[awcopus]

A day later and the reality distortion field has definitely worn off.

Anyone notice this little tidbit:

http://www.apple.com/powermac/specs.html
"Two internal hard drive bays (1 occupied); one optical drive bay"

The consequences for video editors like me, who count on having at least two scratch discs (you never use your bootable as a scratch disc) are disappointing. Do I upgrade to a machine that will significantly affect my workflow?

Are there ways of connecting IDE drives to a Mac externally using an ATA interface (not Firewire, FCP is not rated to use Firewire Drives)? Went to sonnettech.com....but that site is down. Who else might make such an option?

I work on long projects and I need to have at least two scratch disks. No problem in my Quicksilver, and even less of a problem in the MDD Macs. But impossible with G5s? What the ... !?

This is actually a big deal to me. Spending $3000 for a machine with a no compromises motherboard would definitely be worth it if I weren't being put in the position of investing money to overcome a serious scratch disk limitation. This isn't a small thing that Rev.B machines with Panther preinstalled will address.

Reality setting in.

[nvaughan3]

My guess is that you'd have to install a SCSI card and use an external box to hide a couple of high speed SCSI drives. However that's $$$.

[scottiB]

Here's a 4-channel FW-800 card:

http://www.indigita.com/products/hos...idt800pci.html

Barefeats.com will do a test with it and a 4-bay enclosure. Perhaps, Apple will ammend its requirements for FW800 and FCP?

[InterfaceGuy]

Originally posted by awcopus:
Are there ways of connecting IDE drives to a Mac externally using an ATA interface (not Firewire, FCP is not rated to use Firewire Drives)? Went to sonnettech.com....but that site is down. Who else might make such an option?

Unless I've missed something, that G5s don't even offer IDE, only two Serial ATAs. You're only choice for more space is external Firewire or USB.

[awcopus]

Move to SCSI? For DV editing? that!

Firewire 800 is a possibility, but an as-of-yet unsupported one. It cost me $500 for a Firewire 400 dual bay external enclosure, and that thing rocks...for temporary archiving, NOT for video scratch work. FireWire 800 external solutions will be expensive.

WHAT THE FUKC WAS APPLE THINKING! .... ONE SCRATCH DISC? IN A PRO MACHINE??????!!!!!!!!!!

Cost me $99 for the Sonnet Tempo ATA/133 to connect two 200GB drives (about $360 total) inside my Quicksilver 933. I don't think the cost for a FireWire800 solution is going to be $99. If I'm lucky it will be only $500.

Apple nailed the "chip" and the "system"...but the "product" takes significant steps backward. Back from dual optical discs and back from support for AT LEAST two HDs beyond the boot disc.

How long before Apple modifies this enclosure? Seriously, can you imagine that happening in 6 months. No, I don't think so. 12 months? Maybe. But changing it enough to add support for a second scratch disc? No, it looks like that's not going to happen for a while.

Things just got a whole helluvalot faster and less convenient and more expensive.

[nvaughan3]

WHAT THE FUKC WAS APPLE THINKING! .... ONE SCRATCH DISC? IN A PRO MACHINE??????!!!!!!!!!!

Heh, my feeling exactly. Yet I'm getting flamed for that in another thread by folks who say that this will do for 95% of customers and that apple basically should not cater to folks who need more than that.

[awcopus]

Just called Apple FCP Tech Support about this issue.

Guy I spoke with was surprised to learn that the G5 only supports one scratch disk. Had to take a break from our conversation to confirm it. He immediately empathized with the issues this presents. SCSI is not a solution, it's overkill. And Firewire....

...well, the FCP4 manual notes (page 44) that you can capture to Firewire drives, but playback of significantly composited material may see performance issues. It will see issues, I can verify this from a 6 layer composit that plays back in an unpredictable hurky-jerky manner.

From personal experience and anecdotes, I would say capturing to/playback from Firewire drives is flaky even with the Oxford 911 bridge and a cutting edge (western digital caviar) drive.

So, unless FireWire 800 devices come to the rescue here, I would say this is a bonafide major problem for video editors evaluating the G5 "product." It's still shocking to me. With all of its commitment to video and empowering the boutique, desktop video entrepreneurs like me, this scratch disk limitation seems profoundly ... thoughtless.

