[Mike Albertini]

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for your help…much appreciated.

Cheers

Mike

[Mike Albertini]

Hi Grant,

Not sure about my WD usb one, but the OWC is a Mercury Elite Pro and does go up to 7200rpm…esata will work with my mac pro but the firmtek card i was looking at and which sold for around $!00 didnt improve the speed of transfer from the OWC to a fairly old mac pro like mine compared to the firewire 800 connection on the OWC…according to an article i read…that’s why i thought twice about buying it and eventually didnt…so do i untick the boxes next to the OWC scratch disk in system settings once ive copied the files over and set the caviar black as the third scratch disk?

Thanks
Mike

[Mike Albertini]

Thanks to you both for getting back to me…
So, after ive copied all the files from the OWC to the caviar black and then added the caviar black as the third scratch disk in fcp7, do I untick all of the boxes next to the OWC scratch disk or just leave them ticked? (considering the OWC still has 1.8 TB of space left, I’m thinking untick, but just want to make sure)
Btw, the WD drive was USB 2 and the OWC was firewire 800…I thought about getting an esata card for the OWC drive but read it wouldn’t work that well on my Mac Pro (4-core) 1st Gen – 2006-2007…and am planning on upgrading my mac in the autumn to a new mac pro with thunderbolt…
Btw, I downloaded the AJA disk utility and ran the tests a few times…for disk read/write on 720×486 8-bit (file size 128 mb) the OWC firewire 800 drive recorded on average – write: 55mb/s and read: 55.5 mb/s….the WD usb2 drive – write: 27.8mb/s and read: 36.9mb/s…
This is really slow isn’t it?…the internal caviar black is running at 130mb/s for both read/write…Any idea why the externals are being so slow?…I paid $247 for the OWC 2TB drive thinking it was fairly high performance and am now thinking I wasted my money and should have just gone for a WD firewire 800 for half the price…or perhaps a G-Raid…

[Mike Albertini]

Hi Tom,

Only just seen this…probably too late but thought i’d reply just in case…in the end i went for two 1TB caviar black internal hard-drives and for an external hard-drive went for the OWC Mercury Elite Pro…I’ve found the Caviar Blacks pretty quick and am happy with them…only thing is i would perhaps buy one 2tb internal hard-drive instead of two 1tb ones considering the limit on storage inside the mac pro…the reason why i didnt buy that was because i read a post which suggested the 2tb ones were less reliable and it was a lot of stuff to lose if the worst happened…in terms of the OWC, I’m happy with it, although would rather it automatically switched itself on and off when my system goes to sleep and wakes up…rather than me having to manually turn it on and off all the time…pain in the arse…i might get used to it though…other than that happy with that too…

Mike

[Mike Albertini]

Hi Tony,

Thanks for the advice…I had a look at everything again and have decided that the caldigit is too expensive as an external hard-drive at the moment and the g-raid has a few negative comments and is quite expensive too…having looked at what you recommended…the owc mercury elite external hard-drive…and having read good things about it..(and its slightly cheaper)…i might go with it…and looked into the sata 600 cards and found this one by firmtek which looks like it will do the job without spending too much…
https://firmtek.stores.yahoo.net/satae6g.html
What do you think?…

And with regards to the internal hard-drives, take your point on the e-sata 600 again and have found some wd caviar black internal hard-drives which are capable of 6gb/s…think i’ll get two of these…
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Digital-WD1002FAEX-Caviar-Internal/dp/B0036Q7MV0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1299023984&sr=8-1

My question is, will they work at the full 6gb/s off the bat or will i have to use something like these wires?…
https://www.amazon.co.uk/SATA-POWER-ADAPTER-CABLE-DATA/dp/B000ITL1PG/ref=pd_bxgy_computers_text_b

Ive read about these wires too which use the e-sata ports behind the fan inside the mac pro but the arent compatible with my mac…
https://www.newertech.com/products/esata_cable.php

Do you know what i need to do to make these internal hard-drives work at 6gb/s?…Anyway, as you can gather i’m still learning and just trying to have as good a system as possible on a budget, so yep am just looking for confirmation that i can make the internal hard-drive with e-sata 600 work at 6 gb/s…and how i do this…i now of course just need to up-date them to thunderbolt next week, get a 12-core mac with avid as an alternative editing system, scratch to grade my red footage, nuke and a besotted angelina jolie on e to suck my cock every day while i work….

Cheers,

Mike

[Mike Albertini]

Hi Tony,

Thanks for the reply…really appreciate your input…just wondering, is there a particular e-sata card you could recommend?

Thanks,

Mike

[Mike Albertini]

Hi Stephen,

Thats ok…the black round shape is on the cracker, which is on the blue sandwich box, on the white chair, at the bottom of the screen – its a black blob which is meant to replicate marmite – a tangy jam like substance we have in England…having used the shape tracker to keep the black blob on the cracker, the shape works fine for the first six seconds, but then as the hand goes near it, the shape disappears – it is in the last second of the clip it disappears – i’m wondering why it happened as it seemed a pretty simple track and the hand doesnt even touch the shape…is it because the tracker in motion is crap or some other reason..? Hope you’re feeling better…

Thanks,

Mike

[Mike Albertini]

Hi Stephen,

Ok, I’ll try doing the last part manually…btw, the problem is in the last second of this seven second clip, so its after around six seconds the shape is erased…can you please take a closer look and let me know what you think…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sy1jOqaI2kQ&feature=player_embedded

Thanks,

Mike

[Mike Albertini]

Hi Stephen,

Thanks for getting back to me…I meant the shape is going bad at the end…here’s the clip…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sy1jOqaI2kQ

Thanks,

Mike

[Mike Albertini]

Hi Ty,

Thanks for the feedback…Having had a look at the Audio Technica ATH- M50, I’m considering buying them, as I’ve read a few negative things about the Sony’s…just a quick question…you say you use the Audio Technica mostly in the studio…I’ll be using them mostly on location…Would they still be a good choice?

Thanks,

Mike