Buying an external hard drive for iBook & Final Cut Studio

[ShotokaN]

Hey guys,

I'm gonna be getting an external hard drive for my 14" iBook, because I discovered that I can get a copy of FCS from work. Two questions:

1) Will my computer be able to run FCS? It's a 1.42Ghz G4 iBook with 1.5GB of RAM. The internal HD, unfortunately, is the standard 60GB 4200 rpm one. I'm worried about the processor (will video take years to render?) and the graphics chip (32MB eek). I would (most likely) be editing in standard DV on this machine, not broadcast quality or High Def, so I should be okay right?

2) Is this a good deal for an external HD? It seems reasonable, but I know nothing about Seagate's drives.

Any help would be appreciated. These forums are pretty cool.

 

[jimsowden]

I'd have some serious reservations about installing FCS on an iBook. You could get away with final cut, maybe even DVD studio pro. Motion is a definite no.

 

[Heb1228]

It will run well enough for you, even motion and DVDSP as long as you're keeping it fairly simple. An external HD will help you out a lot. You should definitely install all your media and capture scratch on the external drive.

Don't buy an external that is USB only. Firewire will give you a better connection speed and firewire drives are also bootable with OS X. Check http://www.zipzoomfly.com and http://www.newegg.com, both have great prices and excellent customer service.

 

[ShotokaN]

I've never used Motion, and probably won't miss it.

I don't really need all of the studio applications. The only one that's essential to me, of course, is Final Cut. I'd like to have DVD Studio, Soundtrack, and Compressor, but if push comes to shove, I could work around not having those three apps.

So long as FCP and Photoshop work, I'm happy.

 

[silversyren]

Oh man, that's a freaking amazing price.

I wonder if I can still return my OWC Mercury.. augh. I just finished saving all my design files from school to it too.

 

[ShotokaN]

Don't buy an external that is USB only. Firewire will give you a better connection speed and firewire drives are also bootable with OS X. Check http://www.zipzoomfly.com and http://www.newegg.com, both have great prices and excellent customer service.

Heb, what do you think of this deal from TigerDirect?
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2173668

It's a 300GB Seagate + enclosure for $149, then a $50 rebate takes it to $99.

I've never bought anything off tigerdirect before, and I know little about Seagate products, so I'm not sure whether this looks fantastic or unbelievably fishy.

Newegg is a great site, though. Forgot to check that.

 

[silversyren]

also -- from what i've heard, seagate is the recommended hard drive to get.. not the external hard drives they offer, but the hard drives themselves. plus you get a nice 3 year warranty with them.

the enclosure looks fine -- and apparently it's got a pretty great warranty as well. free warranty upgrade?

i've also heard tigerdirect is a bit of a pain in the ass to get the rebates but even at $150, it's a great deal.

 

[Heb1228]

Heb, what do you think of this deal from TigerDirect?
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2173668

It's a 300GB Seagate + enclosure for $149, then a $50 rebate takes it to $99.

No doubt thats a great deal. The question is do you want that butt-ugly thing sitting on your desk? If you've got some space on the floor behind your desk, go for it. Otherwise, you just gotta decide if the good price is worth looking at that thing for several years.

EDIT: but it does look like most anything else, you're gonna be spending twice the $$$, so it is pretty hard to pass up, even though the enclosure looks like that.

 

[ShotokaN]

Yeah I think I'm gonna go with the TigerDirect deal.

Do I need to partition this drive once I get it?

 

[Heb1228]

Yeah I think I'm gonna go with the TigerDirect deal.

Do I need to partition this drive once I get it?

Yeah you will need to partition and format it, but that very easy to do with Disk Utility. You may want to consider making a 60GB partition to use for backups for your iBooks HD. And then use the rest for storage, video, etc...

You can make a full drive, bootable clone with SuperDuper or CarbonCopyCloner so you know you're stuff is always backed up and safe in case your HD fails for some reason. Thats another one of the huge advantages of having an external FW drive.

 

[ShotokaN]

Yeah you will need to partition and format it, but that very easy to do with Disk Utility. You may want to consider making a 60GB partition to use for backups for your iBooks HD. And then use the rest for storage, video, etc...

You can make a full drive, bootable clone with SuperDuper or CarbonCopy Cloner so you know you're stuff is always backed up and safe in case your HD fails for some reason.

Got it. Thanks a lot for your help man.

 

[Boggle]

Wow! That's a great price for a hard drive. I just ordered it as the backup drive for my new macbook.
Thanks for finding it.

As I know NOTHING about the rest of your question, good luck finding quality help. I'm sure you will.

 

[OldCorpse]

I'm sure the macbook will be enough for FCS. I have a 1.33 iBook (see sig) and am using FCP (a dv project) right now, so I can't see how the new macbook can be any worse. Re: your link w/ external HDD. I got the very deal you linked to (just waiting for the rebate right now). Word of caution: the external enclosure "Ultra" is garbage - simply put, the Seagate drive won't fit well inside. It can be squeezed in, but you won't close the Ultra perfectly... it'll still work though. The Seagate drive though, is ace. I bought another Seagate 300GB drive in January (the exact same model), and it's working perfectly, though the enclosure I got for that one is *way* better than the Ultra (my enclosure is "metal gearbox" silver one, with both FW and USB 2.0). I'm looking to replace the Ultra with something better that won't break the bank. Btw. when I bought my first Seagate + enclosure in January, I did it through TigerDirect, and got the rebate very fast. I had only good experiences with TD (bought a few things through them).