which external hard drive to go for...

[armitageshanks]

hey guys,

perusing the choices of which external hard drive to buy for my mbp. choice is between a firewire 800 drive or an esata drive that id connect using a card in the express card slot in the side of my lappie. obviously the latter is going to cost (£100ish) more but do you think it is worth the difference in price?

nice one,

armitage

[messhead]

Hey mate, im in same boat, getting a Dell M90 Precision next week from the states (1/2 the price!) and i been looking into external storage. Bar if you got the money for SCSI i think the best bet is an external eSata RAID enclosure and buy 2/4 HDD's of your choice. This is very rapid and a relitively cheap solution compared to SCSI/Raptor. For example, Thecus make a good looking 2-bay eSata one HERE but if your looking for a 4 bay or even a simple looking (probably cheaper) 2-bay one goto VISUALUX

On the Thecus site it says upto 2x500GB(1TB) but i think this is due to time of print. Im sure 2x750 or even 2x1TB HDD's will be fine.

So 2x500GB HDD about £170/£180 (rip off britain) and the enclosure i think will be about £100ish. £270/£280 for 1TB of very fast external space compared to other solutions is very competitive and will shift your files faster than any laptop can handle them removing the bottleneck which is the HDD 'EDIT' - Found the thecus Komplett HERE for £92.50, they sell worldwide as well Also, the visualux as 4 (6 on 4-bay version) fans cooling whereas the thecus only as 1. In envirments i'd personally be playing at it will get VERY hot and i prefer have the piece of mind knowing theres sufficent cooling.

This is my solution and i think im correct on what i say. If im wrong anywhere, please anyone, correct me

[Edited on 18-4-2007 by messhead]

[cameronduotone]

Hey, thanks for this great info, new here... using trial version.

I am wondering how significant a 2 driver configuration would be over a single sata drive setup. I have a laptop with a 2.0 core-duo, I am going to get sata express card to plug in an external enclosure using the 3Gbps models.

I was having trouble finding benchmarks between a 2 drive RAID0 setup vs a single drive setup.

I've had trouble with RAID0 in the past, and reliability seems like it shoud be an important deciding factor since these drives are going to get quite a beating (humidity, temp, vibration, constant read/write, transport of 3.5" drives=bad)

future versions of resolume are most likely going to allow deck editing (what i've been reading on the forums) so why not just get another sata external drive and split your decks between two externals.

Thanks

[Edited on 24-5-2007 by cameronduotone]

[messhead]

Thats not a bad idea as express cards do have 2 eSata ports on them. I've ordered a Dell M90 from the states (waiting for it) and also a 2-bay enclosure so i will be able give you an opinion soon hopefully. Ill try it with 1 HD and then with 2 in a RAID0 and use a HD program like HDTACH to benchmark the results and let you know. Probably mid/end of next week

EDIT: I cant seem to find a eSata Express 34 Card in europe!!! I found one on ebay in US but again, its paying for P&P all the time. It's the Ratoc’s REX-EX30S external SATA ExpressCard i found and cant seem to find any other!!! Anyone help?

[Edited on 24-5-2007 by messhead]

[cameronduotone]

We have an electronics store here in the United States called fry's electronics and it looks like they would ship internationally: http://shop2.outpost.com/template/help/ ... alShipping

they have one although it isn't the cheapest i've seen (59.99 USD)
http://shop2.outpost.com/product/469764 ... IN_RSLT_PG

[Edited on 24-5-2007 by cameronduotone]

[messhead]

THats what im trying avoid, i've just falked out neally £200 buying stuff from the states and dont see the point of paying another £30 for a £30 item haha

I thinks thats 54mm and isnt the express 34 34mm? Im not sure, pretty new to laptops.

[cameronduotone]

I measured my hp laptop slot and it is 54mm.

[DayVeeJay]

PCI Express comes in both sizes. If you look in the back of the slot on your laptop you will prolly see that part of it is indented allowing you to use both sizes.

The maxtor One touch are built like tanks but are big bulky and do not have SATA or eSATA. My last hard drive was a Seagate FreeAgent. Really cool drive, decent speed but it tipped over and the hard drive would barely spin.