[MacDV] Re: External HD sizes

[Dwayne Bradley]

Just in case anyone is interested, I found that WiebeTech has their 
DuoGB Firewire enclosures with no drives pre-installed on sale for 50% 
off.  They were originally $179.95 and right now they are $89.95.  I 
ordered 2 just to have room to grow.  Here is the link:

http://www.wiebetech.com/products/duogb.html

Again, thanks to everyone for their input so far.

Dwayne


On Monday, December 8, 2003, at 07:42  PM, Zane H. Healy wrote:

>> On Dec 8, 2003, at 1:44 PM, Dwayne Bradley wrote:
>>
>>> I have a couple of quick questions that I am sure a genius or two (or
>>> three) on this list can answer for me.
>>>
>>> I just got my copy of FCE (which by the way I think is awesome
>>> compared to iMovie in the short time that I have got to play with it)
>>> and I am looking at getting a couple of external HD's for external
>>> storage/work space.  I have seen before on this list that the 
>>> external
>>> HD approach is advisable.  Would two 80GB drives be sufficient for
>>> about 1-2 hours worth of finished video work?  This length of time
>>> would be for all projects that I am working on at the same time (3 to
>>> 4 max), not just one project.  Would you suggest using the drives
>>> independantly or put them into a RAID 0 (stripe) or a RAID 1 (mirror)
>>> configuration?  Also, where do you suggest that I store the project
>>> file?  Internal HD or on one of the external drives?
>>>
>>> Everyone's opinions and suggestions are greatly appreciated.
>
> I'm still getting the hang of FCE.  I've got to admit, I had to buy a 
> book
> on it.  I'm really likeing it as well, and am pondering the drive 
> issue.
> For the past year and a half I've been using a Windows box for very 
> limited
> video work (basically capturing, trimming, and encoding).  On that 
> system I
> have an 80GB Capture disk, and a 80GB Encode disk.  That way when I 
> encode
> to VCD or DVD, the datapath looks like this DiskA->CPU->DiskB, the 
> disks are
> both on separate controllers as well.  I've found this gives me a 
> slight
> performance boost, and I expect the same to be true on the Mac, as 
> this is
> more of a hardware issue than an OS issue.
>
> As someone else pointed out, RAID 0 (Striped) isn't really necessary.  
> I'd
> say that RAID 1 (Mirrored) is a matter of personal preferance and/or 
> what
> you can afford.  Using RAID 1 would keep you from loosing your work if 
> a
> disk goes bad, but it will double your cost.
>
> I'm personally thinking of a three disk solution.  Once for Capture, 
> one for
> encoding, and a Scratch disk (for holding the work while I edit).  
> Though
> initially at least it will probably look like this:
>
> Capture (80GB) -> Scratch (120GB) -> Encode (back to the 80GB)
>
> Basically all I need to set this up is the Firewire enclosure(s).
>
> Now I've got a question, with Firewire how should the disks be setup?  
> I've
> got a G5 2x2, which I believe means I have two Firewire400 ports, and a
> Firewire800 port.  Are these seperate, or shared buses?  Should I have 
> the
> disks in seperate enclosures, and on seperate ports, or can I 
> daisychain
> them on one port, and in a big enclosure?
>
> I've got to admit, I'm really drooling over the thought of a nice 8 
> disk
> enclosure, as it would have lots of room to grow, and I could stick 
> several
> 40-80GB disks I have laying around into it..
>
> 			Zane