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External drive for iMac on a budget
Hey, I have been in search for an external drive to use with my iMac so that I may edit HD footage in FCP efficiently. I have looked around at many things, but I am still left with many questions. I am pretty low on my budget for the drive(s) and would like to spend at most $700.
I have looked at the Lacie Biggest Quadra, which would allow a Raid 0, 0+1 or raid 5 setup. I get stuck at this point because I am unsure if it would be best to use a Raid 5 setup or go with a Raid 0 and set my render files to save on another, non raid drive. Also, how much read/write speed is ideal for HD footage in FCP.
I only have FW 800, FW 400, and USB ports on my iMac so these are the only type of drives I can feasibly look at.
Any help would be much appreciated and please keep in mind the budget and interface.
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12 Replies
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What flavour of HD are you talking?
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Currently shooting in 1080i60 and would also prefer something that will work well with 3D rendering in programs like Cinema 4D and After Effects, even those are not the main discussion of this board.
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For rendering, the drive doesn’t matter.
1080i/60 doesn’t tell us anything. DVCPro HD, HDV, Uncompressed HD, ProRes HD?
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.STOP STARING AND START GRADING WITH APPLE COLOR Apple Color Training DVD available now!
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Ah sorry bout that, it would be HDV.
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Ok, so I was searching through the posts and it appears a ProRes import would work out better in the long run. If this is correct then I would still need to probably connect up a FW 800 raid array. So I guess the question left is, Raid 5 or Raid 0 on this budget. And would having my render scratch set to another drive be beneficial or should it also be set to the raid drive?
Thanks for the help and quick replies.
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https://www.g-technology.com/products/g-raid3.cfm
G-raids are great – full playback with ProRes and iMac
I own about 10 of them with no failure.
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You defintily want raid 5.
All drives fail at sometime, and if you have a fully loaded array die, you’re facing at least a week or two non-stop redigging.
(And you better have a HVR 1500, or redigging will take at least twice as long).As for the FW 400 vs 800 discussion, that is just the connector.
Check the actual speed. If the drives do not perform that well (normal firewire drives aren’t that fast), there is no need to go FW 800 for speed reasons, as the bandwith of 400 is high enough.
(remember, 400 mbits / 8 = 50 megaByte per second. That is 20 streams of HDV, since HDV runs at 25 mBits a second…)Bouke
https://www.videotoolshed.com/
smart tools for video pro’s -
[Bouke Vahl] “You defintily want raid 5. “
Raid-5 would pretty tricky to on an iMac. How do you think you’d accomplish that without the ability to install a controller or bridge card?
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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I’m assuming the box could do the raid config.
(at least that’s what suggested by the OP, as well as the LaCie site)But do we have consensus about Raid5 no matter the complications?
Bouke
https://www.videotoolshed.com/
smart tools for video pro’s -
Actually, I stand corrected. I just checked out the LaCie 4Big Quadra, and it does appear to do Raid-5 via firewire 800. I hadn’t seen that one before.
Meanwhile, if the original poster is only getting the 2Tb model, he’ll only have approximately 1.5Tb of useable space after configuring as Raid-5, and he’ll want to leave 10 to 20% of that as free space. That seems like an awfully big unit for so little drive space.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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