Storage for location editing?

I have a new client that requires me to be on-site with my 17" 2.4Ghz MBP during the revision period of their show. I would like to keep all of their media and show elements all on one drive so going mobile is a bit easier to do. I edit the majority of the show in my suite and then go to their place for review. The previous editor was bringing in footage as uncompressed 8-bit, most of the footage is shot on beta SP some with P2, so I've just stayed the course with ingesting footage. I've been looking at some of the G-Raid drives since I've always had good luck with them but have also used storage from OWC. Any one try these drives yet?

[eshop.macsales.com]

I'd love to buy a CalDigit VR set-up's but just can't pull it off right now. Any suggestions???

You can afford one of these and you can't afford a CalDigit VR? The VR's are CHEAPER. You have to do more research on where you're buying. I would buy the VR (I own a 2 TB RAID)

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Yes the 2 TB systems are comparable in price. I was looking more at the price of the Mercury Elite 4TB ($695) compared to the CalDigit VR 4TB ($949).

Again...I found it cheaper for $849.00 which is only $155 more than the Mercurys:

[www.bhphotovideo.com]

You have to GOOGLE harder

For $155 difference, I would most definitely eat that and go with what I know is solid = the CalDigit VRs.

Good solid dependable storage is no place to pinch pennies.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Another option for portability, is to go on the minis.

[www.caldigit.com]

That would be bus powered, so you don't need an additional power supply. And this would be great if you are using the newer macbook pros with longer battery life and you should be able to get probably a good 4 hours off the battery before you need a recharge.



www.strypesinpost.com

[Unpaid Unrepentant Love-Letter Ensues...]

I have been left in a ditch by so many HD's - Caldigit is the only one who hasn't let me down.

When you compare it with the cost of lost hours and lost data with downmarket drives - A Caldigit in Raid 1 config is as cheap as it gets.

Don't know why you'd consider anything else.

[End Love Song]

Price be damned; I would not use bus-powered anything for mission-critical! White timelines can be embarrassing.

- Loren

Today's FCP 7 keytip:
Invoke Big Timecode window with Control-T!

Your Final Cut Studio KeyGuide? Power Pack.
Now available at KeyGuide Central.
www.neotrondesign.com

Agree with Loren...bus powered is NOT recommended for "work drives - mission critical".

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

I was bringing up an option. But general rule of thumb is to never work directly off battery, and also run the drive off a UPS. You don't want a corrupt hard drive when there is an interruption in the power supply while you are rendering, and then having to pray hard while running Disk Warrior (another thing you need to invest in).



www.strypesinpost.com

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I would like to keep all of their media and show elements all on one drive so going mobile is a bit easier to do.

I want to zoom in on this part for just a second:

No.

Whatever drive you decide on, buy twice as many as you need. Think you only need one? Buy two. Think you need four total? Order eight.

Keep everything backed up, all the time. As soon as you get a mag from the camera assistant or whatever, immediately copy it to one drive, then immediately copy it to that drive's identical twin. Even top-quality drives fail unrecoverably; it's a fact of life. Don't gamble with your client's footage.

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I would like to keep all of their media and show elements all on one drive so going mobile is a bit easier to do.

Yeah...I didn't catch that. That's not a good idea unless you are in RAID 1 or RAID 5 and are carrying around spare sleds / drives. You are risking the loss of your entire project just for the sake of portability.

Not good.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Appreciate everyone's input. Definitely will have a back-up of EVERYTHING, that goes without saying. I've been doing this way to long to know about that little tidbit.

Joe,

Probably will go the CalDigit route, although I do have a lot of loyalty towards G-Raid. Geez, just spent $199 for my Squeeze update what's another $900. I also have to upgrade my Adobe Creative Suite since the last guy did everything in CS4. If I can keep this client happy it will all pay for itself.

Loyalty doesn't mean squat if a bad batch of drives is released by the company...which is what happened to G-Technology and I never went back to them (when they were bought out by Fabrik). I have been on the same CalDigit VR ever since.

I hear you about the spending...but you said it all on your last statement: "If I can keep this client happy it will all pay for itself". We all play catch-up with the hardware / software everyday. It's part of the Post Production game. Fall behind and it hurts production. If you have clients, it is worth every penny. If you notice, most of the folks that come here are a version or 2 behind on hardware / software which usually results in problems.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

I didn't know that about G-Raid, thanks.

Do you think it's necessary to upgrade my Raid card as well? I already have one from CalDigit but I purchased it back in June 2007. It came with my MaxxDigital Raid system. My main system is a Mac Pro 3GHz DualCore.

You don't need a RAID Card for a CalDigit VR...it comes with an eSATA extender card in the box that gives you 2 ports:

[www.caldigit.com]

[www.caldigit.com]

Or...you can ask CalDigit Tech Support that RAID Card question. If it's their card, they will answer some phone questions...especially if you start it off with "I am thinking about purchasing a few of your units"

[www.caldigit.com]

I HIGHLY recommend this unit. I am using one at this very moment.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Very cool! I plan on grabbing a 4TB. Thanks again Joe for you input and everyone else for their thoughts.

I just read a review of the CalDigit VR where the user said they were able to switch between Raid 0 and Raid 1 during a project. I didn't know this was possible.

It shouldn't be. A two-drive mechanism will have twice the storage space when the drives are striped versus when they're mirrored. At the very least, one would have to modify the filesystem in ways that I don't think HFS allows.

You don't happen to have a link to that review, do you?

When I was searching for price comparisons on the CalDigit VR this blog spot showed with a comparison between the G-Raid and the CalDigit 2TB models. The part I was referring to is down in the comments section towards the bottom. After re-reading it I think the guy is just reiterating that you can switch between the two options on the CalDigit model.

Here is the link, it's from 2009.

[lfhd.blogspot.com]

You can't. Changing the RAID levels means the array has to be reformatted. I'm not sure if any drive system allows you to do that without a reformat, aside from the Drobos, which lets you add drives to the array without loss of data.



www.strypesinpost.com

Yeah...you have to set the RAID mode at the start of using it. You have to think ahead. I use my 2 TB model in a RAID 1 format (mirroring) which gives me just under 1 TB to work with (more than enough for my short form work). That means if I lose a drive in RAID 1, I just insert a new matching sled and the RAID rebuilds itself.

You are stuck in RAID 0 with the G-Raids....non-adjustable.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.