Hi.

I'm about to get a larger hard drive for my film that I'm making (shooting in HD!), Probably want something between 250Gb and 500Gb, what brands do you recommend, should I buy a pre built one or buy a case and a drive.

Any suggestions would be great!

Thanks

William

Are you shooting HD or HDV ? there is a huge difference.

Sam

Depends what type of HD you are shooting.
If its a student film then I assume you are shooting HDV. then a firewire 800 external drive will be fine.
You also would be fine if you are shooting DVCproHD at 24/25 frames.

After that though you are looking at a esata raid system to get the bandwidth for 8 bit or 10bit HD.

Look at caldigit options for cheap Esata systems.

But if your looking around the 500gig mark I'm guessing you are going HDV because you won't get much on it otherwise.

I would get a lacie Big disk extreme.

Just my opinion but I would avoid lacie ... i have seen 3 die after a year. i would go seagate and a firewire enclosure...ice maybe make sure the drive is at least 7200 rpm and has an oxford 911 bridge and is firewire not usb

Yeah, I'm shooting HDV with a Canon HV20, I only have firewire 400 on my macbook so I won't be able to use firewire 400. And yes I have witnessed several lacie drives die in recent months (luckily not mine ).

What brands are reliable?

Thanks

William

I've had a Lacie 250gb for about a year- no problems at all.

I recently bought a 500gb MyBook external drive and it has crashed twice- total crap. I think they are Western Digital....

I've had my baby LaCie for about three years now I think, it's still trucking and gets used heaps.

Maybe they dont make em like they used to.

Dang, was just about to recommend that one - since they're selling for under $300 with dual Firewire/USB2 interface nowadays.

I bought a 500GB MyBook drive from OfficeWorks a month ago, $299, they had a 300 GB for $199 too, no problems since.
Have used it for our 14" iBook with 100GB drive and 2001 G3 iMac with 30GB drive
Big plus was FireWire and USB access

I have two of the 500Gb dual interface MyBooks. No problems with either, they've been great! I also know a few other people who haven't had any problems with the 500Gb mybooks.

Amongst other external drives I have a Lacie bigdisk. No problems with it but it does get very hot.

Tim, what do you mean by "crashed". If you've lost data once on it take it back and get another one! If the people handing it between WD and the store kicked it around no hard drive can withstand that.

fan of mybook here also. got a usb 250gb and a fw 320gb. work well no problems.

recently was thinking of trying to crack them open and replace the drives with 500gb. anyone know how this would be done, without destroying the cases?

another vote for Lacie - biggest selling single product in the store, with the lowest return rate.

The D2 range will suit.

My advice is to wait a week - as each month prices drop and in the next 7-10 days the June stock starts coming through.

Jeloz

It seems that the MyBook's are quite good, but I was reading one review (from cnet) that said it was quite slow compared with other drivers copying files to over firewire, has anyone experienced this?

Also who here has a D2 that has had no problems, I have witnessed about 2 or 3 dying/ failing this year, which has kind of put me off them, I do have a lacie porshe and rugged and they have been runing great.

I was looking at the Maxtor 3 one touch 500GB, anyone used?

Thanks for all the help!

William

also have a the Mobile Lacie for 3 years. of course using it for my tech work, my FW port no longer works. it's gone down on at least 2 occasions, mostly when i've overfilled it. bit of a bother. i would go with the Lacie biggest raid units or for that matter any generic raid 5 box, .. populate with the fastest Seagates available. RAID, RAID, RAID... shall i say it again?
was speaking to a customer who was a vid editor a few days back, .. basically if you value your data, then purchasing any single drive solution is dodgy/risky. RAID 5 is the way to go...

Lacie Biggest http://www.lacie.com/au/products/product.htm?pid=10849

As I'm doing it for school, I don't really have the biggest budget, (probably around $300- $400) what Raid Solution would be able to purchased with that budget, if any?

Thanks

William