MONSTER G5 Internal storage!

dpwanab

dpwanab

Active member
Hey all, I just found this, the Data Swift 200:
Sthree2.jpg


Here's a review:
http://www.barefeats.com/swift.html

So the G5's only have two HDD slots, but this thing allows you to mount 3 MORE DRIVES inside the case! :o :o :o
You keep the main boot disc, and can set up the other 4 drives in a RAID for uncompressed HD capture speeds of OVER 180 MB/s!

I don't really need all that storage right now, in fact I'll probably never need it, but I was investigating the option of another internal drive as a scratch disc, because up until now I've been stuck using an external FW drive. While looking around for options I found the Data Swift 200.

Another similar product mentioned on that review page is the G5 Jam. This thing adds 2 internal drives, and the reviewer mentions combining the two for a RAID of 7 INTERNAL DRIVES! If you got those 400G Hitachi drives, you'd have 2.8 TERABYTES of storage.

There's a lot of info on that page, with links to other reviews, including a sad review of FW 800, which in their tests has HALF the write speed of a G4. That sucks, and I'm glad I found that out before blindly purchasing an external FW800 drive. I think now I'm gonna go with the internal RAID.
 
Re: MONSTER G5 Internal storage!

But only 2.7 terrabytes? Come on, you can only capture, like, 8 gazillion hours of miniDV footage with that... :)

Seriously, it sounds like a great setup. Definitely ideal for someone like me, who can never erase anything off of his drives.
 
Re: MONSTER G5 Internal storage!

I agree, it looks really cool. I too suffer from erasefromyourharddrivephopia and really hate taking stuff off of it. How much will this setup run?
 
Re: MONSTER G5 Internal storage!

they quote prices for the Data swift for a 4-drive internal RAID setup, including the braketry, cables, and controller cards for $437. This doesn't include the drives, but figure about $1/Gig, as how most 250 Gig drives are going for now.

So it's not exactly cheap, but the bang for the buck ratio is VERY attractive compared to the expense of an external SCSI RAID. Check out this test review from BareFeats.com:

http://www.barefeats.com/hard35.html

I don't know how much the Hitachi 400 Gig drives are gonna run. I can only find reviews of them online, can't find anybody selling them yet, and can't find a release date. I'm gonna start with one of these for now, it's more than enough for the amount of work I'm presently doing.
 
Re: MONSTER G5 Internal storage!

Any idea if system temperatures are affected? These hard drives do sit in front of the area where the front CPU fans are supposed to draw air in to cool the CPUs.

--Cless
 
Re: MONSTER G5 Internal storage!

I think the temp concerns were brought up and talked about in the Bare Feats review I posted above.
 
Re: MONSTER G5 Internal storage!

dpwanab,
Before you invest in the 400 GB Hitachi drives, I'd like to pass onto you one word of wisdom that I found on creativecow.net. Apparently the 400 GB drives are only 5400 RPM, and your video playback could suffer badly depending on the format you use. I don't know very much about RAIDs and if that info can be neglected if it part of a RAID, but I thought I'd give you the heads up.

-Harry
 
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