I'm looking for recommendations for a fast and reliable external hard drive for editing using the mov files brought in via XDCAM Transfer. Not sure I want to go the eSata or SSD route, but thinking to get the highest quality Firewire 800 package. Seems like I should buy a high-end drive and install it in an enclosure myself to ensure getting the best quality drive. Any thoughts. What about the Western Digital Enterprise drives ? Thanks. Oh ya, I don't think I need a RAID at this point and want simplicity. I'm doing personal projects and they are not huge.

I am thinking about the same gear. My decision is turning to the G-Raid Mini. But well, I am still open for other brands.....

Markus

I have the G-raid Mini 2 - really like it - small, nice carrying case - has both e-sata and firewire 800/400 connectivity and it is bus powered thru the firewire so easy to transport from computer to computer - use it with my laptop but also to transfer video files back and forth between editing computers.

I went with 2 Lacie Rugged 320gig 7200 rpm for redundant field backup and got the G Drive 1tb for home. Now I have to buy another small hard drive for sending back and forth to a client which will probably be an inexpensive 250 gig western digital or the like. I hope this works out with a cheaper drive but I don't want to be without one of my Lacie's for a week or so.

OT
For non powered portable, I use the Lacie Rugged 320GB HD.Works well when you edit on an airplane and such. Uses power from FW 800 cord.

Its just hearsay, but the only drives I ever hear consistent horror stories about are LaCie, and I've heard many.

If you want a serious product see Caldigit: CalDigit - Fast, Reliable, and Secure Storage Solutions (http://www.caldigit.com/products.asp)

I've had one for 1.5 years and is extremely fast and reliable.

I've got a couple of the OWC Mercury Elite-AL drives and they are nice and fast. Their new RAID 5 box might be a very good option.

If you want a serious product see Caldigit: CalDigit - Fast, Reliable, and Secure Storage Solutions (http://www.caldigit.com/products.asp)

I've had one for 1.5 years and is extremely fast and reliable.

I agree with Brian,

You don't state whether you need to be mobile or not, but Caldigit has a variety of products that are of very high quality. I have been using one of their products for over a year now. The VR mini is about as simple a hard drive as you could use for HD editing. You do need raid if you are going to edit XDCAM HD material.

Caldigit has great customer service and a great product.
VR mini (http://www.caldigit.com/VR_mini/)

I ended up getting an Other World Computing Elite Al-Pro enclosure and a Samsung Spinpoint F1 Enterprise Raid Class 1TB 7200rpm 32mb 3.5" drive. Purchasing separate components allowed me to hand select the brand and model of drive I wanted rather than end up with what the seller decides to stick inside. The drive I chose should be one of the fastest and most reliable drives available, hopefully. Looks like the Western Digital Caviar Black and Western Digitial RE enterprise drives are also excellent choices. For my prosumer level work I'm going with the assumption that a fast single disc working drive will be sufficient as long as I make regular backups, and also, having a single drive reduces the chance of drive failure compared to a multi-drive Raid.