Advice on video workflow for the new Macbook Pro Retina

[seancusick]

Looking for some friendly advice.

I have consummed the cool aid, and am moving my workflow off my trusted macpro, to the mbpr, with thunderbolt display. I film weddings and corporate videos. I am writing for suggestions on a new workflow that will allow me to support my 20 TB collection of drives that I swap out on the pro and use them with the new mbpr. I, like most, am disgusted by the MP update. My guess is that Jobs killed it, and they had a change of plans at the end when they realized that along with FCPX, they were killing their most passionate side. My 2008 mp is on life support, and I could not wait for a real update any longer.

My idea: WD 6 tb thunderbolt to store all of my home folder: 1.6 tb of music, 2 TB of pictures. I would like to have the set up to allow me to disconnect the laptop and go mobile, while leaving my home on the 6tb thunderbolt drive. I have seen some poor reviews on transfer speed. Does anyone have experience with this drive? I am also looking for the best solution to allow my movie, pictures, and music folders to live off the 256 ssd drive. I would also dump and edit on the thunderbolt drive and then store project files on external drives.

I am left with a large collection of esata drives. I am thinking this:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816856038

CineRAID Home 4 BAY eSATA & USB 3.0 RAID Data Storage Enclosure w/ 4 Hot Swappable drives (CR-H408) Any mac experience with this?

Any thoughts on speed? I am thinking usb 3.0 has the speed to make it work.

I would appreciate hearing from anyone trying to do a similar set up.

 

[GSPice]

I don't have this setup yet but I've been researching something similar to what you've described. I've been leaning towards USB 3.0 instead of thunderbolt because of price, and that you'd need several striped drives (maybe around 6?) before you could appreciate thunderbolt's higher bandwidth. Until then, I don't think thunderbolt can get you your data noticeably faster than USB 3.0.

It's best if whatever raid enclosure you select has it's own (quality) usb 3.0 controller.

I would generally put my media and project files on external drives, so the SSD can be dedicated to fast action/random OS/app processes.

Disclaimer: I'm not an expert on this, but it's just a summary of a bunch of raid/usb/thunderbolt reviews I've read over time.

 

[lummers13]

Very interesting thread IMO

I'd like to hear more ideas as well as I've just picked up a 5Dm2 so lots of pictures and HD video will be coming my way. I too will be living off of the 256GB internal drive and need convienient/practical solutions for external storage.