so will do the “offline” on my system (probably all in DV codec for speed and space), and need a good, solid, reliable “fast enough” portable drive to go out of house and capture HDCam (in DV codec). i have a G5 with the various FW ports on it, so would like to know what you all would recommend. thanks again…