[sith33]

Could you give me a link on the whole "final cut pro isn't rated to use firewire drives" thing? I've never heard that before, and I've done a lot of FCP work using firewire drives. I've also seen installations using multiple terrabytes of firewire drives with FCP without trouble (and this is at national cable stations and edit houses and such). You can always make your boot drive a firewire drive and use the two SATA drives as scratch too.

[Uncle Skeleton]

maybe you could boot from a firewire drive and have two internal scratch disks

[awcopus]

sith33, Apple officially recommended that FCP3 users not use FireWire drives for capture. This is published in the materials that come with FCP3. Anyone experiencing dropped frames during capture is usually trying to make a go of it with external Firewire drives. I've never run into such problems. Now, FCP4's manual (page 44) is more ambiguous. You can use Firewire Drives to capture DV, but when you start doing lots of compositing with them you may (will) see a performance hit.

I'd rather be able to continue to use the superior option presented by internal EIDE drives, or, if Apple insists, multiple internal ATA drives. But to be limited to just one such scratch disc is a big step backwards.

I use excellent external Firewire drives (Granite Digital enclosure [Oxford911 bridge] with Western Digital Caviar 200 GB drives), and even with this setup, renders take SIGNIFICANTLY longer. We're talking Al Pacino in HEAT screaming "Don't waste my motherf'ing time" delays here. Which is why I use internal EIDE drives running off a Sonnet Tempo ATA/133 card. Cheap, fast, perfect.

And now, thanks to Apple, obsolete.

Your idea about using an external HD as a startup disc is an okay idea, but it's far from optimal and not what I would describe as robust.

Bottomline here is that Apple dropped the ball with the G5 product from where I'm sitting. The only salvation might be a Firewire 800 solution, but that's going to be expensive. I am bummed out.

I SHOULD NOT BE ABLE TO BUY A POWERMAC G4 THAT HAS A SINGLE ADVANTAGE OVER THE G5.

[Eriamjh]

Hmmm. What about an external PCI-X serial ATA card connected to external S-ATA drives? They may not exist now, but in 6 months...?

And what about FW800 external drives?

Maybe the speed of the G5 will make up for it's lacking HDs. The future is ahead of us...

[Thain Esh Kelch]

There has been a lot of rumors about a serious pro machine comming soon..?
That would explain the 1-optical drive and 2 discs, problem..

[Powaqqatsi]

Originally posted by Thain Esh Kelch:
There has been a lot of rumors about a serious pro machine comming soon..?
That would explain the 1-optical drive and 2 discs, problem..

XStation ?

[OwlBoy]

Does this mean Powerbooks are Peices of **** when it comes to video editing?

-Owl

[subego]

Originally posted by awcopus:
(you never use your bootable as a scratch disc)

Is this as true as it used to be?

When I started using FCP, it really wanted to make the documents folder it's little scratch pad. I didn't like this, since, as you say, you never use your bootable as a scratch disc. I wrestled with it for awhile, but sooner or later just let the damn thing do what it wanted.

It ran without a hitch for about 2 years.

I don't disagree with you assessment of the G5's limp expandability options, I just wanted to throw out an observation.

[tooki]

One option to consider: an external IDE RAID.

They make them (for about $1000) that hold 8-12 IDE drives, and connect to the computer via SCSI. (They also make them with just 4 drives, but I don't remember the price.)

Fast, and no more expensive than a bunch of FireWire drives totalling the same capacity.

tooki

[chabig]

Apple suggest on the G5 pages that you hook up an XRaid with a fiber channel PCI card.

[turboSPE]

Originally posted by awcopus:
*snip*

The consequences for video editors like me, who count on having at least two scratch discs (you never use your bootable as a scratch disc) are disappointing. Do I upgrade to a machine that will significantly affect my workflow?

*snip*

Forgive my ignorance on the topic, but why does one need two scratch disks?

turboSPE

[OreoCookie]

I think WesterDigital has just announced a 300 gig harddrive. Would that be sufficient for video editing?

[zubro]

Well, eather SCSI, or Shop at apple.com/alacarte:

A Fibre Channel PCI card is required to connect Xserve RAID to Power Mac G5. Apple's Dual Channel 2Gb PCI Fibre Channel card ships with two 2.9-meter Copper Fibre Channel HSSDC2 to SFP (Small Form Factor Pluggable) interconnect cables. The Fibre Channel PCI card is installed in an open PCI or PCI-X slot (depending on configuration purchased) of the Power Mac G5 and the cables are used to connect to the HSSDC2 ports on Xserve RAID.

