OT - simpletech FW drive problems

here is some ongoing info in the debate over whether or not FW drives are the way to go. a friend of mine set up her g5 (not for video however) with an external simpletech FW drive and shes already having problems with it. the drive wont mount after the cpu returns from sleep mode...

and the one sure fire thing here. the drive does NOT use the oxford chipset.

i think that may be the biggest culprit in the ongoing unhappiness with FW drives.

i checked all my promax drives and they have it. i checked my little $99 FW enclosure i got at my local computer store and it has it.

I've always found Macs to have shaky Sleep modes. In the old G3/G4/G5 lab I worked in, some of them become Sleeping Beauties, requiring a restart Prince to kiss 'em back to life. I always turn off all my computers' Sleep and Energy Saver options. If I want to rest the computer, I just shut it down.

That said, your friend formatted the drive before using it, right?

of course she did. when she called me and told me her boss had bought this crap for her i said - "dont move, i'll be right over!" their IT dude is this anti-mac dude who immediately installs all kinds of norton and timbuktu crap. i had to get there before he screwed it all up...

ITs -- the sworn enemies of editors. "Oh, don't touch that stuff, I'll organize your files for you." "I upgraded all your software for you because I suppose your film person's intellect can't deal with the Software Update function." In your dreams, sucker!

Good thing you stepped in. Before the guy formatted the drive as PC...because Macs can read PC-format drives, right?

been there my friend. too many times to count. why these "tech" dudes cant get their head around some simple facts is one of my ongoing nightmares...

Superiority complex. ITs deal with computer-illiterates (guys who get blinded looking at the bottom of mice, straight into the laser) so often that they assume nobody else knows as much as they. Well, good editors do, in terms of how to set up a system for our jobs.

I never trust Apple Store people on Final Cut Pro facts, because these people don't use this application everyday like we do. These aren't the guys who do 20-hour marathon editing sessions and pay the price for a little mistake made at 10AM this morning, or on January 20th this year. There's certain "folk wisdom" that all of us get along the way that keeps us sane.

I told this story once before: Chrysler Million Dollar Film Festival Extreme Filmmaking Contest. Being an Avid XPress DV newbie, I asked for the standard laptop two weeks in advance to get familiarized, and implemented my file-management system. When the Avid techies gave us our lessons, the technician re-organized my files without asking permission or even telling me. It was at 9PM the night before our delivery deadline when I found out that, because of his meddling, I'd been backing up the wrong project file to our CD-RW, which meant I had no backups at all. Thank God the project file was still good and it wasn't because of a problem that I noticed the issue, or we would've been *&%$ed. I always liked to warn students with this story: You can't always trust even experts.