Portable Hard Drive Options

[Jason_Boone]

Going to Europe with my HVX200a and my MacBook Pro. I am trying to decide what portable hard drive(s) to get. Going to be in Europe for a month.

After researching various models, I am thinking of going with a G-Raid Mini (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/589953-REG/G_Technology_916009_02_640GB_G_RAID_mini_Triple.ht ml)640gig and two Western Digital Passport 500gigers (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/581066-REG/Western_Digital_WDMER5000TN_500GB_My_Passport_Esse ntial.html#reviews) for backup.

Any advice on this? Good choice or not?

Also - these are both bus powered (through the USB 2.0 I gather). Can you have the hard drive plugged in the USB 2.0 and the firewire 800 slot at the same time? The USB 2.0 for power and the firewire 800 for transfering the P2 files?

More questions may follow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Thanks.

[MrBill]

I would get terabyte drives if you can. They fill up fast. I use E-sata drives that are 300 gbs.

Not sure what you mean using the USB drive for power--that won't work for powering the 2nd drive.

[Jason_Boone]

Basically what I mean is that if I have the G raid plugged in with a USB 2.0 cable to my Macbook Pro (which provides power to the drive), can I still plug in a firewire 800 cable to that same G raid to transfer video?

Will the drive know to transfer video through the firewire and not the USB?

[MrBill]

I don't believe you can use both the USB and Firewire ports at the same time (on an external drive). It's usually one or the other. You can test it, but I don't believe it will work--I could be wrong though.

:beer:

[pmark23]

Rather than one large drive, I'd go with several smaller drives. I'm a big fan of the Transcend StorageJet 320GB, which are small and lightly armoured. 320 GB is just over five hours of 1080 DVCPROHD footage.

Remember to take double (or even triple) the drives for backup, and keep each separate backup in a different location (possibly courier a drive back home once it's filled).

[fishops]

You do know that firewire supports bus power as well, yes?

[Jason_Boone]

I didn't think that the firewire 800 supports bus power.

For my money, I am thinking about just getting a big ol' 4 pound 2tb Graid and just lugging it in my luggage, and then having the Western Digital 500gb passports on my person as backup.

[David Saraceno]

FW800 does support buspowered HDDs.

We have several.

[hilliardcg]

Am a big fan of OWC/MacSales drives, and am still using my first 60 GB On-the-Go portable from 2003 (now it'll probably die tomorrow). Have also traveled with a pair of 1 TB drives for plug and play. If I were doing extended time abroad, I would FedEx back a copy of all files (send two sets, separately, if you're feeling unlucky)...that in addition to hand-carrying two sets of all files.
Lee

[k2director]

The easiest solution would be to buy a dual hard drive enclosure with Raid1 built in. You slip two raw hard drives into the enclosure, and mount it on the Mac. It shows up as ONE drive. You copy your P2 files to the drive, and the enclosure itself automatically writes the data to *both* drives in the enclosure. Presto--instant back up.

Here's an enclosure based on 2.5" drives (very portable):
http://www.cooldrives.com/2usb2alrahdd.html

Here's a couple that take 3.5" drives:
http://www.icydock.com/product/mb662us-2s.html

http://firewiremax.com/2usb20andfi8.html

P2 is supposed to be convenient. Do you really want to be manually transfering files from one drive to the next to the next?

[Jason_Boone]

I thought I read somewhere else that ShotPut doesn't work on the Mac. True/False?

That would be ideal though. Wish P2CMS would do that for me. I really need to get a Duel Adapter as well.