esata (problems?) vs. firewire 800 external drives

[TimCarpenter]

I'm a photograpger with a 2.4ghz MBP. I need additional external storage for my digital files. For expandability, I've been looking at 5 bay external drive case (by AMS - Venus T5). AMS tells me that I must be using an PCI Express card running with SIL 3132 Chipset. I've looked at the Rosewille RC-605 that is running that chipset. However, when searching the forums, I'm finding numerous issues with this chipset.

Am I on a dangerous/troublesome path? I wondering if I should just go with a dual drive case from OWC (or from AMS) that is FW800 for now. I don't really need the added speed of esata; this is primarily for image backup.

Appreciate any insights (including and enclosure comments).

 

[crazzyeddie]

I think you answered your own question.

Use Firewire.

 

[TimCarpenter]

Firewire multibay enclosures

any recommendations on multi-bay enclosures?

 

[sal]

if you are doing video work, go with esata. Reason being is that if you want to capture to an external firewire drive and you are capturing from a firewire camera/deck, you will get some dropped frames. It can't handle both streams.

 

[TimCarpenter]

Not shooting video. These external drives are mostly for storing images that I'm done working with.

 

[dcl]

I'm also looking into muli-drive RAID's. I'm looking toward:

La Cie - http://www.lacie.com/us/products/range.htm?id=10061

CalDigit - http://www.caldigit.com/