The SFP connectors on the card allow use of the included copper cabling to connect directly to Xserve RAID or a 2GB Fibre Channel switch over short distances. Optional optical cabling and SFP transceivers provide the capability of connecting the card to a Fibre Channel switch over long distances up to 500m.

et voila! ;o)

[DeathMan]

Originally posted by OwlBoy:
Does this mean Powerbooks are Peices of **** when it comes to video editing?

-Owl

Absolutely not. You don' think Apple had Video Editing in mind when they designed these machines?

If you need more than a 250GB scratch, maybe you could look into a raid situation.

Maybe one for video, one for audio? Is this what you were saying why you need 2?

[thunderous_funker]

Originally posted by turboSPE:
Forgive my ignorance on the topic, but why does one need two scratch disks?

I'm thinking the same thing. What exactly do you mean by "scratch disks"?

Do you mean storage space that can be thoroughly abused and wiped out periodically? If so, why does it have to be a physical drive? Why not just assign a partition for that purpose so your boot partition never gets ravaged by constant copying, deleting, formating, whatever?

You are limited (at present) to around 500 GB, but I would think if your project requires more space than that you should seriously be considering a RAID array or network storage. Better for redundancy too.

[awcopus]

More than one scratch disc is good for big projects. I just finished a 3 hour instructional video. I needed two 180 GB drives to make room for the assets I pulled from to make it. You never want to fill an entire drive up, because you run into performance issues, so having two scratch discs is definitely useful.

Once that was finished, I got another two drives, this time two 200 GB monsters. Each is a home to two distinct projects.

Why do I need two scratch discs? Because I'm a professional editor with lots of assets to deal with. Two drives makes it easier to manage my work.

Apple knew this. That's why they made it so easy to install multiple drives in previous PowerMacs. The G5 is a leap ahead ONLY in terms of its chip and its motherboard enhancements. As a product design....well, you tell me.

Was having dual optical drive bays a mistake? Was allowing for up to four internal HDs a product design error? Does eliminating this expandability add value to the PowerMac?

The rule should be, what you take away, you replace with something better. Apple broke this rule.

The cost of an external enclosure plus cabling and power for 4 ULTRA EIDE drives is: $603, before figuring in a hypothetical product, a PCI-X RAID controller. Probably looking at $800 here, just to keep using drives that I could plug into my current PowerMac and connect to a single $99 Sonnet Tempo card. That's ing bull !

External Firewire 800 solutions are more expensive per GB and remain "uncommented" on by Apple.

[omarv]

XRAID, XRAID, XRAID

[awcopus]

Those of you saying that if I'm using so much hard drive space I should probably spend tons more on my system are simply mistaken. Just because I have lots of assets to work with doesn't mean I should spend any more than I need to. I edit DV. I don't need the bandwidth or the RAID security offered by SCSI solutions. I just need drive space.

Why not partition the boot disk? <restrains himself before proceeding>

Because partitioning doesn't somehow change the fact that I'm subjecting my boot disk to trauma that will diminish its life expectancy and imperil the critical data in my documents folder.

The scratch disks are where the clips I capture from my DV tapes go. I use Western Digital Caviar drives with 8MB buffers. Never had one flake out on me. Apple just torpedoed my setup and has yet to provide an affordable alternative to what was a terrific, "professional" setup.

I guess my hopes ride on Firewire800 or some kind of PCI-X card that connects to a JBOD enclosure housing Ultra ATA EIDE drives ($800). D'oh.

[awcopus]

The XRaid is terrific if you're a major studio or broadcasting agency. Overkill for the DV codec. Just not applicable. Thanks for the suggestion though. I'm sure Apple would love for me to buy one. I've seen it, it's beautiful. And affordable within its target market. People who edit DV don't even consider them, though.

[thunderous_funker]

Originally posted by awcopus:
More than one scratch disc is good for big projects. I just finished a 3 hour instructional video. I needed two 180 GB drives to make room for the assets I pulled from to make it. You never want to fill an entire drive up, because you run into performance issues, so having two scratch discs is definitely useful.

Once that was finished, I got another two drives, this time two 200 GB monsters. Each is a home to two distinct projects.

Why do I need two scratch discs? Because I'm a professional editor with lots of assets to deal with. Two drives makes it easier to manage my work.

