Good External Drive

[Arnold F.]

I'm shopping for an external drive for use with my Macbook Pro for both uploading/storage on set and for editing. I was looking at a 7200rpm drive from OWC: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/EliteALmini/RAID/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB.

I would connect it to my computer either with Firewire 800 (if I'm using my Mac Mini in post) or via eSata via an eSata card and the express port on my laptop.

Is the drive I linked to appropriate?

[Jarek Zabczynski]

That would work. But I'm using these.

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

Not much more expensive, but I like the display that tells me the status of the drive. When dealing with a raid I like to know it's working like it's supposed to.

[Arnold F.]

Do you think it should be a RAID1 and is that drive truly bus powered?

[Jim McKinney]

I'm a big fan of G-tech, but am now curious about the Seagate GoFlex. Any experience or opinions about this drive? Here's the 3T version:

http://eshop.macsales.com/search/3.0TB+seagate+goflex

[Jarek Zabczynski]

Raid1 is a must for in the footage backup onsite, either that or have 2 drives. Redundancy is important. Bus power is nice as well. I can run those drives and my RED Station on bust power. You need to have a FW800 cable pliugged in to get bus power for eSATA though, no biggie.

I use the big Seagates for backup. The external ones are cheaper. I have a couple 3TB ones. You can get the 4TB ones for about $220 if you look hard enough.

[Andrew Droz Palermo]

The Seagate GoFlex 4TB Firewire 800 line is awful. They pulled them from Amazon recently. I've been working on a doc and we were using those as field drives, and every one of them we've had has failed in one way or another - won't mount, suddenly has b-tree logical issues, or unmounts randomly. I've exchanged 3 total from Amazon, and they'd fail the next week. We presently have 7 4TB drives and we are sending them all back under warranty, who knows what we'll do with them then.

I've had a little better luck with the 1TB bus-powered Firewire GoFlex, and the 3TB, as well, but stay away from the 4TB versions.

Got on this thread hoping to find a new solution!