Gtech drives 250 vs 500???

OK pals, I am finally springing for 500 gigs worth of good drivespace. Anybody ever use the 250's? I was thinking it's safer (and cheaper actually) to get 2 250s instead of one 500, in case htere's ever drive failure...

What do you think?

Thanks,

Marla, still in New York
mitchnickpictures@yahoo.com

Hello

Ive got both, the 250 Q drives are great, just got to wait for the SATA cards if you have an Intel Mac but I use mine via FireWire 800, the thing with the 500's is you have less units and power adapters,cables etc.

cheers

Derek

Hmmm. I do not have an Intel mac, and don't think I want one (scary!!!), but when I upgrade my machine I bet that's all that'll be available (true? false?)...

How long is the wait, and do you think it's a good idea? Are the SATA card ones fine with the non-intel macs too?

Can you still even buy a quad w/o that intel processor?

Thanks,

Marl

The Q drives have Sata/FW800/FW400 so you can use them on anything, The intel Sata cards should be about a month they are waiting for Intel drivers?

Lastly all Apple products are Intel based now.

Derek

Firmtek is shipping their cards now..for the Macbook Pro anyway.

[www.firmtek.com]

and yes, Quads are still out there and they dont come with Intel. The new towers are called MacPros. Those are the ones with Intel processors. They come in different flavors.

Michael Horton
-------------------

I found a 320GB Seagate Barracuda off of NewEgg for 94.99. I bought an enclousure seperately because the one it's comboed with doesn't support Firewire. So I bought a CompUSA brand one that supported Firewire 400 and USB 2.0. It runs very well.

Now I have 3 external hard drives, 2 250GB's and 1 320GB. All in the same enclosure through Firewire. I use a Firewire hub.

Benny Post

> All in the same enclosure through Firewire. I use a Firewire hub.

Hubs are generally not a good idea. Chain the drives if you have to, but putting multiple drives through a hub for video editing has been known in my experience to lead to corrupt data, dropped frames, dead drives and other fun experiences.


www.derekmok.com

>and yes, Quads are still out there and they dont come with Intel. The new towers are called MacPros. Those are the ones with Intel processors. They come in different flavors.


So are the MacPros not duals/quads because the intel processors are so much faster?

And am I right to be afraid of the intel shifteroo? How do you lovely colleagues feel about the intel revolution as it pertains to FCP?

And are they still making quads, or is it just for the time being there's stock left?

Thanks lots,

Marl

oops oops

Marla Mitchnick Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> So are the MacPros not duals/quads because the
> intel processors are so much faster?

The MacPro's all have dual - twin processors much like the Quad. Yes, they are faster than the Quad, as the top end come at essentially, 3.0 Ghz Quad.

> And am I right to be afraid of the intel
> shifteroo? How do you lovely colleagues feel about
> the intel revolution as it pertains to FCP?

FCP 5.1 is universal binary compatible and the Studio seems to be working good on MacPro and MacBook pro computers.

> And are they still making quads, or is it just for
> the time being there's stock left?


For you Adobe users , there are still Quads available, (from my store, at least) for a while.

>
> Marl

So Studio works on the MacPros? I thought Universal was the version for the Intel-processor systems. I do not get this whole picture yet.

And I was just peaking again at the G tech drives, and don't know if I should get the newer 'Q" models, more expensive but it has eSATA...

I can't even use that yet, but once I upgrade, perhaps I'll want it. At the same time it seems nutty to guess what I'll need later, as the gear changes so fast anyway...

Do the Intel processors increase the risk of virus-susceptipbility on your mac?

Thanks,

Marla

MacPro = Intel
G3, G4, G5 = Power PC

Universal means it works on all of them.

Quote

Do the Intel processors increase the risk of virus-susceptipbility on your mac?

That remains to be seen. But I guess we'll all be in whatever boat that is eventually.

Scott

No, using Intel chips will have no effect whatsoever on viruses. All that matters is the operating system (OSX, OS 9, Windows, Linux, etc.). If the operating system is vulnerable (Windows), then you get viruses. If it's less vulnerable (OS X, Linux) - and has less marketshare to attract virus writers (OS X, Linux), then no, or fewer, viruses. Chip makes zero difference.

Unless you use After Effects or Photoshop, there is no reason to not buy Intel. In fact, I DO use both those programs, and I'm going to upgrade my dual 2.0 G5 to an Intel box, because overall speed is much faster on Intel.

For example, my 1-year old, giant-sized dual G5 is SLOWER at rendering in Final Cut than my friend's Mac Intel Powerbook! (BareFeats tests back this up) If that isn't humbling to G5 owners, I don't know what is...

With the new Mac Pro's you can put more drives inside the machine up to 4 SATA so you may not need any externals and they can have 2 optical drives. They are the first models which scare people and there may be some issues I have a G3 that was a first revision and still runs today and I ran Final Cut 1 on it. So you may not have any problems at all. If you are a Photoshop pro and work with Hi Rez images with lot's of layers you may see a slow down. If your working at 72dpi it shouldn't be much of a problem and I think that the universal binaries for Photoshop are not too far off.

I'm one for building my own box' but the G-Techs are very well made. I have a couple of the mini drives with FW800.