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LeeG · Jul 1, 2001, 02:28 PM

Hey all

I am looking for an additional hard drive to put into my G4/500 (AGP/Sawtooth) mostly for final cut pro. I have an Apple Store SCSI card (factory installed), what is my best option as far as price/speed/size? External firewire is always possible, but it seems I will get faster data with a 7200rpm ATA-66 internal drive, no? Can I install an internal firewire drive on this machine? What about an internal SCSI or external scsi?

Any help is appreciated

Lee

nonhuman · Jul 1, 2001, 04:37 PM

It really depends on what the SCSI card you have is. If it's a regular old SCSI card then an Ultra ATA/EIDE drive will actually be faster. If it's an Ultra 2 SCSI card then an Ultra 2 SCSI drive would be the way to go. However a Firewire drive would probably be the best choice. It will give you plenty of speed, will be compatible with future computers, and if you get an external one will be portable. I'm not sure if you can put an internal Firewire drive on your motherboard however, it's either the last to have an internal Firewire port, or the first not to. If you do want to get an internal drive over an external I would suggest finding out about that port, you can either ask around or just pop open the side and check.

Stogieman · Jul 1, 2001, 04:44 PM

If I were you, I'd get the internal 7200rpm ATA/EIDE drive. They are fast enough to do video and are cheaper compared to firewire or SCSI drives. You can get a 60gig or 75gig drive pretty cheap now. IBM makes the best ATA drives so I'd go with them.

GetSome681 · Jul 1, 2001, 04:44 PM

I have a SCSI card that I use for my CD-R, but, I'm not going to be getting a SCSI hard drive, b/c there won't be any drivers for my SCSI card under OS X. So, if your card won't be upgradeable to OS X, and you plan on moving to X, then you may want to stay clear of SCSI, but you did say that your card was factory.

It's getting to a point where the newest IDEs can definitely keep up with, and sometimes can beat the SCSIs. The only thing I reallly like about the SCSIs are the 10k speed, but those get hot, and not sure if you'd need another fan in that G4 cast, i doubt it though.

However, there are some IDEs that significantly stand out, the IBM Deskstars....like you said, most of the newest 7200 EIDE drives are really good, and I personally have 2 20GB 7200 ATA/66 drives, and they perform well for this function. However, EVERYONE marvels at the IBM Deskstar 60GXP. And, I personally need a new hard drive, since I'm out of room, and I have been looking and looking, browsing all the deal sites, and just came across this. http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduc...ion=22-145-002
I've ordered from them before, and this is a great price for this drive. Being totally truthful with you, I just ordered this drive 25 minutes before I am responding to you. I would definitely go with this drive. It's the absolute best you can get before you get to the $$$ SCSI 10k drives. And, it's 40GB, which is a good size, not the 80 GB I wanted, but those aren't in my price range yet, and, I'd rather have a 40 in this drive, rather than an 80 in any other drive. This drive is your answer. If you want some talk about this drive, and about newegg, here's a link to anandtech forum... http://forums.anandtech.com/messagev...hreadid=482661

Hope this helps, and man, I can't wait for my drive to come in about Thursday...I'll have to be selling one of my 20s though for space...If anyone wants a Maxtor 7200 20 GB, that has never had any problems, email me, I'll looking at getting around 50-60 for it.

Paul S · Jul 1, 2001, 09:27 PM

SCSI isn't worth it, too much money for speed you don't need. Digital Video only requires about 3.4MB/s, so technically any drive would work. Beyond that, you are paying for faster file transfer rates.

Internal ATA is the cheapest solution, but FireWire is probably the most convenient. New FW drives have been shipping over the past couple months with the Oxford 911 bridge chipset which makes FW drives finally perform the way they should, sustaining around 34MB/s. That is ample speed for video, plus the already mention benefits of portability and moving to newer computers down the road.

I personally have a 75GB IBM Deskstar in my G4 and love it. I will soon be buying an external LaCie (which uses the Deskstar mechanism) 75GB for the raw storage space (I make 2 hour plus digital movies so this is a must) and to be portable to hook to the Macs of the other people in my production company.

LeeG · Jul 1, 2001, 10:05 PM

Thanks for all the advice - I think a strong point has been made as to portability of firewire devices - the idea of getting a new tower or a TiBook and being able to simply plug the drive I had into it is too appealing to get an internal drive.

I will look into the 75G LaCie, does anyone know anything about ezquest cobra drives??
www.ezq.com - they seem reasonable, and fast
http://www.ezq.com/1-714-694-0031/products02a.htm

What do you think?

Lee