I have an HPX170 and will be using an FS-100 160GB. I know that with P2 cards the camera only allows 15 partitions on a drive. Is this the same with the Firestore? I was planning to take two 2TB drives with me (to store the data, two drives for redundancy), but didn't realize that I would have to wait until I had recorded all 160 GB to offload if I wanted to use all the drive space. Does the Firestore function in the same way as the camera?

Thanks.

I'm not sure if I understand your question... but, the Firestore units are just hard drive recorders. You don't partition the drives, the built-in firmware does that for you. They are partitioned into one user partition, with several folders used to store separate "Reels". Short of taking the drive out of the FS-100 and partitioning it yourself on your computer, there would be no way to add partitions. Even if you did partition the drive, there'd be no way to access the partitions from within the FS-100, so you'd just be wasting space. With the Firestore, you start the camera rolling and it records everything to disk. When you're done recording, you end up with a folder named with today's date, containing all the individual clips (or you can record them directly into the "Reels" folders).

Julian, thank you for the response.

I realize now that I wasn't completely clear so let me double check my understanding. With the P2 cards, if you want to offload them directly to a hard drive (and not the computer) the camera automatically partitions the hard drive. So, for example, if you offload a 16GB card the hard drive is divided into one partition of 16 GB and then the rest of the drive is still able to be partitioned further. However, the camera will only partition the drive up to 15 times.

My understanding of what you're saying is that the Firestore simply doesn't act in the same way, that it is like its own hard drive and therefore when I offload to another drive, it will only fill that new drive with the data and not create any partitions. Is this correct?

Secondly, I guess I was assuming that because you can offload directly from a P2 card to an external hard drive, you can do the same with the Firestore. Is this accurate, or do I need to go through a computer?

Let me preface this with the following: I own a Canon XH-A1 and an FS-C, but the following should hold true.

The Firestore is a self-contained mini-computer with its own hard drive. It handles everything. You connect it to the Firewire port on your camera and when it sees the "Start Recording" command from the camera, it records whatever data comes down the line, until it receives the "Stop Recording" command from the camera. It then packages up that data into a format which can be read by your NLE. It's not a system which is used for off-line storage, or a backup system for P2 cards. In other words, it its used either *instead* of a P2 card, or while simultaneously recording footage to a P2 *and* the Firestore. You wouldn't use it for dumping previously recorded footage from a P2 card to the Firestore. Doing this, and allowing the camera to attempt to format the Firestore's drive would likely screw up the Firedrive in a major never-to-be-used-again-fashion!

You *can* use the Firestore to back up previously-recorded footage, by playing back the footage from the P2 card and setting the Firestore to record... but you'd be capturing the footage in real time (1 hour's footage would take 1 hour to capture).

Just remember, the Firestore is a live footage capturing device, not a data backup device, or a battery-powered Firewire hard-drive enclosure.