Re: Gigabit RAID vs eSATA RAID

Yup. I use a graid and the basic $50 sonnet tempo card. Gives the standard 120mb/sec. Get better cards and you can pull 200mb, if you need it. But you can also run a true proper raid.

The graid hooked up via fw 800 works well too. Gives about 80mb/sec.

I don't put anything on there that couldn't be replaced. Media mostly. Maybe AE renders. Clients have copies of the media, and I can rerender the AE stuff. If you just need an esata connection, the sonnet $50 (tempo I think) is solid.

Recently, I've also edited some projects right off if lacie rugged drives provided by the client. I'm usually editing P2, XDCam EX, etc in a pro res seq. Often 720 30p or 1080i. Editing off those drives still gave rt functionality, no dropped frames, and generally the same experience as editing off the graid. I even had one of the drives hooked up FW400 for awhile due to lack of available ports.

Sustained playback isn't always that big of an issue for many. Unless you have to play back to tape output. Which I haven't done in years. It's all files and DVD/BluRay output.