[Daniel Flanagan]

Excellent, thanks for the help guys! Though I still have many more questions. I realize a quad interface would be useful simply because it gives me the eSATA option & backwards compatibility through FW & USB, but what about if I plan on occasionally working in FCP “on the road”, when I won’t necessarily have external power sources available? I know you can’t set scratch disk settings on a per project basis, so wouldn’t I need to have my drive with me wherever my computer goes? Or can I use a separate, portable HDD as my “on the road” drive and simply change scratch disk settings whenever required? I was looking at the OWC Mercury On-The-Go-Pro drives, and I could get a 320GB, 7,200 rpm unit with a 16MB cache, but I’d be limited to FW800 as my fastest connection. I guess what I’m asking is would I be running noticeably slower if I use a FW800 connection on a drive with a 16MB cache rather than eSATA on a drive with a 32MB cache? Also, is it true that a. eSATA isn’t hot swappable, i.e. must have computer off to connect or disconnect drive, and b. that if I go FW800 and get an ExpressCard/34 so I can have a second bus, that the bus won’t be powered? What if I go the desktop route and do a RAID 0 configuration over eSATA….would that be tons faster than a single drive? Finally, my computer, a year old top end MBP, only has a 5,400 rpm drive in it. Would I greatly benefit from installing a 7,200 rpm drive?

Thanks,
-Daniel