External Hard Drive For Final Cut Studio

HI I use a Drobo S ( http://www.drobo.com/resources/droboSdemo.php) with five 1.5Tb Seagate SATA-300 (7200 rpm) drives ..It is connected via the FW800 on the Drobo



I capture HDV and AVCHD products in as Prores 422 onto my second drive inthe MAC (1Tb) (scratch area) and then use the Drobo to store any and all outputs from FCP. I have not tried it as a scratch area as I was a little concerned about FW bus speed.. I guess it should be ok and I will try it with my own stuff not a clients.

I would never consider using a Drobo as an editing device. The Drobo in general has been troublesome for many users.

I second that. No offense, Jim, but the drobos have produced more pain than gain in my experience. In Jim's defense, the drobo offer more gigabytes per dollar, but i have not been pleased with their performance.

I have had good experience with the GuardianMAX system. It is FireWire 800 & 400, USB 2.0, & eSATA ready, and has worked well for me.

http://www.newertech.com/products/gmax.php

Good Luck!

Rob .. no offence taken friend .. I like you are only trying to be helpful by giving our experiences.. All I can say is that my Drobo does what I need it to very well .. That is NOT to say that other Drobos work as well as mine and are not pains in the rear. After all I drive a Saab and have never had any problems but many others despise that maker 🙂 As I said I only use the Drobo as a backup area not a scratch area. Hopefully Peter the Greek takes our points as not opposing merely different views and experiences 🙂

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year by the way - from Ireland

I've been using a Drobo Pro with (8) 1TB drives connected via iSCSI for over a year with no problems. I am currently using 2.5TB of the 6TB available and back up both the internal iMac drive and Drobo over the internet through Mozy. I've done multiple firmware upgrades on the Drobo with no issues. I have not replaced drives, but plan on swapping 1TB drives with 2TB drives when needed - remains to be seen how this works out.

I would be interested to hear what problems others are having with the Drobo.

Merry Christmas to all