How much better is eSATA than FW800, running FCP?

eustace

eustace

Well-known member
Enough to warrant getting a 17" MBP (with ExpressCard/34 slot) instead of the slotless 15"?

I've got some big editing projects (using FCS 3) coming up so it's time I finally upgrade my MacBook Pro. I'd really prefer to keep with the 15" as I think it's the perfect size, but the 17" isn't much more expensive so I'm wondering if the ability to use eSATA is really a huge advantage or if I'd be fine just using FW800 on the 15".


On a side note: Is anyone using a MBP with a solid state drive? How much of a difference in speed do you notice running FCP? I'd really love to go this route, but an extra $600 just for the 256GB drive is a lot of cheddar. Worth it?
 
In my experience using a single drive the difference is negligible. For a multi drive RAID setup you will get a huge speed bump. If you will be editing a lot of uncompressed HD footage, or RED RAW files, a good RAID would be a must. For anything including and under 1920x1080 Pro Res, FW800 will be more than adequate.
 
I tested a small bus powered iStorage Pro pocket view two raid drive.

It has both eSATA and FW800 connections.

Using this drive, writes were about 65 MB/s, and reads for FW800 = 85MB/s and for eSATA= 95 MB/s if that helps.

http://thurly.net/w38

No doubt similar enclosures from CaldigitVR, etc. would be about the same.

The big difference is that FW800 is buspowered and requires no adapter; not true with eSATA using EC/34
 
Thanks for the help, guys.

Yeah, I'm a big fan of FW800 being buspowered. Those Lacie Rugged drives have been my good friends on the road.


So you think I won't notice much difference just using one drive, editing in Pro Res? What about grading in Color? Or in Magic Bullet Looks?

Thanks again!
 
With the iStorage at RAID 0...FW800 - I got 63MB/s. Via eSATA...163MB/s That's nearly triple the speed. Raid 1 I got 62MB/s FW800, and 85MB/s via eSATA.

Caldigit VR mini - Raid 0, FW800, 65MB/s and with eSATA 158MB/s

Huge man...huge.
 
Wow. Thanks, Shane. So after seeing those numbers I'm now leaning towards getting the 17" - with one of these OWC slim card adapters.

Maybe I should be asking this: How important is it to use a RAID system for a big project. The main thing I'll be working on is a long-form documentary with what will be about 100-150 hours of Pro Pres.

Right now I've got the untranscoded H.264 files on two separate hard drives, so will it be super important to back anything else up other than the project file? (sorry for the noob questions here.)
 
The need for RAID depends on how many streams of what data you will be editing.

You haven't indicated that.

I've used a Crucial SSD as a boot drive on a MBP. Boots quickly and apps launched quickly, but I don't see that translating into any speed up in FCP when used as a boot drive.
 
David S. said:
The need for RAID depends on how many streams of what data you will be editing.
Click to expand...

David, I'm not sure I understand. (again, sorry for my noob-ness.)

For my main project, I'll most likely be editing in Pro Res or Pro Res LT - 1080 24p - and I'm sure I'll end up having at least a few tracks of video and more than a few audio tracks.

I'm guessing it will be about 3 - 3.5 TB of raw footage for the whole project.


That's good to know about the SSD - I'll just stick with the 7200rpm drive.
 
eSata is way better for me than FW800, though I have both kinds of drives. I don't buy FW800 anymore.
 
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