tips - External Hard Drive

Hi,

I'm starting out with the FCPHD on my Powerbook 17" ... and realise that i actually do need an external Hard Drive

- can you suggest the models i should look at? something that has been used by most and hence known to be RELIABLE with a good memory range as I'm editing a wedding video with a whopping 10 hours of footage (though i may not digitse all of it in, but still thats alot of footage) - and yet CHEAPish (as i'm on a limited budget)

I'd put a seagate into a wiebetech enclosure.

Ian

oops - hit enter too quickly. Also get a fw 800 bus card. run the drive off the card, and the deck off the internal powerbook bus.

Ian

> can you suggest the models i should look at? something that has been used
> by most and hence known to be RELIABLE with a good memory range as I'm
> editing a wedding video with a whopping 10 hours of footage (though i may
> not digitse all of it in, but still thats alot of footage) - and yet CHEAPish (as i'm
> on a limited budget)

I've used a WiebeTech on an assistant job and it's behaved pretty well. I'm a big fan of Promax drives (five years and the first one I ever bought, a 42GB, still mounts with a perfect record). Ian's right in terms of FireWire 800 -- much faster -- but the downside is that a FireWire 800 drive still won't mount just anywhere, and might be a bigger investment than you need for now.

Ten hours of footage is really nothing to be worried about. It'll take about 26GB of footage -- even an obsolete 120GB drive can handle that easily.

It *will* be cheaper if you buy the drive and the chassis on your own and then put them together yourself. However, I still find Promax drives (which they assemble for you) the most stable, though not the cheapest option. Right now the cheapest one they have (www.promax.com) is a 160GB for $159 -- if your future projects are all going to be in the 10-hour range, it's a pretty good one, though I'd usually advise people to get the biggest one they can afford. In your case, portability is also an asset -- you probably wouldn't want to get a huge 1TB SATA array which bogs down your laptop.

But try to avoid Lacie's BigDrives. Though it seems to be the preferred brand of Apple Stores, Lacie drives are unstable, heavy and more prone to dying.

10 hours DV is about 130 GB plus about the same for render files so that is about 260 GB total



God Bless,

Douglas Villalba
director/cinematographer/editor
Miami, Florida

[www.DouglasVillalba.info]
[www.youtube.com]
[vimeo.com]

Holy CRAP, I don't know where my head was at when I wrote 26GB (pipe dream?). Sorry about that. 26 GB for 10 hours would be at a super-super-compressed quality setting.

Still, I doubt if you'll need 100GB for render files. Depends on the project. If it's a short film with a high shooting ratio, 40GB would probably do you fine for renders. Add to 130GB for media, plus 20-30GB of safety space, you could consider the Promax 220GB, if you add the portability issue (if it is one). Otherwise, maybe a 500GB array, though two 220GB drives might be less cumbersome than one 500GB.



Post Edited (06-16-05 12:57)


www.derekmok.com

<<I'd put a seagate into a wiebetech enclosure.>>

Yup. I've also had good luck with the OWC enclosures. And they introduced some slick looking aluminum cases today.
[eshop.macsales.com]

<<Also get a fw 800 bus card. run the drive off the card, and the deck off the internal powerbook bus.>>

Ditto.

<<But try to avoid Lacie's BigDrives. Though it seems to be the preferred brand of Apple Stores, Lacie drives are unstable, heavy and more prone to dying.>>

/agree.



- Justin Barham -

gee thanks guys! thats heaps helpful ) as a beginner i'm just boggled by the range of fandangled new gizmoes and gadgetry flashing everywhere ... so thank heavens for the INTERNET! and sites like this ) !

Quote

Lacie drives are unstable, heavy and more prone to dying.

Yikes! I just bought a Lacie 500 GB. It was cheap though. Like $364 at zipzoomfly.com

Hey, just because they die easier doesn't mean they are doomed. Take good care of your Lacie (eg. don't hot-mount it, don't daisy-chain it with a deck, do a proper, full format before you use it, run DiskWarrior maintenance) and its life expectancy will probably improve considerably.

If it is the FW800 like the one I have, it is the fastest I have including the internal apple drive.



God Bless,

Douglas Villalba
director/cinematographer/editor
Miami, Florida

[www.DouglasVillalba.info]
[www.youtube.com]
[vimeo.com]

We have a stack of Other People's Drives on the G5. It's a fine selecton. Maxtor, RocStor, Western Digital, Homemade Seagate.

By far the worst job we had was when somebody walked in with a new LaCie 233G. We mounted it on its own 800 FireWire port and the AJA on a card. No other connections.

It captured live video exactly once and then started dropping frames one capture after another. We gave up and captured to an internal drive and tried to push the work over to the LaCie.

It was a very large (22G) capture file and half-way through, the drive crashed and took the G5 with it. It's the first time I ever saw the G5 so wedged up that it took the Panic Power Button to shut it down. I've also never seen the G5 with a frozen screen, no keyboard or mouse and the vent fans screaming full speed.

I let everything cool off for a half-hour and finished the transfer.

I'm recommending strongly that the client put the stupid thing on Ebay.

Koz

<<Yikes! I just bought a Lacie 500 GB. It was cheap though. Like $364 at zipzoomfly.com>>

On the postive side, some people have had no problems at all with them.


<<I've also never seen the G5 with a frozen screen, no keyboard or mouse and the vent fans screaming full speed.

I let everything cool off for a half-hour and finished the transfer.>>

The fan control depends on software, so when the OS freezes it defaults to full speed, which can be startling. It doesn't necessarily mean the machine was very hot.



- Justin Barham -

It's impossible to tell if this was the case in Koz's expereince - but I had a client bring in a lacie that was behaving oddly. I asked what he did with it - he took it out of the box and plugged it in - and that was it. It had already been PC formated - and that was what it was running - the factory pc partition. I put HFS + on and it behaved MUCH better.

So - it's not ALWAYS the hardware's fault.

Ian

<<<The fan control depends on software, so when the OS freezes it defaults to full speed, which can be startling. It doesn't necessarily mean the machine was very hot.>>>

Oh, I don't think the Mac was hot for a second. Our system is extraordinarily well behaved and has been for years. I suspect the LaCie was having transfer problems from either actual disk issues or possibly heat. It wasn't remotely full. OSX stepped on the drive and it threw up taking the OS with it. OSX/UNIX doesn't much like ratty mounts.

I spoke with the client and he admitted that he had had some of the same experiences but then the drive settled down to normal operation. I told him if we did any more work I would be pleased to deliver it on one of our drives.

Koz