recommend me an external HD

[thouts]

I work at a sign company and am starting to take photos of completed projects for them. I want to store my RAW files and lightroom catalog files on an external HD. I also want to take advantage of Lightroom's backup feature and get a second external HD. Thinking about 1TB of space.

Wondering if all xternal hard drives can be linked to each other? For example coming out of my iMac with FW400 to the first externals FW400 then out of the other FW400 port on the first external to the second externals FW400. Does this work?

Also, can anybody recommend me a reliable brand? Doesn't have to be cheap either as work is paying for it.

 

[Ropie]

LaCie or Western Digital
I've had a LaCie for ages, never any problem.
The tech guy at my old office always recommended Western Digital though, not sure why.

 

[thouts]

I work at a sign company and am starting to take photos of completed projects for them. I want to store my RAW files and lightroom catalog files on an external HD. I also want to take advantage of Lightroom's backup feature and get a second external HD. Thinking about 1TB of space.

Wondering if all xternal hard drives can be linked to each other? For example coming out of my iMac with FW400 to the first externals FW400 then out of the other FW400 port on the first external to the second externals FW400. Does this work?

Answer?

 

[nando2323]

Answer?

In theory that's how firewire works yes. Now buggy firewire firmware's out there might prevent you from doing so.

 

[peskaa]

In theory that's how firewire works yes. Now buggy firewire firmware's out there might prevent you from doing so.

Such as I had with Western Digital MyBook Premium 500GB drives. I have a pair of them, and the smart people at WD have put the same same FireWire ID on every drive. So, when you hook both up to the FireWire bus, it crashes. Well done WD.

 

[thouts]

Such as I had with Western Digital MyBook Premium 500GB drives. I have a pair of them, and the smart people at WD have put the same same FireWire ID on every drive. So, when you hook both up to the FireWire bus, it crashes. Well done WD.

This is what i'm trying to avoid. Does anyone know for sure of a brand/model that you can chain the hard drives together?? Again looking for 1TB storage each.

 

[jaduffy108]

I work at a sign company and am starting to take photos of completed projects for them. I want to store my RAW files and lightroom catalog files on an external HD. I also want to take advantage of Lightroom's backup feature and get a second external HD. Thinking about 1TB of space.

Wondering if all xternal hard drives can be linked to each other? For example coming out of my iMac with FW400 to the first externals FW400 then out of the other FW400 port on the first external to the second externals FW400. Does this work?

Also, can anybody recommend me a reliable brand? Doesn't have to be cheap either as work is paying for it.

Does your iMac have FW800? Since you didn'tmention it, I'm guessing the answer is no.

If it does have fw800, I use a LaCie Little big Disk for fast performance and then a cheap 1TB for back up. The LaCie LBD 640gb has raid 0 with 7200rpm drives. Speedy. I have the 500gb LBD, slightly slower (5400 rpm disks), but BHphoto has them for $250. Great deal!

LBD also has eSata which works great on my MBP. OWC has an eSata express card for $18.

No fw800?...I would buy an OWC drive.

Lastly...yes, daisy chaining the drives works.

My two cents...

 

[ChrisBrightwell]

Get a Drobo and don't look back.

 

[shady825]

Western Digitals are pretty reliable from what i hear. I personally have a Toshiba 350GB i bought from best buy for $100

 

[whoathere]

I have 2 acomdata (?) FW drives, daisy chained or whatever you want to call it. I just bought an iomega, I think, from Best Buy for $130, not bad for 1TB external to use wirelessly.

 

[ChrisA]

The best built enclosures are made by g-tech. These are aluminium with built-in heat sinks. They are much better but cost more too. g-tech will sell you raid and single drive systems.

The trouble with buying external drives is that what really matters is the disk drive inside but g-tech, lecie and so on don't say who's drive they use. I've been buying bare drives and placing them inside aluminium boxes myself. I like the Seagate drives for their performance and 5 year warranty. I re-use the enclosures. When my 120GB drive got to small I opened the box up and put in a 750GB.

I have a set of backup drives that I rotate. Eer year I'll replace at least one of the oldest drives that way none of the backup drives are more then 3 or 4 years old

Current prices are 1TB for about $100 and 1.5Tb for about $150 for bare drives at newegg.com a quality aluminum box with FW800 adds about $40 to the above price but as I said these boxes can be recyled for years

 

[Digital Skunk]

The best built enclosures are made by g-tech. These are aluminium with built-in heat sinks. They are much better but cost more too. g-tech will sell you raid and single drive systems.

The trouble with buying external drives is that what really matters is the disk drive inside but g-tech, lecie and so on don't say who's drive they use. I've been buying bare drives and placing them inside aluminium boxes myself. I like the Seagate drives for their performance and 5 year warranty. I re-use the enclosures. When my 120GB drive got to small I opened the box up and put in a 750GB.

I have a set of backup drives that I rotate. Eer year I'll replace at least one of the oldest drives that way none of the backup drives are more then 3 or 4 years old

Current prices are 1TB for about $100 and 1.5Tb for about $150 for bare drives at newegg.com a quality aluminum box with FW800 adds about $40 to the above price but as I said these boxes can be recyled for years

Very true. The drive matters more than the case. G-Tech does let you know what drives they use. They only use Hitachi's which they claim are the video pro's choice, but it's not really the case.

They have a drive called the G-Safe which is a RAID 1 enclosure that mirrors the data on each drive. Nice in theory, but way too expensive and not practical. LaCie usually puts WD in their cases and a Seagate here and there. My 2big triple has Seagates, and I recommend that drive over the G-Tech offerings for price and configuration.

 

[FX120]

I have always built my own external drives using Segate drives, IMO they're about as good as you can do these days.

6 of the 750GB 7200.11 drives in RAID 0+1 is hard to beat for data thoroughput.

 

[Kebabselector]

I have 2 Freecom Datatanks (800gb) linked via firewire.

FW400 from my MacMini to my primary Datatank and the other is linked via the FW800 ports on the rear of the Datatanks (1 FW400, 2 FW800, 1 USB). Seems to be fine for me, though on one occasion the second disk wasn't recognised. A reboot fixed it.

 

[fletchnj]

Get a Drobo and don't look back.

very cool I have been looking for something like this!

 

[ChrisA]

Yes, but not FW400. Only FW800 allows you to do so and of course only when you have an extra FW800 port.

They both do. I have an Acomdata drive right here and it has two FW400 ports and is currently daisy changed to a Firewire scanner. The scanner however has only one port so it must be the end of the chain. FW400 and FW800 both allow chaining but then some cheap manufactures don't bother with two ports. You can buy a FW "hub" to solve this problem. They are not really hubs but are diasy chain wired internally.

For a daily use drive I'd only go with FW800 today. Nothing slower. But for backup drives, even for a time machine drive USB or FW400 is fast enough.

If speed is really an issue then get a FW800 bases RAID-0 box.

Drobo will be slower then a plain old FW800 external drive. The RAID checksum calculations do slow the device down.

 

[Digital Skunk]

They both do.

I checked up on this, and yes, you are correct.