Hello,

In an evolving solution for a storage system, I am currently looking at these two products. Please help me decide.

• RAIDSTREAM TWIN
• iStarUSA Hot-Swap Enclosure

MAIN CONCERN:

-Compatibility with MacPro and Windows workstations. We swap projects across workstations.
-Fast/reliable data tranfer rate
-Easy hard drive swapping for refiling or archiving.
-Minimal cost

Thank you.

No experience with either model above.  Recommend checking compatibility on their website and that of Atto.

Whatever your decision is, Avid does not recommend hotswap at all.

If you do purchase suggest you report back to the forums your experiences

thanks 

Thank you.

I've never heard about it. We are actually using a hot-swap system on one of our workstations. It working well so far. I understand the risk of accidentally unmounting it while working which true on almost all computing work.

Im now browsing at Lacie products.

The good news? Those are cheap, buy a couple extras, or at least a spare. Also, don't count on being able to buy those sleds (the one that uses them) for long, so buy a lot of them. The one that uses raw drives is interesting, but it depends how often you send your drives around. That could get annoying. I don't really see how these are better than firewire drives in the long run.

"hot swap" is really only great if you have a standard like the old Avid drives so you can send them to other shops. If you have to send over a case too, it might as well be any other firewire drive. Mount a shelf, tie down a firewire or sata cable to the shelf along wiht a power cable so it can't walk off, and you have "hot swap" capabilities and a case that anyone anywhere can use.

Chinese boxes are chinese boxes, it's all about who tests them and how and who can get you parts beyond the 2 week factory run in Taiwan. Ask anyone in the storage industry. Most "drive" manufacturers are a warehouse in Orange County with a screwdriver and a UPS account. I know, I've been to several like that. (no, I won't name names)

That's just my $.02

get some hustle with another outfit from Orange County, CalDigit.  Their screwdrivers are sharp and so are their engineers.  And they know video storage.  I know cost points are critical, but so's the data...

awesome recommendations!

i'm checking out CalDigit too. keep the ideas coming.

thanks!

Ok, I'm now looking at Lacie 2Big Quadra and Drobo. What can you say about them?

Thanks.

How about the LaCie Biggest S2S eSata Drive?  I have the drive on my system it is 2.5TB and fast.  I have had it for about a year and it has been very reliable.

http://www.lacie.com/support/support_manifest.htm?id=10194

I'm jumping in this conversation since I am curious about the Drobo as well, I've been looking at picking one up for a while now.

FWIW all info on FCP forums seems to be that drobo is NG, and many naysayers on Lacie (although mine have all been fine).

Most recommendations seem to be for Caldigit, Wiebetech, G-Tech and OWC.

There does seem to be some feeling that G-Tech quality has declined since being taken over by Hitachi though.

Drobo is slow. Not sure what performance you are expecting but I doubt you will be able to push DNxHD out of unless it is DNx36.

the CalDigit HDOne has been in service here for a year.  Really hustles along w/nary a burp. I'm still impressed that when I call up, they send me straight back to the guys in the white coats who engineer them and write the code for their systems. Pretty unique setup there

Caldigit HD Element in use for 6 months. Very good product and support. Great raid system and software. Worth the money if editing is your business.

I've looked at the Drobo often, but only as a data backup device (I think that is how they intend it to be used also).  I don't think that it would be suitable for live media storage. 

There is a product review of the Drobo array on Cnet.com.  According to the review.

"The bad:Drobo itself is an USB-only device, and networking capability adds $200 to the bill; we would like to see Drobo bundled with a good backup application."

USB in general has slow transfer rates so have to agree with Kenton that as data backup using the Drobo drive would be fine but to stream media the technology most likely is not fast enough