FW800 will it make a difference on my set up?

Jack Daniel Stanley

Jack Daniel Stanley

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Staff member
Latest 20" iMac
2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4Gb 667MHz DDr2 SDRAM
ATI,RadeonHD2400
128MB VRam
...

Wondering if FW800 will make any difference for me given that my mac is not the fastest thing on wheels.

I have 2 Seagate Barracuda 750Gb SATA in a dual FW400 enclosure right now.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817332006
which I like because the drawers for it are really cheap, so you can keep buying HDD's (newegg has 500Gb Barracudas on sale for $109 now) and $15 drawers and swapping them out.

But I found a similarly priced dual FW800 enclosure. Not hot swappable (no drawers)
http://www.satadrives.com/dudr3satoush.html

I just got the FW400 enclosure so I can return it and get the FW800 enclosure, but, besides the lack of FW800, I like all of the other features of the FW400 enclosure and money is tight right now, real tight, so buying the FW800 enclosure first (can't do without the drives) then mailing the 400 enclosure back to newegg and waiting on a refund will be a strain, I think we can finagle some things, but it will be a strain.

Yet again, for $50 more than either of the two drives above I can have my hot swappable drive trays and FW800:
http://www.firewiremax.com/dudrsatofien.html

hmmm ....

So again: With my "not the fastest new mac" will FW800 make a difference? Am I crazy to be working without FW800 in FCP6 with 1080 footage?

Right now I work in "medium" quality with "full" framerate. Can't handle "full" quality at "full" framerate or dynamic for either setting. More than a few audio tracks are a problem too without mixing down the audio.

????

Thanks,

Jack
 
I use my G-raids with FW800, but I think it only comes into play when you do multitrack composites with 1080 footage, which I don´t...
FW400 should be enough for basic editing of 100mbit footage.
That said, I use FW800 and eSATA for external drives only, mainly because I just don´t want to think about bandwith issues and the extra cost is managable...
So, does the new 20" have FW800...?
 
The last, white iMac only brought FW800 with the 24" screen, to somehow make it more attractive to "pros" I would guess... (and to justify I higher price for it besides screensize...)
 
Totally- FW800 will make a big difference in your transfer speeds and performance.

-Noah
 
the man hath spoken :)

Thanks Noah. I thought maybe my entry level desktop would "render" any advantage moot.
 
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