Over on the FredMiranda forum, a colleague was seeking advice and recommendations on external hard drives. I replied, but I figured it would be a good topic to expand upon here on the blog.

Back in the day (I talk about it as if it’s so long ago) when we were shooting film and then scanning and retouching on our computer, our concern was more with keeping our negatives in a safe, cool and dry place; the retouched files were easily stored on a CD (or two, or three). These days when our negatives are really the raw files our digital cameras capture; it’s so important to have a reliable, redundant solution to store those files. When you shoot a lot with high resolution cameras, the amount of storage needed could equal gigabytes, or even terabytes of images. Storing your Archives of raw files on CD’s and DVD’s just gets to be too much of a hassle when you are shooting thousands of images a week (consider the time required to burn a 80 GB to DVD’s).

For example, the Canon 1DS Mark II produces an 16.7 Mega-pixel image; The raw file is approximately 14.6 Megabytes. If you had an 80 GB hard drive, you could put approximately 5,610 images on the drive; OK that’s a lie, there’s some wasted space, so for this discussion, we’ll say you can put 5,500 images on an 80 GB hard drive.

80 GB*1024 = 81,920 MB
(there are 1,024 MB in a GB.)
81,920 MB / 14.6 MB = 5610.96

Now the 1DS Mark II isn’t the largest digital file created; Digital Backs (which have a higher resolution) generally produce a much larger file. Let’s take a look at the PhaseOne P45+ digital back. The P45+ is a 39 Mega-Pixel digital back, and creates a 44 MB raw file. Let’s do the math:

80 GB*1024 = 81,920 MB
81,920 MB / 44 MB = 1861.81

Wow, only 1800 images? I could shoot that in a long day.

OK, so in reality you could use larger hard drives, but larger drives mean more data loss; if the drive somehow becomes corrupt, or your assistant drops it in a puddle while running late to the train, you’ll have some explaining to do to your client, or multiple clients if you have more than one job on that drive. Whether a drive is 80 GB or 1 TB (yes, they’re available now), you have to have a good solution for redundancy.

The Costs of Storage
Before we talk about redundancy, let’s take a look at the cost of storage space these days. It’s actually quite amazing how far we’ve come, I remember when I upgraded from a 4 MB hard drive to an 8 MB hard drive in my Tandy computer, and that wasn’t a cheap drive. For reasons I will discuss later, I’m going to look at just the hard drive, not the added cost of the enclosure enclosure; Additionally, I’m going to look primarily at SATA II drives with a minimum of an 8 MB Cache. I buy most of my hard drives from NewEgg.com, so let’s compare some drive prices:

BRAND	DESC	MODEL	GB	PRICE	$/GB
WD	Caviar SE	WD800JD	80	42.99	$0.5374
Seagate	Barracuda	ST380815AS	80	43.99	$0.5499
Hitachi	Deskstar 7K80	HDS728080PLA380	80	43.99	$0.5499
WD	Caviar SE	WD1200JS	120	52.99	$0.4416
Seagate	Barracuda	ST3120811AS	120	52.99	$0.4416
WD	Caviar SE	WD2000JS	200	59.99	$0.3000
Seagate	Barracuda	ST3200820AS	200	64.99	$0.3250
Maxtor	MaXLine Pro	7H500F0	500	139.99	$0.2800
WD	Caviar SE16	WD5000AAKS	500	129.99	$0.2600
Hitachi	Deskstar T7K	HDT725050VLA360	500	134.99	$0.2700
Seagate	Barracuda	ST3500630AS	500	139.99	$0.2800
Seagate	Barracuda	ST3750640AS	750	254.99	$0.3400

Prices are current as of 4/23/2007 and subject to change.

(NewEgg.com and most other vendors do offer quantity discounts on some of their drives, so there is an additional cost savings. I, generally, order drives by the case (they come 20 to a case). I’m in the process of setting up an account with TechData, one of the largest IT Distributors, which will allow me to get the same drives at wholesale costs. TechData though does require that you are reselling the drives, and have a business license, and that is basically what I do.)

As you can see, smaller drives are now a little more expensive on a per GB basis, this is primarily due to supply and demand. On the other end, although, it’s hard to see here, the cost per GB actually starts to creep up a bit for the larger (read as NEWER) drives. Another factor to consider is these are primarily Desktop Hard Drives. Western Digital describes their Caviar SE line as:
Cool-running, quiet operation, superior performance and industry-leading reliability make these drives the perfect hard drives for desktop, business and consumer electronics storage.

