Powerbook External Drive Recomendation…

[Ed Dooley]

I personally put together my own external FW800 drives because I can swap out the drives if needed. But if you’re only asking about the G-RIAD vs the LaCie BDX, the things I’ve heard, which you may or may not find important, are that the G-RAID performance is more constant than the LaCie as the drives fill up (G-RAID has a read/write-the-inner of one drive and read/write-the-outer of the other setup, which keep the throughput constant). There have been lots of complaints on theis and other boards about LaCies fail rate, which seems very high based on the complaints. LaCie reps have responded that it only seems high because they sell so many units that there would naturally be more complaints. http://www.barefeats.com has compared the 2 units https://www.barefeats.com/fire46.html
And if money’s no object, buy the $50 FW800 cardbus card, it’s only (did I say?) $50. Finally, if money’s no object, why aren’t you going to monitor externally? Have you been bad? Do you need to punish yourself?
Ed

[Gary Adcock]

[bill] “G-Raid or Lacie Big Disk?”

Many of us use both without problem, I have nearly 30 drives of assorted sizes from both manufactures -both offer excellent tech support – I give one warning Lacie does not recommend stacking their drives on top of one another – This is a great recommendation- heed it.

[bill] “As far as just ingesting the footage from my onboard fw400 from the deck to the fw800 drive is adding a fw400 pci card necessary or just an option? Am I understanding it correctly that I will loose the throughput by keeping them on the same bus therefore fw800 is useless?”

that is correct Both the 400 & 800 Bus are the same on ALL mac’s – get a$70 PCA card for your laptop to attach your hard drive to. then the system controls the deck and the PCA bus handles the data through put.

[bill] “As much as i knnow it is a no-no I will probably cut without an exteranl monitor. I will probably move over to dual g5 desktop workstation for color correcting and final output. I figure thsi will allow me to keep the throughput from the fw800.”

you can use your deck or camera to monitor to a TV in a pinch.

remember to add a PCI card to the desktop also !!!

Give to Hurricane Relief — it will make you fell better when you watch the News.

gary adcock
Studio37
HD and Film Consultation

[Bill]

thanks for the input so far….
as far as not using an external monitor i am trying to limit the stuff i carry around. this project is going to be done off hours from my already strenous work schedule. i need a set up that i can pull out and use quickly to give myself more “work time” i can set up in the coffee shop with a couple outlets cut for an hour then go to work. I should have specified i will not always be using an external monitor.

so i guess the pcibus card is a diven and teh g-raid is a more stable product. so looks like my decision is made up. no any recomended dealers. I mostly use macmall becuase our company has an account there but this is personal so any other recomndations would be superb.

remember its labor day weekend ……have fun

[Chris Babbitt]

Bill,

If you are capturing and finishing on the G5, I see no need for the PCI card or even a fw800 drive for editing DV. I do a lot of editing on my Powerbook using a 60-gig Hitachi Travelstar 7200 rpm pocket drive in an enclosure I bought from FWdepot.com. It is small, fits in my computer bag, and is bus powered, so I can edit anywhere. I plug it into my G5 for finishing, and it plays the project flawlessly. As long as you don’t need a huge amout of storage, this set-up should suit you perfectly.

[Tom Meegan]

Following up on what Chris wrote, I have been editing DV with this drive…

https://www.macmall.com/macmall/shop/detail~dpno~194069.asp

the Firelite 80g fw800 model for about four months with no complaints. Weighs less than my wallet, powers off the bus. I bought a fw400 pcmcia card to plug the deck in for capture.

I know I’m drifting from your original question, but your explaination of why you are not using an external monitor gave me pause. I also own a G-Raid and it has also been great (for very different reasons), but I would not want to carry it around.

Regards,

Tom Meegan

[Bill]

Chris,

What a novel idea. I never thought of actually capturing on the G5. I had it in my mind I would batch log all the tapes then at home just let them capture while I was engulfed in an episode of big brother or watching a nascar race. Anyway I can still batch log them at home and each day while I am in production meetings or out to lunch or in audio sessions I can let the big dog do all the work. Now if I do my research will I find that the front fw400 port is on a seperate bus from the fw800 in the back of the machine? I have considered a nice lite portable drive, but i have budgeted in on this one project to drop the coin to get a nice reliable larger capacity drive. From now on i will consider all these options…… who knows i might become a freelance junkie.

[Chris Babbitt]

Both fw ports are on the same bus, but that will not be an issue unless you have a deck hooked up at the same time as your fw drive. While it would be nice to have a fw800 drive, there is no real benefit over fw400 for editing dv material. The most important consideration for you is portability & capacity. A 7200 rpm drive is best, but for a bus powered drive, you are limited to 60-gig capacity. I think the largest capacity in a pocket drive is 80-gig, but these are slower, and may drop frames on final playback. Like I said before, I can hook up my Hitachi Travelstar drive to my G5, after editing on the Powerbook, and play back a 90 minute program without a single dropped frame. If you can get by with 60 gigs, this would be your best bet. G-Tech makes a model which utilizes this drive, and the enclosure has built-in heat sinks, which is good, because these drives get very warm.

[Ed Dooley]

Not true Chris, Wibetech.com makes a bus powered FW800/400/USB enclosure for 3.5″ drives (120,160, & 200gigs). Of course, a 3.5″ drive will use more of your battery than a 2.5″.
Ed

https://www.wiebetech.com/products/ultragbplus.php

[Chris Babbitt] …..”While it would be nice to have a fw800 drive, there is no real benefit over fw400 for editing dv material. The most important consideration for you is portability & capacity. A 7200 rpm drive is best, but for a bus powered drive, you are limited to 60-gig capacity. I think the largest capacity in a pocket drive is 80-gig, but these are slower, and may drop frames on final playback. Like I said before, I can hook up my Hitachi Travelstar drive to my G5, after editing on the Powerbook, and play back a 90 minute program without a single dropped frame. If you can get by with 60 gigs, this would be your best bet. G-Tech makes a model which utilizes this drive, and the enclosure has built-in heat sinks, which is good, because these drives get very warm.”

[Chris Babbitt]

I was referring to pocket drives (2.5″?) But, I didn’t know that there was such a thing as a bus-powered 3.5″ enclosure.

[Ed Dooley]

I was responding to this statement:
[Chris Babbitt] “A 7200 rpm drive is best, but for a bus powered drive, you are limited to 60-gig capacity.”

The Wiebetech cases are fairly new I think.
Ed