Apple knew this. That's why they made it so easy to install multiple drives in previous PowerMacs. The G5 is a leap ahead ONLY in terms of its chip and its motherboard enhancements. As a product design....well, you tell me.

Was having dual optical drive bays a mistake? Was allowing for up to four internal HDs a product design error? Does eliminating this expandability add value to the PowerMac?

The rule should be, what you take away, you replace with something better. Apple broke this rule.

The cost of an external enclosure plus cabling and power for 4 ULTRA EIDE drives is: $603, before figuring in a hypothetical product, a PCI-X RAID controller. Probably looking at $800 here, just to keep using drives that I could plug into my current PowerMac and connect to a single $99 Sonnet Tempo card. That's ing bull !

External Firewire 800 solutions are more expensive per GB and remain "uncommented" on by Apple.

Ok, I see where you're coming from.

Again, I would say that if you deal with such massive projects, you should have been using networked storage or RAID long ago. I personally would never trust one physical drive with 200GB of mission critical data. Never. Hey, I'm paid to think like that.

Most analysts agree that the current G5 case is a clear example of overkill, but with good intent. The current design should be able to handle the considerable cooling needs of G5's quite a way into the future. It might be overkill now, but it won't be with faster chips on the horizon.

So with the massive cooling considerations Apple had 2 choices:

1) Bigger towers
2) less internal storage options

Presented with the same choice, I think I would have made the same one Apple did. Considering the consumer could opt for expanded external storage options arguably easier than they could replace their office furniture to accomodate larger cases.

Can't please everyone. Something had to give.

There are also cheaper solutions to your storage problems. You G4 with 4 drives would still be a terrific file server. With one x-over cable and Gigabit ethernet (which I assume the G4 already has), you've got a massive, redudant and fast storage solution that you can tuck into any corner of the office.

[slipjack]

I agree with that... you can't have it all.

Silent (ok, quieter) running, SPEED, SPEED, did I say SPEED, Firewire 800, USB 2.0, FRONT CONNECTORS for USB/Firewire/Audio Jack, 8 GB RAM possible, 2 internal HDs..., SPEED...

Everyone will find something to complain about. Mine is that the mid-range doesn't have 2 processors.... forcing me to comtemplate the top end... but that also is good business tactics by Apple. You make the 'drool' machine the one with the highest margin.

Anyway, being a Mac user will never be cheap, that's just the facts of life. I remember paying over $3000 for my first Mac, a 180c powerbook. Extreme rip-off for what you could do with it. Now, for $3000 you can have a DV editing monster with the small caveat that you might have to fork over dough to get the external RAID to really make it pro-ready. Still, less that 4k for essentially a full non-linear editing system. That doesn't seem so bad to me.

We have a PC at work for 'video editing', which has 3 SCSI drives (yes, four internal drives..) and is only used for video/audio. I think it's about 2100+ AMD lvl processor-wise. The thing sucks. It crashes during export, it can't run Media Cleaner and After Effects at the same time, it's slow to load media and in general blows. I'm sure the whole set-up cost at least $2000, probably 3. So, for 25% more cost you get a system that is dependable and will actually DO what it's supposed to.

[Axo1ot1]

Install your OS on an external FW 800 drive and boot off that, then the two drives in the mac are free for whatever you want.

BTW SATA is fast as all hell. Might not be such an issue if you get a large capacity, high-RPM HD. Either way, just because apple doesn't oficially support firewire drives, doesn't mean you cant use them. I've done almost everything I've ever edited in FCP on external firewire drives. Just get the high end ones and they're plenty fast.

[thunderous_funker]

My advice (for what it's worth):

1) Don't buy a single cpu G5 system. Sure, it will offer comparable performace to thecurrent crop of P4 systems, but for $600 more you get to sit in a class all by yourself (except for a few very expensive high end Unix workstations). The true potential for the G5 architecture in in dual systems. In a year, you'll thank me.

2) Although you've gotten by with a cheap solution to your storage needs, I would strongly advize against continuing. 1 vital project:1 physical drive is a recipe for disaster. It's just a matter of time. Dealing with projects that big, you should be using redundancy.

3) Recycle your old Mac or PC's. File Servers don't need CPU muscle. They need bandwidth. An old Mac with decent IDE drives and a Gigabit ethernet cable is a completely bomber file server platform. Don't even have to license OS X server if you don't want to. Basic sharing or even FTP will do the trick. Or install LinuxPPC on it and watch it fly. Or you can go with x86 parts for a really low cost network storage solution. For less than $500 in off the shelf parts you could probably get half a terrabyte sitting on your network in a fast, reliable, redudant system. Archive to DVD-R for even more backup.

