HDD's for my MBP

[Ed Kukla]

Just ordered a MacBookPro. I'll need external Hard Drives for footage.

I'm green in this area, what should I be looking for?
Size is a consideration for travel. I'll be shooting with a Sony EX-3 in 1080p HD.

Thanks

[Harm Millaard]

The ones I personally like (price/performance/dimension/weight wise) are the FREECOM Mobile drive XXS series, in 320 GB size.

[Brian Luce]

you might consider one that interfaces with your express card slot so you can use the sata cable. It's way faster than firewire and usb.

[Ed Kukla]

brian

if I use the expresscard slot, I won't be able to import xdcam ex footage to the hard drive. I think I'm stuck with firewire 800 hard drives

[Andy Wilkinson]

I use G-RAID3 (mine's a 2 TB Raid 0). I found the eSATA connection (via a Sonnet express slot 34 card) too problematic to use with it though - so reverted to FW800...which leaves the slot free for SxS and KxT etc. anyway (and also means you could look at the slightly cheaper FW800 G-RAID2 types that lack the eSATA connection). Note that the G-RAID3 will write and read much faster than individual drives (being a Raid 0 - well worth having!)

G-RAID's are very well built, work well with the MBP, have 3-year guarantee, and are pretty quiet and cool running too and come in a variety of sizes depending upon how portable you want them. The G-RAID3 might be a little big for on the road and they are certainly not cheap. I also back up all my EX3 and FCP files on other external 1TB FW800 drives (Freecom Pro) and also optical media. If push comes to shove I also even use the really small 250GB WD My Passport USB 2 drives which are cheap, run on USB buss power so no power brick needed, not too slow (well, way way faster to dump to than burning DVD-DLs.... just for temp back ups until I get those DVD-DLs burnt back at base etc.). I'd never try and edit 1080p off any USB drive though!!!

In my opinion FW800 is about the right compromise between easy portability/plug and play, stability and speed for connecting external drives with a MBP - although I know some get the faster eSATA to work OK (as discussed on here as any quick search will show). FW800 with a Raid 0 drive works well for me with my kind of needs for editing.

[Ed Kukla]

andy

clarify...you switched from e-sata to fw800 on the same drive? it came with the options to go either way?

[Andy Wilkinson]

G-RAID3 has USB 2, FW400, FW800 (2 off) and eSATA connections (and comes with cables for all 4). Google it to learn more or for specifics about my experiences see link below.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/non-linea...p-mac-pro.html

[Vito DeFilippo]

If portability is important, I would suggest looking at three options:

G-Raid mini (bus powered raid over firewire)

G-Technology - G-RAID mini - Dual-Drive, Portable RAID 0 Storage Solutions for Content Creation

Lacie Little Big Disc (also raid powered over firewire)

LaCie - Little Big Disk Quadra - eSATA 3Gbits, FireWire 800, FireWire 400, USB 2.0

Sonnet Fusion F2 (eSata raid but powered by firewire)

Sonnet - Fusion F2: Portable RAID SATA Storage System

In the research I've done, these seem to be the only bus-powered raid options. They are professional grade with good reviews.

[Ed Kukla]

vito

thanks for the detailed response

those raid 0 drives have 2 hdd, can they be configured for one to back up the other?

[Vito DeFilippo]

Originally Posted by Ed Kukla

those raid 0 drives have 2 hdd, can they be configured for one to back up the other?

No to the graid mini and lacie. I believe the sonnet can be configured as raid 0 or raid 1, but you'd have to find the manual to be sure.

You'd lose the performance advantage of raid 0, of course. And the sonnet requires an sata adapter for your laptop.

I don't know your performance requirements, or your budget, but the fastest would be the Sonnet in raid 0. Fastest secure method would be sonnet in raid 1, because its eSata interface is faster than the firewire 800 of the others.

If you just want a single drive solution, or have a small budget, I have the OWC Mercury-on-the-go triple interface, and love it. You could put one of the new Seagate 7200rpm 500 gig drives in it and be pretty solid. You could even buy a cheapie usb one for backups if you want to avoid paying for the sonnet.

[Brian Luce]

Originally Posted by Ed Kukla

brian

if I use the expresscard slot, I won't be able to import xdcam ex footage to the hard drive. I think I'm stuck with firewire 800 hard drives

I don't know how well they work, but you can get a dual port express card, it has two esata ports. They're about $50.

[Simon Denny]

Hi Ed,
I use a MBP 17" and I use the Western Digital 500g with 800 & 400 firewire ports.
This is the model number: Model: WDH1Q5000
This works.

[Vito DeFilippo]

Originally Posted by Ed Kukla

brian

if I use the expresscard slot, I won't be able to import xdcam ex footage to the hard drive. I think I'm stuck with firewire 800 hard drives

Oops, missed that. I guess the Sonnet is out for you.

[Ed Kukla]

Originally Posted by Brian Luce

I don't know how well they work, but you can get a dual port express card, it has two esata ports. They're about $50.

It will use up the only expresscard slot in the computer. I need the expresscard slot for my EX cards. I'd like to feed the footage directly to hdd

A tangential question...is there a good way to feed media from my EX cards into 2 hdd's at the same time? It would have to be with the fw 800 port. Raid1 drive?

I would want to edit from the hdd. Would I use the hdd in the laptop for editing and then dump the results back into the dual external raid1 drives?

[Vito DeFilippo]

Originally Posted by Ed Kukla

I would want to edit from the hdd. Would I use the hdd in the laptop for editing and then dump the results back into the dual external raid1 drives?

Generallly, you shouldn't edit with your media on your system drive, as the performance will suffer. Leave the footage on an external drive and edit like that.