They describe their RE2 line of drives as:
With 1.2 million hours MTBF, 3 Gb/s SATA technology and best-in-class vibration tolerance, these drives offer the best combination of reliability, high capacity and performance for enterprise applications.

Basically, the short of it… The RE2 line is made for 24-7-365 use in a data center, and they back that up with a 5-year warranty, but the price is a bit more per GB. The Caviar drives are wonderful drives, but they’re not made for 24-7-365 on-line access; this is very important to consider when selecting hard drives for your needs. If you’re going to keep your hard drives on-line you should probably invest in an enterprise class hard drive; if you’re going to only pull out a hard drive to get a file or two off and then store it away until you need it again, you can probably get away with a desktop class drive.

The External Hard Drive
There are so many options for External Hard Drives, it’s quite a task trying to figure out which one is right for you. PC World Magazine released a list of what they call the “Top 5 External Hard Drives“. For me, none of them fit the bill – only one of the five support RAID 1, and the price point just wasn’t right when I could fill one of these just about every couple weeks.

For some photographers, however, an external hard drive such as the ones listed may be just right for their needs. A lot of photographers swear by the Lacie Porsche, Lacie Big(er) Disk and Lacie All-Terrain” lines of hard drives, while others use G-Tech products such as their G-RAID2 and G-RAID mini series. G-Tech also makes a very interesting line called G-Speed; I, actually, like this line because it DOES support several types of RAID and has a variety of capacities available. The biggest downfall is it’s not very portable and I need something that’s portable.

The External Drive Enclosure
A hard drive enclosure is made to hold and power a hard drive outside of the computer; enclosures use any number of interfaces to connect the hard drive to the computer, including USB, Firewire, SATA, and SCSI. Many people use a single disk enclosure when they upgrade to a new computer, they will take the hard drive out of their old computer and put it in an enclosure; then connect the enclosure to their new computer and they will continue to have access to the old data while they migrate it to the new system.

There are many companies, including some of the aforementioned manufacturers, that manufacture hard drive enclosures. Some enclosures support only one drive, while others support up to 8, 10, or 20 drives. Some solutions allow you to put one drive in the enclosure, and just keep it there, while others allow you to “swap” several different drives in and out of the enclosure. Some support on-board RAID, while others require you to use a hardware host card, or software based RAID on your computer.

RAID
Answers.com describes RAID as:
A group of hard disks that operate together to improve performance or provide fault tolerance and error recovery through data striping, mirroring, and other techniques. Derived from Redundant Array of Independent Disks.

As photographers, we just want to make pictures – I’m sure you don’t want to know all the details about RAID, but let’s talk about some of the important factors. There are several different levels of RAID: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 100, 0+1, etc. RAID can help increase the performance by allowing multiple hard drives to work together to store your data; in a RAID 0, for example, your data is “striped” across two (or more) drives. Many external hard drives, such as the Lacie Bigger Disk Extreme use RAID 0, but this offers no redundancy. If one of the drives in your Bigger Disk Extreme crashes, your data could be lost; this basically creates more points of failure; you probably would have been safer storing your data on a single hard drive. RAID 1, also called “Mirroring”, stores exact replicas of your data on two drives. Unfortunately, RAID 1 does have a cost factor – for every bit of data stored you use exactly twice that. For 250 GB of storage, you will need two 250 GB drives; so the efficiency factor with RAID 1 is 50%, but you also have two exact replicas of all your data.

RAID 0 might be a good solution for a Scratch Disk, but the primary reason a photographer would use RAID is for the redundancy that it provides, and RAID 0 just doesn’t provide any. Again, our digital files are our negatives, our livelihood, and therefore they are gold. RAID on an enterprise level can be quite expensive (For example: Apple’s xServe Raid, IBM’s XXXXXX, and Dell’s XXXXXX), but it doesn’t have to be and your data can be kept safe.

