RatVega
Enthusiast
Sep 17, 2005, 1:59 PM
Post #5 of 6
(1016 views)
Shortcut
|
|
Re: [jamie mc] 1TB External Hard Drive Recommendations?
[In reply to]
|
Can't Post
|
|
If I read your tag line correctly, you're on an iMac and a PowerBook. This means whatever you get will want to be a FireWire drive. SATA is faster and less expensive, but would pose interface problems.
For FireWire 800 drives, check first that both machines are supported (I'm uncertain about the PowerBook.)
LaCie has sold a lot of big drives over the last couple of years, and there have been a lot of reports regarding compatibility and reliability. This may be purely statistical (more sales = more problems) but deserves a note of caution. There are known problems with LaCie and PowerMac G5s.
It is actually quite easy to build your own FW drives - all it requires is a case/power supply, a "bridge" card (which translates from ATA/EIDE to FW, usually supplied with the case) and a couple of parallel ATA/EIDE drives. A lot of the expense is in the case/bridge, so the trick is in finding an inexpensive case for multiple drives.
An alternative is to use a "hot swap" case that allows the removal of the drive. The actual disk resides in an inexpensive holder (we call them "sleds".) If you have several sleds and a single case, you can use them like you would if you had a floppy drive and a few 250-500GB floppy disks (only more reliable.  )
RAID is a good solution for speed requirements or the need for huge monolithic storage space. Mine is a single logical 1,000 GB drive. The down side is that externals are a bit expensive to build (case requirements) and large arrays of FW drives don't perform nearly as well as SATA or SCSI. A second downside issue is that unless a RAID5 is instituted, the data is fairly fragile. RAID5 controls are either costly or slow, sometimes both. I run RAID0 with FW back-up, a little spendy but versatile. But then, I'm into the RAID for speed.
I guess my bottom line recommendation is that you try to understand what the various options are and select the most appropriate one. Things have changed greatly over the last few years. Before you plow $800-1000 into a pretty new disk box, make sure it'll do what you need.
______________________________________________________________
Currently on a loaded 2.5GHz G5 dualie/5GB/1TB internal RAID/dual 19" monitors. Final Cut Studio, Adobe Suite, Boris RED. Shooting with Canon.
VU California Crew, Inland Empire Sub-Chapter (paragraph?)
|