[awcopus]

I appreciate all of the thoughtful responses above. Some very good ideas in there. The idea of using my current machine as a file server over gigabit ethernet is an idea that I am toying with (though a close friend would be robbed of a Mac if I did that). Anyhow, thank you for taking this thread seriously.

Believe me, it's not all sour grapes on this end. I was cheering and applauding throughout the keynote. The G5 and mobo are terrific. The specs are beyond my expectations.

But when I look at the machine, and we can all see that it's a radical departure from previous Macs, I think, "why not design it from the beginning to be a no compromises machine...of the capabilities of the last generation plus so much more."

Honestly, I know perfectly well that industrial design is beyond me. All of the cost considerations, yadda yadda yadda.... I will cool off and come up with a solution, hopefully one that doesn't cost too much.

I am curious: has anyone here used Firewire 800 cards and drives while doing video editing in FCP? I have used Firewire 400 with a Granite Gear enclosure and it's significantly slower during renders than internal EIDE drives. Curious to hear about results with Firewire800.

[thunderous_funker]

No prob

Ranting is healthy from time to time. Goodness knows I do plenty of it.

Personally, I too would have liked to see more expansion in the new case. It surprised me. I wouldn't have minded a full tower enclosure if necessary, myself. Apple went with a one size fits all approach and probably erred on the side of the majority. Who knows, there may be other options down the road?

Another thing you could do is NOT work off of external drives for hardcore tasks (rendering, etc..). Move the project onto a local drive and then do your work. When you're done, move it back to a storage drive (external FW, file server, whatever).

That would add a little time to your workflow, but it would automatically introduce redundancy to the process. That way you're never working with the "original". There is always at least one other copy of the files at any one time. Screw it up and you can revert from the files on the storage drive.

That would give you some added protection from failures or crashes, and would eliminate the latency of trying to do complex manipulations on files hosted on slower external or networked drives.

[I'mDaMac]

I'd have to agree with those above who've already posted it. If you're serious about video editing then an external RAID is a no-brainer.

[Axo1ot1]

Originally posted by awcopus:
Believe me, it's not all sour grapes on this end. I was cheering and applauding throughout the keynote. The G5 and mobo are terrific. The specs are beyond my expectations.

But when I look at the machine, and we can all see that it's a radical departure from previous Macs, I think, "why not design it from the beginning to be a no compromises machine...of the capabilities of the last generation plus so much more."

Another thing to think about is putting a PCI controller in there. I'm sure there's some spot in the case that you could stick another drive or two.

[Axo1ot1]

Originally posted by thunderous_funker:

Personally, I too would have liked to see more expansion in the new case. It surprised me. I wouldn't have minded a full tower enclosure if necessary, myself. Apple went with a one size fits all approach and probably erred on the side of the majority. Who knows, there may be other options down the road?

Another excellent point. I imagine it won't be long before Apple releases an XServe with the new processors, and those have space for lots of HDs. THey're a bit pricier, but maybe it's worth waiting.

[thunderous_funker]

Originally posted by Axo1ot1:
Another excellent point. I imagine it won't be long before Apple releases an XServe with the new processors, and those have space for lots of HDs. THey're a bit pricier, but maybe it's worth waiting.

Dude, you are so on it. The G5 XServe could be one outrageous box. Even my boss (our intel-centric CTO) think he might spring for one to replace a few linux boxes we have doing various tasks around the enterprise.

G5 XServe is going to be lucious. You might hold out for one of these, awcopus.

[bartman00]

I am pumped up about these new G5's even though I'm still 6-9 months away form actually buying one but I totally have to agree with you guys. I was so glad Apple finally put 2 optical drives in the old MDD and was like "WTF" when the new G5 only has one. This is not a freeken eMac... it's a PRO TOWER! *sigh* I just don't get it! Why do they keep letting form win over function? Would it really have killed them to add a little to the top, make it so you could mount 2 more hard drives and one spare optical? Would it have thrown off the carma or something that much?

Now to offer an idea.... from the pix on Apples www site of the open side of the new G5 it looks like you could make some mounting brackets and mount 2 drives to the left of the pci slots. Looks like there's plenty of room and not that hard, drop in a pci ide controller and bamb.. 4 drives.

