Are any Mac users archiving projects to PC ATA drives, the solution recommended in June's ComputerVideo magazine? I'm considering downloading FireNet Mac 2.0 from www.unibrain.com to network Mac & PC, and wondered if any others have this working, or would advise another 200GB archive solution.
I'm using a new 40GB iMac for video editing and would buy a FireWire card to dump archive & in-progress iMovie projects to my Win98 PC.
Barnaby,
The UniBrain stuff does let you try before you buy, though each session can only last 15mins (as I recall) before you have to reboot. This restriction goes away, of course, when you buy the license.
I really should try this myself, but I'm currently messing with other possible solutions, Connectix DoubleTalk and Connectix Virtual PC, so I'm giving FireWire networking a miss for the moment because I don't want to make life any more complicated.
One question - why are you making life so complicated?
Couldn't you just add a FireWire external hard disk if you have no room in the Mac (I'm guessing you've got an iMac).
About the cheapest way forward if you are going FireWire is to buy an ADS Pyro FireWire bay (from [url=http://www.lynxdv.com)]www.lynxdv.com)[/url] and chuck into it big drive bought from the likes of www.dabs.com or www.simply.co.uk.
Having said that, I suspect that Maxtor 60GB and 80GB FireWire drives may be a similar price to going the DIY route. Even so, check out lynxdv, because he does have some good deals, usually, with ADS kit.
Cheaper, still, though, if you do have room in the Mac, is to buy a big ATA drive and pop it inside.
Bob C
Thanks, Bob
As I was a PC user till last month, it was the economy of removable caddies and ease of file transfer Mac-PC that attracted me to FireNet. I'm currently burning CDs for this purpose as my ISP is so slow.
But visiting www.lynxdv.com on your recommendation, I realise the neatest archive solution would be a DVDR/RW drive. I'm still figuring out if I'm able to attach the Pioneer DVR-AO3 directly to the iMac, or if there's any point going via FireNet to burn the DVDs on my PC.
I guess I should wait for the next generation of DVDR/RW burners, export to miniDV meanwhile and transfer my archive to DVD when I buy the burner, say in 6 months' time.
Barnaby,
You might consider a DAT drive, it's what I use to archive my projects. They have a capacity of 12gb (DDS3) or 20gb (DDS4), the drive themselves are not that expensive considering their storage capacity (£400-£800), the tapes are about £10-£15 each, the transfer rate is not too bad at 2-3mb a second.
Regards
Lui
www.lynxdv.com replied as follows:
At the moment the Pioneer A03 does not fit into a PYRO Drive Kit bay, the PYRO DVDR/RW, which is due out soon, is a special firewire drive bay with the AO3 in, so you may want to wait until that is out before buying.
Another problem is although the A03 will work with a drive kit, the PC identifies it incorrectly.
Kind regards
Ian Smythe
DAT tape isn't so attractive to me - the DVD format is more useful to remote coworkers and libraries, and hopefully will last a few decades longer. At least, I presume DVD / CD is more stable in the long term. I'd like to have the archive in perfect condition 50 years from now.
Thanks for your ideas, Barnaby