seeking RELIABLE, PORTABLE high-capacity drive

The portable drive I use is a 1.5TB USB3.0 Seagate FreeAgent. It's currently the highest capacity 2.5" drive you can buy, and mine has been working pretty fine so far, I use it for storing all the clips from my HPX370 and don't have trouble loading the clips into FCP and copying to and from the drive. You can also change the interface between USB2.0/3.0, Firewire and eSATA with an extra adapter. Can't really talk about reliability since in 10 years I've never had a drive fail on me...
 
That Seagate FreeAgent 1.5TB drive is actually 2 x 750 drives. There is no 1.5TB 2.5 single internal drive. That's why the case is thicker than the same product in a smaller capacity.
 
photonashville said:
That Seagate FreeAgent 1.5TB drive is actually 2 x 750 drives. There is no 1.5TB 2.5 single internal drive. That's why the case is thicker than the same product in a smaller capacity.
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I noticed this earlier and photonashville is correct. Go with quality drives and enclosures from companies like wiebetech.com and OWC. The largest 2.5 imch drive is 750 GBs, and the noted drive is two drives, and that means two opportunities to fail.

Anything MyBook, FreeAgent, etc. isn't going to be the type of drive that you want to store your media.
 
A whole 2 drives? sounds like a tall order to fit in that case there... I have a portable drive only slightly slimmer, and a 2.5" fits in there rather snug. Either the FreeAgent's case is extremely thin, or it really is just one drive, and the case is really chunky.
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I'm currently running a number of Google searches and from forum talk I've found that someone has taken apart a 1.5TB FA and put it inside his Macbook... apparently it is a 2.5" drive, but it's 14mm in height instead of the usual 12.5, which might explain the thickness.
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yup, here's proof: http://www.johnkester.com/storage/macrumors/IMG_0259.jpg 1.5tb on left, Macbook drive on right. seems that 2.5" drives come in 12.5, 14 and 16mm thicknesses.

In any case, regardless of what kinda brand of drive you use, you should get two drives and use one as a backup.
 
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My understanding is that it is a dual platter drive, not two drives.

Again, two platters = two chances to fail.
 
It has 3~4 platters, I know for sure the old version had 4, and they may have reduced the number for the new one. I'm not sure there are many portable drives around the 1TB capacity that actually use only one platter, that's asking for a really dense platter.
The FreeAgent is already pushing the limits, and it only has 375 or 500GB platters, so if you really want to be safe about it, then a 500GB drive should be the limit I suppose...
 
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Here is a mil spec hard drive system by Maxell. You will need the drive and the adapter. I use this and it works really well. They have 250 and 500gig drives. Although a 5400RPM drive, it works field editing real time in FCP. The adapter includes very nice cables.

Also, the VC102 adapter option offers record from cam features though it is somewhat limited in codecs, but if you are DVCProHD, HDV, or DV you are good, no AVCHD or HDMI.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/714704-REG/Maxell_261527_iVDR_500GB_EX_Media.html

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/633888-REG/Maxell_261217_iVDR_Xtreme_Adapter.html

Grant
 
Anything MyBook, FreeAgent, etc. isn't going to be the type of drive that you want to store your media.
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Speaking of MyBooks, I've taken several of them across the Atlantic dozens of times in the past 3 years or so, where they were just laying in my camera bag, and some got knocked over on the table a couple of times. Maybe it's just my luck, but just because it looks to be a consumer drive, doesn't mean it will break if you look at it the wrong way.

There are people who've used drives that worked non-stop for over 10 years, and some drives that break after less than a month, either way, you're going to want to have backups, regardless of how many platters your disk has. Backing up = 0 chance to lose data.

Whenever you go shopping for a drive, make sure you have money for two, storage is cheap.
 
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