[smelias]

Hi all!

I am back on the forums after experiencing multiple problems with my refurb dual 2.0, but now Apple has made it all good and I am fired up!

This machine is awsome. My final purchase price was $1,750 after they refunded me $250 for not providing a R9600 card and instead shipped it with a N5200. So far no problems, it is fast, quiet and stable.

Now that I am all setup, I am going to start importing all my DV movies. I have about 30 tapes, which equals about 30hrs. I have an 160gb internal HD and two 120gb and 300gb Maxtor external HD's. I am hoping that I could use the 300gb to capture all my DV's in iMovie or Final Cut Express. Is that doable using either program?

Also, I was wondering if I could setup the two external HD's as a RAID, or is that only for the internal SATA drives.

Also, has anybody had success with those products that allow you to install additional internal SATA drives? It appears like they are relatively easy to install and setup as RAID drives.

Thanks in advance for your responces.

[smelias]

Wow! Two days and still no responces. I guess everybody is hooked on the new G5's which are starting to arrive.

Well, when everybody is done looking at the pictures and discussing how cool the new G5's are, could you please respond to my post.

Thanks

[bryoung]

Well as far as importing your tapes you are looking at 1 Gig of space for every 4.5 min of tape. 30 hours of tape is 1800 min. So you are looking a 400 Gigs of space.

The RAID part I don't know much about but from what I have read all of your drives must be the same. So you could probably raid you two 120 drives.

Hope this helps. Let me know about the raid cause im thinking about doing it myself.

[webb3201]

Do you need RAID? Sounds like space will be critical for you, maybe you should just run the two as individual drives. I am not sure if external drives can be setup for raid, but you can simply give it a shot and see what happens.

[willab]

I have heard of dropped frames when capturing to a firewire drive. I recommend capturing to the internal drive as much as it can take then moving the files to the external drives. I do this a lot and usually import to an internal drive, then each night I run compressor to get the mp2s and trash the movs.

[Briareus]

Hey there! Glad the stress level is reduced and you're up and running again.

I'm not much into DV (yet) but as far as storage goes, the internal HD expansion chassis seems to be getting good reviews:

http://www.macaddict.com/issues/0408/rev.g5jam.html

It actually replaces the G5's plastic air baffle.. I'd think adding 2 or 4 SATA drives there might result in heat issues but my casual search didn't turn up anything. Quite a large amount of fast storage is possible with this thing (of course a loaded one will cost quite a bit).

[smelias]

Originally posted by webb3201:
Do you need RAID? Sounds like space will be critical for you, maybe you should just run the two as individual drives. I am not sure if external drives can be setup for raid, but you can simply give it a shot and see what happens.

Webb,

I believe that I read your article about being a gadget junkie and you were going to give up buying any gadget for a year.

If it is really you, then I want to let you know that your article was inspiring to me. My wife makes me feel like I am a nut, and sometimes I wonder if I am, but at least I no longer feel alone. You and I have the same addiction.

Anyway, how's it going?

[smelias]

Originally posted by Briareus:
Hey there! Glad the stress level is reduced and you're up and running again.

Thanks!

I have resolved all know issues and I am now loving it. I especially like the fact that my refurb came with an 8x DVD-R drive.

The only complaint is that it only has room for one additional drive. That is a big no-no for a system developed for multimedia use.