How do you guys do storage for Edius4?

[STORMDAVE]

I for one am currently using internal removable IDE racks...they've been great so far....but now I am totally lost and need help ASAP. Need to make a buying decision within a few hours...and need to get the HD's together this week.

I got a Mac Pro and my other machine is still the same (Storm 2) and I have no idea how to share projects with these 2 machines. Mac Pro will have Bootcamp with Edius.

Now, what I've figured out is that I should get external enclosures (with proper heat control) and find one that supports IDE and SATAII with support for eSATA and USB2.0 (So I can share them between Mac and PC...and Macs have no eSATA ports, so I have to stick in an external eSATA adapter)...anyways, I have about 8 drives, they are all IDE. What to do? I've found an enclosure that supports what I want to do, but doesn't have a fan on it...so I'm afraid that these drives will die quickly. My current racks are keeping them pretty cool and they've lasted for a long time for me, they are between 27C to 33C.

I'm in dire need of help and don't want to plunk down thousands for a central storage system, yet....but I want the ability to share these drives between these two computers. I will be adding a gigabit network, but still need the ability to move drives around.

Here's the one I found off newegg, but couldn't find proper ones through froogle/google.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817145026

Another one would be:

http://www.xpcgear.com/s3500silver.html

But this one doesn't do eSATA (for being future proof when I start to buy more SATA drives).

[THoff]

Check out American Media Systems -- I have two of their Venus enclosures with USB 2.0 and Firewire, and I'm very happy with them. They have fans that are so quiet that I can't hear them, and the aluminum enclosures mean they are sturdy and dissipate heat well. NewEgg carries they products as well.

There are also models that offer RAID and SATA connections.

http://www.american-media.com/

[STORMDAVE]

Thanks for that, but they don't do IDE/SATA to USB2/eSATA ? I don't want to throw these away after my IDE drives die.

[STORMDAVE]

I've found another viable solution (for now)...to get 2 FireWire800 to IDE bridges so I can put these IDE racks externally until they die so I can invest in a SAN or something? MacPro has 2 FW800 ports, so I'm good to go. The other PC will still have the removable racks so that's good! This is IF it's available...

[JPowell]

question about sharing between mac and pc

Dave,

I am contemplating buying a Mac for certain clients that need Final Cut projects to work with. I've been trying to figure out ways to get files between the two, but am a little lost when I start thinking about file systems and such.

I know that OSX can read but not write to NTFS formatted drives, and and I am assuming FAT32 is the one file system that both OS's can use for reading and writing. But isn't there a 2 gig filesize limitation with FAT32?

I would be interested to hear how you plan to set up your shared drive.

Thanks

[LegalEyes]

I use a WD book external HD that can connect via USB or eSATA. It came with instructions and drivers for macs as well as windows. 500 gig was $150. Not exactly the solution you were after but its relatively cheap and has the eSata conection you want.

[STORMDAVE]

Thanks for the replies guys, I figured out a cheap solution for now after doing almost a day of research...

Dave,

I am contemplating buying a Mac for certain clients that need Final Cut projects to work with. I've been trying to figure out ways to get files between the two, but am a little lost when I start thinking about file systems and such.

I know that OSX can read but not write to NTFS formatted drives, and and I am assuming FAT32 is the one file system that both OS's can use for reading and writing. But isn't there a 2 gig filesize limitation with FAT32?

I would be interested to hear how you plan to set up your shared drive.

Thanks

You will need Mac Drive if you want to keep the NTFS file system. That's what I am going to do when I get my Mac Pro later on this week.

Yes there is a 2GB filesize limit with FAT32, that's why I haven't use that for a long time. OSX and XP Pro will read FAT32 drives with no problems. OSX uses HFS (OSX file system).

What I did was, I have 8 drives, my Windows box has 2 racks, and I will be keeping the racks externally...I bought 2 cheap ($30 each) external USB2/FireWire400 enclosures, and will be removing the chip from inside and will connect it directly to the IDE removable racks....I will use this system on the Mac Pro PC via FireWire (It's more stable than USB2). This is a temporary solution until my wallet takes a temporary break :)

30MB/sec for DV is fine. I will put in a 400GB SATA drive in the Mac Pro for AE stuff that requires fast speeds.

My next solution might be a central server for 2 computers to share files off of, but I don't find this an economic and speedy investment. Someone mentioned eSATA, and they were right on track.

www.granitedigital.com these guys sell all types of external enclosures...take a look if you want to invest a bit of money in a good solution.

[JPowell]

Ok, so I guess the external drive will be HFS formatted and the windows box needs Mac Drive to access it?

Is that what you meant?

best

Jason

[STORMDAVE]

Yes, that's what I will be doing....I need to copy files from each drive to my Mac Drive, then wipe the drive and format it through Mac in the HFS+ file system, then write the files back...I need to do this for all my drives.

Then, I will be using Mac Drive under Windows to access the HFS+ system.

Microsoft doesn't share info about NTFS, so this is why it's such a headache. Apple does share info about HFS+, so this is why there is Mac Drive.

There are a few work arounds that let OSX read NTFS and Write to it, but it's unstable...

By the way, OSX can read NTFS drives (Read only) without a problem. All you do is plug in the drive.

[Raja]

The following link has some good enclosures. Check them out.

www.span.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=14157&source=gbaseuk& currency=GBP


The Antec MX-1 seems like a very good quiet enclosure with USB2 + eSATA.
Check it out here

https://www.lambda-tek.com/componentshop/index.pl?origin=gbase20.1&prodID=B74099

These are UK but may ship to the USA.

[STORMDAVE]

Thanks Raja, these would be great for SATA drives, but unfortunately my current video drives are all IDE except one internal which is SATA.

Obviously I will be buying SATA drives from now on

[kwshaw1]

Microsoft doesn't share info about NTFS, so this is why it's such a headache. Apple does share info about HFS+, so this is why there is Mac Drive.

Just a thought, but wouldn't Microsoft have had to share some info about NTFS with Apple in order to make it feasible to run Windows on Macs via Bootcamp? Also, note that Microsoft does allow their OS to run on Macs but Apple won't let their OS run on standard PCs, even though the latter is clearly feasible now...

P.S. Thanks for the tip about MacDrive. The Mac platform is looking more appealing lately with the latest cross-platform options.

[STORMDAVE]

Hey Kevin,
Bootcamp basically lets you install Windows on a Mac as if the Mac was a windows machine, so there is no need for MS to share info to Apple. Apple provides all the drivers for Windows.

Macs have no BIOS, they have EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface), so apple found a work around with that.

I heard there are problems with Edius saving files to an HFS+ file system when using Mac Drive. I am investigating this.

As for OSX not running on standard PCs, that's a given. The Macs are like dongles for OSX, if you think about it. Plus Apple has a limited set of computers. OSX on the Intel is x86 now, and I've seen some people on the 'net install it on a regular machine through a bunch of workarounds.