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SOS - DV Storage SNAFU
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Nov 2001
Location: New York City
Status:
Offline
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I am up against the wall with MAJOR and PRESSING storage needs. I have a Quicksilver with 2 internal Ultra ATA 80 GB drives that are filling up quickly. I'm running FCP 3.0.4, OSX.
I decided to check with "the source" and discovered that Apple does NOT recommend using Firewire with FCP, for DV or anything else. All of my footage is miniDV. This has sort of flipped me out. I can't imagine why? Am I "running the gauntlet" by going this way?
I'm looking for some feedback that (1) will make me feel comfortable about going with a Granite Firewire system using 2 Western Digital "Special Edition" 180GB Caviar Drives w/ 8MB buffers. Or, (2) will direct me to superior SCSI solutions that won't shatter my piggy bank.
The 360 GB Granite system described above will run about $1100. I'd spend up to $2000 if I absolutely had to, but then I start feeling faint when the price goes higher. Medea's systems almost gave me a heart attack.
Should I buy a few external firewire drives to store my footage and do the principal editing on the ATA drives (Seagate Barracudas 7200 RPM)? Help!
I'm looking for insights from experienced editors who have had success with Firewire storage using FCP in OS X and whose experience would back up their recs for my SNAFU.
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Nov 1999
Location: Columbus, Ohio
Status:
Offline
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sure, apple doesn't RECOMMEND it, but does it work? yes. do people do it? yes. just because apple doesn't recommend it doesn't mean it's not a fine solution. i'm sure apple doesn't recommend more than 4 ata hd's in G4's too, but there are many people out there who are doing just this with great success.
anyway, i've done exactly what you described: store DV footage on fw drives, and edit on ata. works great for me, no problems. i've even done some editing with an fw drive as scratch, works fine too. i think fw drives have the bandwith you need. i mean think about it. what's DV? like 3.6 MB/sec? for arguments sake, let's say that firewire is like 400 Mb/sec. so that's about 50 MB/sec, right? okay, we all know that with the bridge boards that are out, transfer is <50MB/sec, but still, it's more than 3.6 MB/sec. that's plenty for DV footage.
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Nov 2001
Location: New York City
Status:
Offline
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Appreciate your response.
What are the characteristics you would be looking for in an firewire HD. Basically, the Oxford chip, at least 2 MB cache and 7200 rpm are the main things I've been paying attention to, and apparently Maxtor sucks for DV. I've heard good things about Seagate and IBM, but I'm wondering if Western Digital's Special Edition rate well, though I'm having a hard time finding a review from a DV editing perspective.
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Nov 1999
Location: Columbus, Ohio
Status:
Offline
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i think the WD spec ed's with the 8mb cache should work well. get one of those, and stick with an oxford 911, and you should be good to go. i've read some posts saying that a few firewire enclosures aren't supporting the new larger HD's. i don't know what enclosures don't support them, but i do know that wiebetech have stated that they have support for the larger drives: http://wiebetech.com/products.html
also, granite digital's bridgeboards support ATA-6
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