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good HDD for FCP?

And the reason you have an external drive solution is because you are using a laptop?

Have you budget constraints? Maybe an External RAID system like this one would better serve your needs. It effectively doubles the throughput. I have a similar problem using FCE and on a Mac Pro. I am editing large HD files, so Extreme RT has to be disabled. I am looking into a RAID solution.
 
Lacies... mixed reviews.

Lacie drives have had some issues, more than would encourage me to buy them. A few friends with them have suffered data loss and other anomalies, but then some people swear by them.

I prefer to build my own so I know the chipset that is communicating with the computer and what kind of hard drive is in it. I like 750 GB - 1 TB Seagate Barracuda or ES hard drives (the former in 1.5 TB had some firmware issues which were dealt with) and OWC quad interface (USB 2.0, FW400, FW800, eSATA) enclosures. OWC (Other World Computing) does sell a few aluminum Raid-0 cases, one of which has been working flawlessly, always on, for me.

You'll get a lot of people swearing by many different manufacturers and types of drives as well as proponents for and against RAID's, in the end it's up to what you'll prefer and sometimes trial and error is the only way to make that decision.
 
G-Tech is the best according to online reviews, and they're what i see at post-post production houses most of the time.

after killing an OWC mercury elite pro, i upgraded to a g-tech RAID 1tb and it's great. no issues, quiet, and I use it for a back up for my scratch drive. when i have edited footage on it, i noticed no reduced speed at all.

unless you absolutely have to because of your budget, go with FW800 so that you're not stuck using usb 2.0 when you upgrade.
 
My New FirmTek RAID Enclosure

Stay away from LaCie. You can see all my rants by doing a search. After being very dissapointed with my LaCie two drive RAID enclosure I spent a great deal of time online looking at reviews. The Arizona Mac Users Group has a great website with reviews of lots of Mac related items, including RAID enclosures. http://www.amug.org

Their highest rated enclosure is the Firmtek 5 PM bay. Read all the detailed reviews with Pros and Cons by reading each one in detail. The Firmtek, http://www.firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-5pm got 5 out of 5, the only one with this rating.

On this recommendation and talking with them I just got my new Firmtek enclosure at the end of last week. I populated it with Seagate Barracuda 1.5 TB (not the bad firmware one's as all new ones are good) for 6.8 TB of formatted storage.

So far everything is fine. There is some fan noise of course, but not too bad, as you need to keep those drives cool somehow.

Haven't had any problems yet, but I have had it up for less then a week.
 
I've had a G-Tech G-Raid for almost two years now and it's awesome. Through the MBP I have it connected through eSATA/express34. It has 2 Hitachi drives in it. I wish I had the newer one that has FW as well. Mine is only eSATA. Just be prepared - the eSATA cables must remain very short. If it's not in your budget - get the single drive with FW800, but eSATA is faster.
 
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