Recommend Firewire Harddrives for FCP and/or Photoshop

[Walter Biscardi]

Do a search on this forum for Firewire and you’ll find lots of recommendations. I only recommend LaCie and G-Tech for video editing.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com

Director, “The Rough Cut”
https://www.theroughcutmovie.com

Now Posting “Good Eats” in HD for the Food Network

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Scott Davis]

General consensus (and I concur) are LaCie, G-Tech, Wiebetech. With lower cost drives you get poor design (ie overheating), and cheap parts.

[Steven Gonzales]

If that low cost drive has a poorly engineered firewire bridge card, it could put “out of range” voltage to your firewire cable, and burn out your mother board’s firewire bus.

I like a bargain, but I stay away from discount parachutes.

[Nate]

I have Weibe tech Duo dock, Granite Digital dual hot swap rack mount, worked with Lacie D2’s, and do my main editing with my Medea scsi terrabyte… Last January, I got tired of buying name brands Fire wire, I wanted a Firewire 400 with hot swap HD capability and inexspensive was my target. My research found that there are 2 basic firewire bridge boards/chip sets, both very stable technology.. So I went to CompUSA purchased an external Firewire inclosure that would fit a DVD/CD drive, purchased the Hot swap HD cage that would normally go in a PC and extra HD trays to fit it and then I purchased a Western Digital 300gb HD. For under $85 I had a Firewire 400 enclosure with removable/hot swap HD tray and the WD was about $180 at the time. I drill 2 holes, used 2 pop rivets to assemble the enclosure, install the HD into the tray and was up and running in less than an hour… It is working so well that I purchased a second one and will probably get a third for the other edit suite. The best part is that each client now has their own HD in a tray that I change at will. I do eject and power down the drive before I exchange drives. Yes the little fans are noisey until the drive warms up and the blue lights on the sides are cool, and considering the price /performance I am waiting to hear a better story.

[Samuel Frazier]

Actually, I’ve got an Acom external firewire and am quite happy with it. Had it going on 2 years now. Have not had the same results with Lacie Big Disk Extremes. Just lost my 2nd one when the power flashed briefly. Everything else was fine (PC, G5, Acom drive, all TVs, Tivo, and VCRs), but that little change killed the Lacie.
I also have a Weibetech TrayDock that I’m quite happy with. $180 for the unit then you just buy as many hard drives as you want as file them as edit describes. The nice thing is the TrayDock is fanless, yet runs cool (think it’s the long case and metal frame), so it’s silent.

[David Bogie]

Med

[Walter Biscardi]

[bogiesan] “That could be because they make crappy drives or it could just be there are many more of them in use by video professionals and therefore we hear about them more often. But I’m not ever gonna buy one of them.”

That would be the latter. They far outsell all other models of Firewire drives, thus you hear more about them. We have about 5 of their models here that have been in use in all manner of work over the past four years.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com

Director, “The Rough Cut”
https://www.theroughcutmovie.com

Now Posting “Good Eats” in HD for the Food Network

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Ron James]

Just avoid the Porsche models and stick with the d2. I’ve had problems with the Porsche models. They get hot hot hot! The d2’s run cool and are much more durable.

G5 Dual 2.7 GHz
2 GB RAM
OS 10.4.6
FCP 5.0.4
QT 7.0.4

[Gary Adcock]

[ShootNStarz] “Are there specific Firewire Hard Drives recommended by the experts?”

Stick to the Name brands (acom is not a name in the editing world) Then your drives come with support and a warranty.

I am using mostly G-tech Drives now — all flavors of them with no problems, forced cooling, with great pricing and performance.

Also start thinking about something other than FW. As your video workflow gets more involved the need for redundancy and back up for your precious projects will become more and more necessary.

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows
Chicago, IL
gary@studio37.com

[Gary Adcock]

[ShootNStarz] “Are there specific Firewire Hard Drives recommended by the experts?”

Stick to the Name brands (acom is not a name in the editing world) Then your drives come with support and a warranty.

I am using mostly G-tech Drives now — all flavors of them with no problems, forced cooling, with great pricing and performance.

Also start thinking about something other than FW. As your video workflow gets more involved the need for redundancy and back up for your precious projects will become more and more necessary.

gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows
Chicago, IL
gary@studio37.com