Not the best but it seems with Apple many times we have to simply work with what we have.

Bart

[awcopus]

Thunderfunk, my protection from crashes are a pair of drives in a Firewire enclosure that mirror the contents of the drives I do my editing on inside my Quicksilver. In other words, I'm covered for data loss. At most, I lose a day's worth of work, and this has never happened.

Mr. I'mDaMac, how many different ways can I say this. I don't need an external RAID for DV editing. Yes, I'm serious about what I do. No, I don't need RPMs above 7200 or RAID security. It's called return on investment, and I get none if I'm editing DV and investing thousands in SCSI equipment. Yes if I were working for broadcasters, yes if I were doing anything with HD, but I'm not.

My rant is officially over, and I'm psyched to put together a solution.

Today I called Sonnet Technologies and they informed me that all of their engineers are at WWDC picking apart the new machine and coming up with ideas for nextgen products. The guy I spoke with laughed when I described my problem and said something about how incredibly premature the call was, though he appreciated my eagerness to put together something. Granite Digital was also gracious and helped me identify a few affordable (sub$1000) options that they could furnish. Apple's tech guys were good-humored, too, though they did get a little defensive about the new machine. Tomorrow I'll be calling 3ware and Promise Technologies to discuss PCI-X controller cards and SCSI to EIDE converters.

And then there's the Mac community coming through here and on other boards with useful insights.

I will assemble an affordable and effective solution by the time I upgrade to a G5, which I've decided to do once they ship with Panther preinstalled and are available everywhere.

[awcopus]

bartman, the issue there becomes power. The G5 officially only supports one optical drive and two hard drives, so there may only be power in there for one additional device. One can hope. Time will tell, I guess.

Yeah. If it had been a little longer here, wider there, we'd have room for that third HD and second optical drive.

Of course, one could buy a $1700 dual 1.25 G4 right now and have that dream for a year before upgrading to a dual 3 GHz machine. Hmmmm.....

[Gul Banana]

Awcopus, if you can live with the insecurity of only having a single scratch disk (since you have that external mirroring going on), why not just get a really big one? You can use the builtin 160 GB SATA drive for your apps, os, etc, then get a single extra 500 GB SATA drive. If you had 2 200 GB ATA-133 drives before then 500 GB SATA is not exactly a step down...

[mathew_m]

I'm waiting for a 2nd rev. enclosure. Obviously they had to cut corners to get all of that power in there but why not make it a few inches taller I wonder. I don't buy into thunder's opinion on form factor. Most pro users would find a way to fit this under their desk. Where the hell are they going to put theses external drives? The closet? Also I don't buy into his saying that we should invest in expensive Raid devices. We're DV editors because we have to work within the constraints of budget. Duh.

Anyway for the time being my fledgling vid biz will have to suffice being run off my iMac. Firewire's been good to me so far.

[k2director]

Personally, I think you're making a big deal out of the idea of capturing to your main internal drive (drive A). I've always done this, and know many many editors who do the same thing. If you were working with uncompressed video, I could see some issues. But DV? Not really. I don't see how this risks your important files in your Documents folder. Hard drives aren't that fragile. If those documents are so important, then you should have a regular backup routine going regardless.


Yes, it's too bad the G5 can't take more than 2 drives. But it's hardly a major oversight for video editors as a species. There are plenty of workarounds. Especially in the DV world.

[Superchicken]

Ultimately you could just get another FW HD to store your boot disk and junk on, you can get some pretty huge ones, and then just stick your two scratch disks on the inside. Is it a very good solution? Nope, should you have to... nope. But utlimately it could be worse... you could be using a pentium 4

[OreoCookie]

Originally posted by awcopus:
More than one scratch disc is good for big projects. I just finished a 3 hour instructional video. I needed two 180 GB drives to make room for the assets I pulled from to make it. You never want to fill an entire drive up, because you run into performance issues, so having two scratch discs is definitely useful.

Once that was finished, I got another two drives, this time two 200 GB monsters. Each is a home to two distinct projects.

Why do I need two scratch discs? Because I'm a professional editor with lots of assets to deal with. Two drives makes it easier to manage my work.

Apple knew this. That's why they made it so easy to install multiple drives in previous PowerMacs. The G5 is a leap ahead ONLY in terms of its chip and its motherboard enhancements. As a product design....well, you tell me.

