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Single External Drive; FW800 or ESATA
Just got a Macbook Pro and I’ll be doing some editing from a single external 7200rpm drive in a Weibetech case. Will I see any benefit from using an ESATA connection versus FW800? I bought a Sonnet Tempo SATA Pro ExpressCard adapter, but it appears to be DOA. Anyway, started wondering if this is really going to be any faster than FW800 for a single drive. Thanks for the wisdom!
Jason Jenkins
Flowmotion Media
Video production… with style! -
9 Replies
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Essentially 2X the throughput…
I’m just about to start a long, long, long render in Apple Color, and as soon as I do I’ll run a test on my other machine to show you precisely what the difference is between a single FW-800 and a single eSATA drive. How’s that for good service?
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.comPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums. Formerly host of the Apple Final Cut Basics, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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[David Roth Weiss] “I’m just about to start a long, long, long render in Apple Color, and as soon as I do I’ll run a test on my other machine to show you precisely what the difference is between a single FW-800 and a single eSATA drive. How’s that for good service?”
That’s great service! I’m thinking I should be RMAing this SATA Pro adapter…
Jason Jenkins
Flowmotion Media
Video production… with style! -
[Jason Jenkins] “I’m thinking I should be RMAing this SATA Pro adapter…”
Did you load the latest drivers from the Sonnet website???
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.comPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums. Formerly host of the Apple Final Cut Basics, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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[David Roth Weiss] “Did you load the latest drivers from the Sonnet website???”
Yes, indeed… maybe I should try the slightly older driver that came on the disc.
Jason Jenkins
Flowmotion Media
Video production… with style! -
[Jason Jenkins] “maybe I should try the slightly older driver that came on the disc.”
That’s the opposite of what I was thinking… If you loaded the newest driver and the drive won’t mount or show in Disk Utility you may have an issue. I’d call Sonnet tech support and see what they can offer.
Meanwhile, I ran the test, and the difference between the FW-800 drive was as follows:
FW-800: Write 63.4 MB/s Read: 80.0 MB/s
eSATA: Write 65.5 MB/s Read: 120.5 MB/s
Though read speed was only about 33% faster, the test bed I used was an older G5 with an older SATA controller running at half the speed than modern SATA controllers. Both reads and writes with your new MBP should be substantially faster, with the reads (more important for video throughput) just below the 2X mark.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.comPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums. Formerly host of the Apple Final Cut Basics, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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Thanks much, David! I did call Sonnet and they didn’t offer much in the way of troubleshooting, but they did give me an RMA.
Jason Jenkins
Flowmotion Media
Video production… with style! -
Make sure you have the latest driver for the Express 34 card. Most say they are plug and play. I found that by installing the latest driver, the drive shows up.
https://www.sonnettech.com/support/kb/kb.php?cat=345&expand=&action=a3#a3
Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Vice President
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group -
Is there an echo in here???
Uh Steve, we went through that in this thread already… Please, read first, then respond. That order usually works best.
David
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.comPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums. Formerly host of the Apple Final Cut Basics, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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[Steve Eisen] “Make sure you have the latest driver for the Express 34 card. Most say they are plug and play. I found that by installing the latest driver, the drive shows up.”
Unfortunately, this one ended up being plug-and-pray; I’m praying the next one they send out actually works!
Jason Jenkins
Flowmotion Media
Video production… with style!
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