Prosumer video storage: sub $1000 firewire solutions

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Level 3

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Prosumer video storage: sub $1000 firewire solutions

This question has been asked before [1], but that thread went in a different direction.

I want to edit and manage about 0.7 to 1.0 TB of family video on hard drives, perhaps using FCPX. My home backup and data management won't scale to this level.

I'd like to hear what other prosumers do for $1000 or less (I assume professional setups are different.)

I'm assuming something like this:

3 1TB drives
RAID 0 setup with two drives (OS X RAID?)
Periodically take one drive offsite, the mirror rebuilds. (So only real backup is offsite backup, every year retire one drive and add another)
Mac formatted drives (so presumably not SAN/Drobo, though low-end DROBO is in my price range)

I assume over time, as drive capacity grows, I'll integrate my video storage with my other data use/backup. For a few years though they'll be different. For example: Video work would kill my Time Capsule Wifi backup.

Any suggestions? What vendors do you like?

[1] https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3664396?start=0&tstart=0

i5 iMac 27, iPhone OS 3.1.2, MacBook Core-2 Duo, G5 iMac, G3 iBook, Mac mini

Posted on Feb 17, 2012 1:19 PM

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Answer 1

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Paul Cuciti

Level 2

385 points

Feb 17, 2012 1:42 PM in response to jfaughnan

Sounds like over-think to me. First FCX requires a mac fomatted drive

Simple option: get a fast firewire drive - capture the footage - clone the drive (can be USB if it's for backup only).

I backup my video files through a separate routine than my other file backup. otherwise it would clog up Time Machine pretty well I think.

Higher-end option: a two-drive raid; esata is good. Raid-0 if you need the speed. Raid-1 if you want redundacy.

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Answer 2

jfaughnan Author

Level 3

869 points

Feb 17, 2012 2:18 PM in response to Paul Cuciti

Sorry, got my RAIDs switched! I do want redundancy.

I use CCC as a Time Capsule complement for routine backup, so I could go that route rather than RAID.

I woud like a solution where I didn't have to deal with multiple power cords and multiple data connectors.

What do you think of the LaCie d2 or 2big solutions? They have a new thunderbolt series out with MacOS RAID (so presumably FCPX compatible)

http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?id=10573

The LaCie 2Big 4TB solution is $650. With a 3rd drive to swap offsite I'd be in budget.

The Pegasus R4 Thunderbolt solution is a bit higher end, but is sold through the Apple store:

http://www.promise.com/storage/raid_series.aspx?m=192&region=en-global&rsn1=40&r sn3=47

http://store.apple.com/us/product/H5184VC/A/Thunderbolt

At $1150 it's over my budget, but it's something to think about ...

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Answer 3

Feb 17, 2012 4:56 PM in response to jfaughnan

I've heard a lot of negative criticism of LaCie products, although many people like them.

I use these cute little units:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/EliteALmini/RAID/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB

Always had good experiences with OWC.

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Answer 4

jfaughnan Author

Level 3

869 points

Feb 17, 2012 8:12 PM in response to stuckfootage

Less, LaCie has a mixed reputation. Sometimes they seem to be a serious company, other times it appears they're throwing junk over the wall. Of coures the same has been said of a company we know well.

Do you stream your video directly to the Elite Pro Dual mini? Bus-powered is one way to get rid of a cable.

OWC also makes the Guardian MAXIMUS for $480 (dual 20.TB):

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/usb/raid_1/Gmax.

That's within my budget.

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Answer 5

Feb 18, 2012 2:20 AM in response to jfaughnan

I use my Elite Dual Mini in RAID 0 for speed. I'm not so into the whole RAID 1 idea, because when I need to recover something from a backup, it's usually because of my stupid mistake rather than a dead drive. With RAID 1 my stupid mistake happens on both disks.

I do like your idea of getting three drives right off the bat. That's sufficient redundancy for me. Whenever I need more space, I buy three identical drives, with one living offsite.

I use the Dual Mini as a bus-powered Firewire drive when I go editing in a café or in a park. At home I try to get a little boost in speed by using the disk's two eSATA ports connected via an ExpressCard adapter to the Thunderbolt port on my laptop.

Even with a RAID 0, 7200RPM disks, and eSATA, the drive is typically the speed bottleneck. I think the Pegasus gets better performance using more than two disks in the RAID 0 array, but it's a lot to pay and still not have an offsite backup. It's a real pity that there aren't a bunch of cheap Thunderbolt drives out there.

All the OWC drives mentioned in this thread would be outside your budget if you're looking for three 1+1TB drives for less than $1K, but an Elite mini would be less than $1K if you went for three 750+750GB drives.

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Answer 6

jfaughnan Author

Level 3

869 points

Feb 18, 2012 10:46 AM in response to stuckfootage

I saw the Dual Mini, but thought it would be too slow, and the capacity is at the low end. I guess RAID 0 makes up for the slow spindle speeds. I only edit at home on an iMac, so I'll take that as a vote for the Guardian Maximus though that price point is high

What ExpressCard adapter are you using? Is it a pair of Sonnet devices?

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/echoexpresscard34thunderbolt.html

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempo_sata_express34.html

Looks quite interesting!

A friend also mentioned the Netgear ReadyNAS Duo, but I assume that would be too slow to support editing ...

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Answer 7

Feb 18, 2012 12:48 PM in response to jfaughnan

jfaughnan wrote:

a pair of Sonnet devices?

Yes, I wanted to have the open-ended-ness of the ExpressCard 34 interface option, but I didn't want to lug around a 17" MBP.

Stepping back a little, what format are you editing your family videos? If you're just doing one or two layers of HD video in a good editing codec, with cuts, dissolves, and titles, you don't really need the super fastest drive ever.

Anyway, have fun!

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Answer 8

jfaughnan Author

Level 3

869 points

Feb 18, 2012 7:34 PM in response to stuckfootage

At the moment I'm primarily archiving DV, but I'll only be doing light editing. In my capture experiments iMovie 11 is only reliable when capturing to my internal drive, I hope with newer drives and Firewire 800 or Thunderbolt that I'll be able to capture to an external drive.

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