For more information on RAID, here are a couple links:
- RAID on Wikipedia.org
- A RAID Tutorial & Diagram from AC&NC

One Photographer’s Solution To Storage

Over the years, I have explored many different “solutions” and options for storing my images from capture to archive. It has been a long road and definitely hasn’t been easy. I, too, have lost Gigs of images due to corrupt drives, bad CD or DVD burns, and just plain old stupidity. I feel like over the last 6 months, I have found a solution that truly works. You may have picked up on some of my points previously, but there are a few points that must be in a system before I consider it to be one that “WORKS”:

• It’s REDUNDANT.
  • I’m not going to lose my images.
  • If I do lose one drive or piece to the puzzle, I want to have a complete backup that I can fall back on.
  • If god forbid there’s a fire at my studio, I need to have a complete backup elsewhere.
• It’s COMPLETE.
  • It has to be a solution that brings me from CAPTURE to ARCHIVE.
  • The archive has to be secure, yet still accessible.
• It’s COST EFFECTIVE.
  • I don’t want to spend Thousands per TB, at the same time I don’t mind spending a little more than other solutions, if all my requirements are met.
• It’s EASY.
  • It has to be easy to do, or else, I won’t keep up.
  • My assistants must be able to learn and understand it.
• It’s PORTABLE.
  • I shoot a lot on location, sometimes for weeks at a time. My solution, or a sub-set of my solution needs to be able to come with me. I don’t want a single moment where the other aspects of the system (Redundancy, Completeness, Speed, Cost Effectiveness, and Ease) aren’t in place.
• It’s FAST.
  • This means TWO things:
  • It needs to OPERATE fast. I don’t need Raptors (10,000 rpm drives), but I do need something that will speed up and not slow down my process.
  • It needs to BE fast to use; easily accessible; simple.

The Pieces To The Puzzle
My entire storage solution is based on SilverSATA External Enclosures from WiebeTech. I went the External Enclosure route because it fit all my qualifications in a solution, and it proved to be the most cost effective. My solution may not work for you, but there are many solutions out there that could; It just takes a little time, research and planning. I chose to stick to one brand and line for simplicity purposes, and you’ll see why it works for me.

The basis of the SilverSATA series is the interchangeable, removable tray. You can order the trays directly from WiebeTech, or from a reseller, with a hard drive pre-installed, or order just the tray. When you order with a hard drive pre-installed, you can get them in 250 GB ($134.95), 500 GB ($309.95), or 750 GB ($519.95) capacities. (Last Week, I ordered a couple trays with 250GB hard drives installed directly from WiebeTech; they were using Seagate hard drives.) The trays alone (with no drive in them) are $29.95.

Earlier, I discussed “The Costs of Storage”, and this is where that information really comes in to play. Let’s do some quick math.

On a typical shoot day, I will do somewhere between 6 and 15 shots. For each shot, I will capture between 60 – 120 frames. The raw files from a P30 are 35 MB.

Looking at the high end:
15 Shots * 120 Images/Shot = 1,800 images captured
1,800 images * 35 MB = 61.52 GB

For EASE (one of my main qualifications) and safety reasons, I tend to use one set of hard drives per job. If the job runs two or more days, I will use one set of hard drives per day. There are a few reasons for this:

• It’s easy to find all the raw images from the job without clutter.
• If a hard drive (actually, two hard drives) go missing or fails, I’m only in trouble with one client – not multiple.
• At the end of the day, my clients can make final selections and I can pass that hard drive off to my retoucher to begin working on creating the final product.
• I will discuss this more later, but my hard drives are labeled using a code that makes finding image files later much simpler.

Let’s look at the costs of this “hard drive per job” method”

Description			GB	Cost	Cost/GB
WiebeTech Tray + WiebeTech provided 250 GB HD			250	134.95	$0.5398
WiebeTech Tray + WiebeTech provided 500 GB HD			500	309.95	$0.6199
WiebeTech Tray + WiebeTech provided 750 GB HD			750	519.95	$0.6933
WiebeTech Tray + Self Installed WD Caviar 80 GB HD			80	72.94	$0.9118
WiebeTech Tray + Self Installed WD Caviar 200 GB HD			200	89.98	$0.4499
WiebeTech Tray + Self Installed WD Caviar 500 GB HD			500	159.98	$0.3200

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In the example earlier, we used the 1,800 image per day maximum as our basis; 1,800 images can easily fit on a 80 GB hard drive. Why would I buy a 250 GB, 500 GB or larger hard drive when really, I only need +/- 62 GB for the raw files and maybe another GB or so for creating preview images. A WiebeTech Tray + a Self Installed WD Caviar 80 GB HD costs about $72.94, whereas a WiebeTech Tray + a Self Installed WD Caviar 200 GB HD costs about $89.98. That’s a difference of $17.04.

