External Storage questions

[fluidedge]

Hi

I'm looking around for an external storage solution to go with an iMac. I'm sure the 500GB HD will run out pretty soon, but i don't want to have 3 external hard drives on my desk taking up all my usb ports.

I need a solution that allows me to read and write to the drives as quickly as possible as i want to use one of the drives as a video editing scratch disk.

I'm not sure how NAS works exactly, but it'll just be me using the drives (a network of one person!) I have a gigabit ethernet port on the iMac that is not being used, i use Wifi for the internet, and i'll use the USB/FW ports for other things.

I'd like a 2 drive enclosure i think, one for a 320GB scratch and another for a 750GB file store - movies/edited footage/music/files/more files!

Am i asking for the impossible?

Is the ethernet port a fast enough interface for a scratch drive?

Can someone find me a 2 drive NAS enclosure available in the UK, for sensible money?

Should i just bite the bullet and have 2 external hard drives on my desktop?

Can i put 10000rpm server class drives in the enclosure? Will this be any quicker than 7200rpm

I use Final Cut and Maya and also CS3 on an iMac, has anybody an experience/better solutions?

thanks!!

 

[wallaby]

Is the ethernet port a fast enough interface for a scratch drive?

Hell no. You have an iMac, which means you have a firewire 800 port. THAT's going to be your fastest connection for external devices. What you want to find is either a two-drive enclosure with fw800 interface (and having the same size hard drives in each is usually a better idea, so two 500Gb drives instead of your 320 and 750), or just get two enclosures and daisy-chain them using fw800. This means you can have a fw800 enclosure hooked up to the iMac, and then another enclosure hooked up to the first enclosure (which should have two fw800 ports). There shouldn't be any loss in transfer speed (someone please correct me if I'm mistaken), so either option is pretty viable. Only thing you'll run into is price: firewire interface boards aren't cheap, so neither are the enclosures they're found in. Not sure about the UK, but OWC sells good enclosures; otherwise just look for some with good reviews on Newegg and see if they appear in any UK online stores. G-Drive, OWC, and ICYDOCK are good brands.

 

[fluidedge]

OK thanks for that!

I've found this: http://www.macpower.com.tw/products/hddmulti/taurus/pdd_raid2

Which i really like the look of and it's not too badly priced (£78) so i think i'll go for that one. Cheers RE: size of drives. I think a 500GB scratch and a 500GB store will be ok, though will a 320 and a 750 loose performace really? I would rather have that set up.

PS - I could get two single bay drives and daisy chain, but it's almost as cheap (£68 vs £78) to buy a double bay drive enclosure and go with that. I think it looks nicer too!