Harddrives and docking stations

[fotostig]

I have quite a few lacie-cabinets now, after many upgrades. And thought about getting a dockingstation and just buy 3,5" esata-discs, that way it would be more economic and eco-friendly when I have to make an upgrade. Anybody got experience with these? And what kind of discs are the best? I have been looking at this dockingstation http://www.newertech.com/products/voyagerq.php It looks nice, but what I would like is a double one, that has firewire-interface..

[Phil G]

Hi I use a dock not that type but a cheap newlink one £25 GBP it only has USB and eSATA it works ok you can see it http://www.philgee.com/DAM-101.html  having a fire wire connection is a bonus

However for intensive work I would recommend a Wiebetech unit   http://www.wiebetech.com/products/RTX400.php

My self and a colleague have been using Western Digital Green or Blue 1TB Drives may move on to 2TB as prices drop .

I use old VHS cases to store the bare drives and metal biscuit tins to store Bare drives in the VHS cases off site . We are using the metal tin as we had a mouse problem of the rodent variety

Regards

Phil

[Monty Rakusen]

Yes I agree
However for intensive work I would recommend a Wiebetech unit   http://www.wiebetech.com/products/RTX400.php
Samsung 1.5TB drives....
esata card

The system works brilliantly.

Monty

[fotostig]

Thanks for the replies. The Wiebetech-system looks very interesting indeed! I see that its one port for each bay. Does this mean that the discs aren't serial-connected? I liked that about the lacie-discs, that you can have all your discs on one chord that connects to my computer.

Also, I saw that the other manufacturer that I mentioned in my first post, that their docking-station will support up to 2Tb discs.... I want a system that I can stick with for some time.. I'm now on 1tb discs, going to get 2tb, and most likely 4tb in a year or so.. Can I be sure that this system will be compatible with bigger discs when its time to upgrade once again?

[Monty Rakusen]

no you need 2 esata cables and a card with 2 sockets. Otherwise it works just like internal drives.

I find 1.5T drives last me over 6 months for fff files and probably more than a year for post produced files tiff. Thats quite adequate for me.
I manually back up. The images from the day go into fffMASTER and then to fffHOME (then off site) the tiff files are worked on an internal drive and when the job is finished go to tiffMASTER and then tiffHOME.
I use the original packaging from the drives except when very recent when they live in a display box fixed to the wall and then I carry them about in a little peli case bright yellow!

Monty

[fotostig]

ok thanks... which model of the RTX400 do you have?

[Phil G]

Sorry for delay in responding missed the thread

We use the SV port multiplied eSATA  you only need one cable to address four drives just fit a card that has the port multiplying feature they are quite cheap and a  double socket so you can add another Wiebetech unit or a dock

I also use a Tempo SATA ExpressCard|34 to connect my MBP laptop to the Wiebetech unit it also is port multiplying

Regards

Phil

[fotostig]

Thanks for the answers.. I just received an email from Wiebetech today, and they also recommended me the SV version, so I think I'll get that one.

[fotostig]

I'm now waiting for my RTX-400 from fedex.

I was wondering if you have any recommendations on how to format my new discs on mac? I had external discs before that I just started to use as they came. Should I use Disc-utility or DiskWarrior?

[JB]

We use a Wiebetech Drivedock, possibly a discontinued one, as it has firewire 800 connection and can be powered over the bus. Its worked flawlessly for years but on IDE drives. We archive to DVD & to the bare drives and keep one copy off site and we backup to a set of drives in cases which we take off site daily.

To format your bare drives just use Disk utility in your preferences. I format to mac journalled and leave as one partition.

Jason

[Phil G]

I'm now waiting for my RTX-400 from fedex.

I was wondering if you have any recommendations on how to format my new discs on mac? I had external discs before that I just started to use as they came. Should I use Disc-utility or DiskWarrior?

Hi fotostig

I use the Mac Disc-utility

When you put a new unformatted disc in any bay you will get "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer" if you select Initialize...  the Disk Utility will appear (- if not Select it from Utilities)

Select the new drive from the list it will be in orange with the SCUSi logo
Select the Erase tab   and and select Mac OS Extended (journaled) and Name it
then click 'Erase'

You will be asked if you want it to be a Time Machine back up - I normally click 'Don't Use'

You can then select First Aid and 'Verify Disk' which will check Disc and give a status report - if ok off you go

As an ex Win PC user I found the Mac Disc utility unbelievably easy to use partitioning and setting up Raid systems was so easy I thought `i had missed some thing out

All the best with your RTX-400 have the same model

Phil

[ette]

I use old VHS cases to store the bare drives and metal biscuit tins to store Bare drives in the VHS cases off site . We are using the metal tin as we had a mouse problem of the rodent variety

Phil that is Gold!

[jeffbnz]

just my 2cents worth...

we only use Western Digital discs. We have 3 of us shooting/retouching and we go through a heap of disks, Have never had a WD fail. We used a mix of WD and Seagate over the years, and every seagate has failed. Got to stage we stopped getting them replaced under warranty and just forked out for WD.

For us, reliability is much preferred over performance for most of our data disks. Operating systems are WD Black, as are scratch disks (or scorpio 10000rpm)
Our server and data bank have 15 disks (OS/storage/real time backups etc)  running between them so most are WD Green as they use less power, especially on startup.

Not trying to say which is a better brand of disc, just giving our experience. Have had a few mates lose work from dead HDDs

cheers