I need redundancy, and you will see where this comes in later, but I will actually use two 80 GB HD’s per day. The savings per day is now not $17.04, but $34.08. I pass these costs on to the client, but why would I want to charge the client more than I have to?

When it comes to the WiebeTech provided Tray + Drive, WiebeTech has to make a profit, and it requires a bit of labor for them to prep the hard drive: So they mark it up a bit. Of course, going with the self-installed hard drive method, requires that same labor on my part, but my labor is quite a bit cheaper. Let’s look at the costs comparing a 500 GB Self Installed with a 500 GB WiebeTech installed:

$309.95 - $159.98 = $149.97, or $0.29 per GB.

There is another aspect that figures into the cost equation; The cost of the enclosure, but that is a one-time cost which in the end will be almost negligible.

The SilverSATA series of enclosures comes in eight different configurations, and I use different configurations at different points in my workflow.

Let’s look at the workflow, and I will discuss which enclosures I have chosen for each segment of my workflow in perspective:

CAPTURE:
Whether I’m shooting with my PhaseOne P30 or one of my Canon DSLR’s, I shoot tethered (answers.com: “attached to a data or power source by wire or fiber”) unless the circumstances of the location or shoot make it impossible. My reasoning behind this could fill a whole other entry (and it will), but primarily I want my clients and myself to know that we have captured “the shot” and have the ability to provide printed layouts on the spot to confirm that. So needless to say, my capture solution must be portable enough to take on location with me.

I shoot using my chosen camera for the shoot into CaptureOne software from PhaseOne running on a Mac Pro. I always try to be near power, but if it’s impossible I travel with a Honda EU2000i Generator; this provides me with enough power to run my Mac Pro, my raid solution, two 23″ Apple Cinema Displays and a couple other peripherals. (If I just can’t get my location cart to where I need it to be, I also have a G4 Powerbook that I can capture to.) So my location cart provides me with everything I need to work in almost any situation.

My External Enclosure of choice on the Capture side of things is the SilverSATA II SR. The SilverSATA II SR connects back to a CalDigit FASTA-4e Host Card in the computer via an eSATA cable. eSATA stands for External SATA (Serial ATA), which basically allows external hard drives to act as if they are internal and communicate with the system at speeds almost as fast as your internal hard drive. The device also allows for connectivity via USB 2.0 for those situations where I have to use the PowerBook. The SilverSATA II SR “treats both drives as one volume”. When in RAID 1 mode, it automatically creates an exact replica on BOTH drives, a 100% automatic backup. WiebeTech describes it’s RAID 1 feature like this:

“RAID 1 (mirroring for Automatic Backup!). 100% backup. Every time you write to the Dual bay under RAID 1, it will put all of the new data onto both disks. If one drive goes bad, the SilverSATA will keep working with the other drive, so there is no down time. When a replacement drive is inserted, it will copy all the data to the new backup drive on its own. You can even pull a drive and insert a spare drive and let it perform a backup. Take the new backup off-site for even more secure backups. If you need to view a backup disk on another computer, a mirrored tray will work on another SilverSATA enclosure.”

And that’s what makes this device so easy, I create the CaptureOne Session Folder (actually, usually one for each shot) on the device’s Volume and capture the day’s images (which are saved on both drives). When the day’s over one hard drive goes to a SAFE PLACE while the other (the primary) goes to the my retoucher for the next step. The backup hard drive isn’t touched unless the primary fails, and in that case a backup of the backup is immediately created. The SAFE PLACE changes… While on location, it is stored literally in a safe; while flying back home I keep the backup and my assistant keeps the primary; when we get back to the studio, the primary is kept in a safe in the studio and the backup goes to a safe in the closet at my home office. Earlier I called the hard drives that store raw files gold, and I truly believe that, so I try to treat them like that at all times.

