Digital BW, The Print

Dear Christy,

I recently explored that route, and my decision resulted in
the following:


Controller: Tempo-X eSATA 8

    <http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempo-x_esata8.html>

But you could use this controller also:

    <http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempo-x_esata44.html>


Hard Drives: Seagate 300GB Barracuda 7200.9 ATA with 16MB Cache

    Canadian Price and Location for HD:

    
<http://www.memoryexpress.com/index.php?PageTag=&page=file&memx_menu=EmbedPr
oductDetail.php&DisplayProductID=7192&SID=>

    Seagate eSATA Compatible Barracuda Information:

    <http://www.seagate.com/pdf/marketing/PO-Cuda7200.9.pdf>


External Case Kit: MacGurus Burly 4 Drive SATA Kit

    <http://www.macgurus.com/productpages/sata/sataguide_1.php>

Comes with everything you need, although I found their HD prices a bit high.
I put it together in a couple of hours.

MacGurus tend go the extra distance to assist you with your needs and
delivery.
This external box is absolutely quiet and well made.


What I did:

I set one pair of HD¹s with RAID 0 Photoshop scratch disk space, where
Photoshop 
retrieves the original files while working on the images, and the second
pair of HD¹s 
are set with RAID 1, where I store any incremental image files with
redundant storage.

Although I leave many files with RAID 0 for future use, it is not the safest
place for 
long term storage because of the inherent design of the RAID setup, so I
always 
store a partially completed or completed image within RAID 1.

This set up is excellent and fast...


To understand RAID arrays, go here:

    <http://www.acnc.com/04_01_00.html>


Last note:

Be wary of any firewire and, or USB connections with RAID array setups.
A quick search of RAID arrays and Mac OSX, will reveal issues around
LaCie, et al...

I hope this helps a bit...

jim k






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