-
Firewire 800 card necessary?
I have a single G-Raid 320 drive and I’m about to get a G5 Quad system. Is it necessary to get a seperate firewire 800 card to isolate the traffic from teh main firewire bud or would it be OK to run the drive off the Firewire 800 port on the system?
Thanks
Steve Cohen
Editor
O2 Production Studios -
8 Replies
-
it should be just fine to use the built in port
-
Well that depends on the performance you want… if you want the vest performance possible as would be needed with HD then get a separate FW 800 card if you don’t need maximum performance then the internal should be fine.. personally I would put them on two busses but thats me…
Simon Carlson-Thies,
Digital Light Graphics And Animation -
.[zrb123] “it should be just fine to use the built in port”
For offline editing, sure. But when you add a camcorder or DV deck to the bus for capturing, monitoring or output, this will slow down the FireWire 800 disk to FireWire 400 speeds. If I were you, I’d buy the card for added insurance against dropped frames
Kevin Monahan
Take My FCP Master’s Workshop!
fcpworld.com
Pres. SF Cutters -
“.[zrb123] “it should be just fine to use the built in port””
and what happens when your new laptop does not have a FW 800 port
gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows
Chicago, IL -
I found it necessary. When I tried to capture from a Canon ZR-60 with G-RAID on internal bus, it didn’t work. With G-RAID on one bus and CAmera on the other, it worked. Certain other devices didn’t seem to mind the sharing. Don’t know quite why.
Final Cut Studio, FCP 5.0.4, After Effects 6.5 Pro, Quicktime 7.0.4, G5 Quad 2.5, Kona-LHe V1.2, 4.5 GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce 7800-GT, G-RAID 1TB FW800.
-
The card only really helps if you want to RAID your drive with another, the extra bus will make it much faster.
Have a wonderful day.
-
[Tom Brooks] “Certain other devices didn’t seem to mind the sharing. Don’t know quite why”
Some DV Devices are only spec’d with FireWire 200. Cheap consumer camcorders are sometimes only half the speed of regular FW400. If attached to a drive, it brings the whole system to FW200 speed. So that’s why it works with some devices and not with others. Best to get a PCI or PCMCIA card or the like to ensure at least FW400 throughput for capture drives.Kevin Monahan
Take My FCP Master’s Workshop!
fcpworld.com
Pres. SF Cutters -
Suspected exactly that. Thanks.
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up