SELECTING, PROOFING and RETOUCHING
For most photographers shooting is the easy part, whether you’re storing your images onto Compact Flash cards and then downloading them to hard drives, or like me skipping the CF card and going straight to the hard drive. The more complicated task is what comes next: organizing those images, making selections, preparing the files for the copyright office (which should be done by the way), attaching meta data to the files, cataloging them, proofing and retouching; then, of course, delivering them. The postproduction of a shoot can easily take days; I have tried to streamline my approach as much as possible in order to get the final images to the client as fast as possible. (In fact, I even bring my retoucher with me on longer shoots, so most of this process is done on the road; again, this article is about storage, but I will touch on some of the other tasks in other articles.)

As I mentioned earlier, when the shoot has wrapped for the day, I hand the primary hard drive from the SilverSATA II SR over to my retoucher. The setup on the retouching station is a bit more complicated than the capture station, but still based on the SilverSATA enclosures, making the workflow so easy.

The retouching station is a MacPro running CaptureOne, Photoshop, Extensis Portfolio and some other software. There is also a CalDigit FASTA-4e Host Card in the computer, but this time it is connected to a SilverSATA IV SJ. The IV SJ allows you to mount 4 drives, either as a RAID 0 or JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Disks). I use this enclosure in JBOD mode that allows me to mount 4 hard drives at once; when my retoucher is working on multiple drives from a multiple day catalog shoot, or multiple jobs at once, he doesn’t have to keep mounting and un-mounting drives. He instead can just mount until he’s done working on them and then close up shop – I’m not so worried about the redundancy of these raw drives, because I have a complete backup from the Capture stage.

Also, connected to the retouching station is a SilverSATA II FH, which supports RAID 0 or JBOD, but I use it as a RAID 1 via OS X’s software RAID. The II FH has 3 different interfaces: Firewire 800, Firewire 400, and USB 2.0 – this is why I chose it. While the II SR would have worked perfectly, I do not have any more room in the system for another Host Card and I did not want to put any more peripherals on the USB Bus, so I generally connect it via Firewire 800 or Firewire 400. Again, I gain the redundancy of RAID 1, yet the simplicity and portability of the SilverSATA Trays.

At the start of each job (for larger jobs), or every couple of weeks (in the case of tests or smaller jobs), I create a new RAID set. The previews, selections, proof files, copyright office files, working retouch files, final retouched files and output files are all stored on this set of disks. Generally, this set is (2) 250 GB disks, however if for simplicity purposes I am putting only one job on this set I may use a smaller or larger disk set depending on the size of the job. As mentioned previously, I sometimes have jobs were I’m on location for weeks at a time, So I have my retoucher with me who is working with the client to make selects and then begins retouching right away (may times he works over night so images are ready the next morning). This is the type of situation where I am using a dedicated RAID set for only this single job. There’s so much that can go wrong when away from home, I don’t want to have another client’s images with me in case something does.

To review this stage:

• The trays from the Capture stage can easily be mounted in the SilverSATA IV SJ providing the ability for the retoucher to keep 4 days (or jobs) of images mounted at once.
• Catalog files, preview images, working files, finished files and output files are all stored on a separate RAID 1 on the SilverSATA II FH.
• Once the job is done, all the drives (Capture drives and Working drives) are archived – one drive from each set is stored at the studio for easy access and the other is stored off-site.
• There are a few more simple steps for archiving, but the manual, mass copying of files or burning of CD/DVD’s is eliminated.

CLIENT DELIVERY
Depending on the clients needs, I provide them with exactly what they need for their final output on a medium that works for them. If a client is going to use the images only on the web, I provide them with the final images as 72 dpi JPEGS in sRGB color space; at the same time, if the files are to be used for a printed catalog, I provide them with high resolution files in the color space that the printer has requested at the exact usage size. By working with the printer and providing files of the exact nature that they need, I eliminate as much opportunity for error as possible; when they need images for another output type, they just call and ask. Beyond the technical aspects, this gives me the opportunity to track usage a little better.