Was having dual optical drive bays a mistake? Was allowing for up to four internal HDs a product design error? Does eliminating this expandability add value to the PowerMac?

The rule should be, what you take away, you replace with something better. Apple broke this rule.

The cost of an external enclosure plus cabling and power for 4 ULTRA EIDE drives is: $603, before figuring in a hypothetical product, a PCI-X RAID controller. Probably looking at $800 here, just to keep using drives that I could plug into my current PowerMac and connect to a single $99 Sonnet Tempo card. That's ing bull !

External Firewire 800 solutions are more expensive per GB and remain "uncommented" on by Apple.

Ok, you can boot your Mac off a FireWire drive. How about getting a small FireWire hd and put two large disks in your PowerMac? Say two 250 gig drives?

Just boot off the FireWire drive. I would also partition one of the internal drives with a small OS X partition, just in case.

Would that solve your problems.

[Gee4orce]

You did see the Firewire 800 performance figures didn't you ? Data transfer was something like 42Mb/sec - a few Mb short of the theoretical limit of the actual disk drive.

I know FW800 drives are thin on the ground and more expensive, but I do think that this is the route forward. Firewire was developed to be isochronous, specifically for time critical apps like video and audio.

Don't forget that the G5 has a whole new bus architecture that probably cures alot of potential problems capturing to FW400 on the old G4s.

We just won't know until we see a direct comparison with the order machines.

[ngrundy]

I'd listen to what Sonnet is saying.

It is premeture to be panicing.

EIDE is a pretty poor disk standard. you can only access one device at a time on a IDE chain.

SATA has the advantage that each disk had it's own dedicated connection into the controller.

Add on the fact that SATA runs at 150mb/sec in comparison to the 100mb/sec or 133mb/sec of each EIDE bus.

[�tomic]

Two words - G5 XServe

Its the only clean efficient way to do what you want. What you said about not investing thousands in SCSI equipment makes sense. But doesnt it also make sense to not be the early adopter here and wait until proven reliable solutions are out there. Most pro's would take this course of action before commiting their workload to something unknown.

Just my 0.02c

[Mac Zealot]

Why are you making such a big deal out of it, the powermac g5 has it's PCI slots on the top like on the MDD so you could tsick in an SATA or ATA133 card, take another PCI cover off, and route SATA (and with extensions, power cables) out the back and onto the top.

Put your hard drives in external enclosures and h4x0r them a little to fit the sata cable through, there you go. Problem solved.

It's definately not pretty but with long enough cables you could have a CHEAP external raid

[Cipher13]

Originally posted by Mac Zealot:
Why are you making such a big deal out of it, the powermac g5 has it's PCI slots on the top like on the MDD so you could tsick in an SATA or ATA133 card, take another PCI cover off, and route SATA (and with extensions, power cables) out the back and onto the top.

Put your hard drives in external enclosures and h4x0r them a little to fit the sata cable through, there you go. Problem solved.

It's definately not pretty but with long enough cables you could have a CHEAP external raid

That is hardly an acceptable, nor marketable solution.

I do that on my Sawtooth to a CDRW, and it is a pain in the ass.

[nerd]

All you guys that say to buy XRAID have to much money and need to send it to me. Even at my TV station we wouldn't have bought an XRAID when we had a budget for 2 new systems to upgrade Media 100's. I would have loved to put 2 73gig SCSI drives inside the Dual 1.42 but heat was already a problem with the Media 100 cards locking up. I had to go spend more money to get an external case, cable, etc. Now I admit an XRAID shared by the two Media 100's would have been great but we didn't have the budget and this is a corporation, not Awcopus money (unless he's rich).

Maybe the 2 drive limit in the new machines is with SATA standard? Can you only put one drive per channel with SATA? This would explain why only two drive bays since it would cost more for more SATA controllers.

One more thought, why not capture to the startup drive? This isn't 1990 with AVIDs and slow drives. DV data rate is (rounded up) 4MB/sec and your drive can maintain a sustained rate of (guessing) at least 40MB/sec. What's the problem? Don't make it harder on yourself and your wallet, the technology is and has been there to allow you to do DV work with ATA drives. If you concerned about backup, make sure your tapes are labeled and you backup the project files. Then if the bad happens just restore your project file and re-dig the video from your labeled tapes. We've had to do this at work, having everything labeled makes things very easy.

Brad