No matter what the final output, or files required, I keep an archive of all of them in a job specific folder called output files on the postproduction RAID set. When postproduction is done, I can easily copy all the output files to the clients preferred storage medium and send it their way. While we are on the topic, let us touch on a couple of ways to deliver files:

• CD/DVD – on jobs where the final output files are less than 4 GB, this is perfect. One note, however, if you work on a different platform than your client (i.e. Mac vs. PC), be sure to test the CD/DVD on our client’s platform.
• FTP – if you and your client have fast Internet connections, FTP is quick and easy and it requires no messenger or FedEx costs. I have setup an FTP server specifically for this task; but many times clients will request that you upload the files to their server. Again, with a large number of tiles this solution typically fails as it is limited by your Internet connection speed. As a rule, if you are looking at up to 30 high-resolution images this would be ok, but any more than that and you are looking for a really long upload.
• WEB DOWNLOAD – In the madness of production, clients can easily misplace DVD’s and FTP server information. I have begun using an Intranet solution that myself and a developer have custom built. This solution is perfect for larger clients, as all their data can be stored in one place. Typically, I will make this option available for ALL clients no matter what the delivery method is that they requested; I, also, have their licenses, images from castings, contracts and pre-production materials available here. This makes it easy for them to find everything related to their project. Whether it is during pre-production or a year after production is complete, the client can go to a special website address, login with their username and password and easily access their files. (I archive on the intranet for 2 years, however, I do not guarantee it nor have I ever actually removed images after two years.)
• HARD DRIVE – For larger jobs, this method is often the fastest and easiest. Though it does require extra time to get the drive messengered or FedExed, the actual process of preparing the hard drive is as easy as dragging and dropping the files onto the drive and waiting for them to copy over. It takes very little time on my team’s part.

  
  The SilverSATA series of enclosures also works very nice here. For clients that I work with regularly, I purchase a SilverSATA I SJ enclosure; the enclosure is so cheap and allows me to send additional drives in trays as needed. The I SJ accepts only one drive tray, but usually that is all they need. It offers eSATA and USB 2.0 connectivity. I, also, have a couple “loaners�? that I will sometimes ship with a tray/drive and have the client return the enclosure when they are done with it.

• iPOD – As photographers, we’re always looking for nice ways to say “Thank you for trusting me with your business�? in a way that reminds the client every day that we’re here and ready to serve them. Why not kill two birds with one stone and make our delivery method do that for us? I order 10 or so iPods at a time with my logo etched on the back. Of course, the iPod can operate as a hard drive when connected to the computer via USB – so I just put their output files on the iPod, download a few songs from iTunes (usually songs that I noticed they liked during the shoot) and ship it on its way. Every day that they are listening to their iPod, they have a reminder that you are there.

No matter what the delivery method may be, be sure to include simple instructions how to use it and be sure you or someone else on your staff can provide technical support if they have a problem.

When choosing a delivery method besides your clients needs, you also need to take into consideration the costs. Yes, it may be more expensive to provide delivery on a hard drive compared to delivering on a DVD, but how valuable is your time? Burning 10 DVD’s for client is a much slower process than copying the same amount of data over to a Hard Drive. As photographers, we beg for higher rates and complain when we have to sit in front of the computer for days at a time, but maybe there are things we can do to spend less time in front of the computer, and more behind the camera.

ARCHIVING
There is one more step to the storage workflow, which is probably the most complicated to keep organized, Archiving. It has always been an area of question, even in the days of film. With my solution, it is quite simple: your backup drive goes to a safe and accessible location off-site and your primary stays easily accessible at your studio. All my images are cataloged in Extensis Portfolio, which tells me exactly which drive to get when looking for specific images.

A FINAL LOOK AT COSTS
There are two parts to determining the cost of acquisition and ownership of this solution.

The One-Time Hardware Costs

COSTS: MY WORKFLOW vs. OTHER EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES
With this workflow your cost per GB is determined by the cost of the actual hard drive, plus the cost of the tray; of course, you multiply that by two because we always want to save our work redundantly. (Although, I use 80 GB hard drives for my raw images, for simplicity purposes and comparison I’m going to use 200 GB hard drives.) As we discussed earlier, a Western Digital 200GB Caviar Hard Drive + WiebeTech Tray would cost you $89.98. For a set, you are looking at $179.96, or 89.9 cents per GB.

For a 200 GB G-TECH G-RAID mini with 7200 rpm drives, your cost is $499.00 for one; but to be redundant you would need two so your total cost would be: $998.00, or $4.99 per GB. To be fair, G-TECH also offers a 5400 rpm drive version, your cost is $399.00 for one; and for two (again redundancy) it would be 798.00, or $3.99 per GB. Another thing to note is that they use Firewire for connectivity; the WiebeTech solution uses SATA.

Let’s look at another G-TECH solution – The G-DRIVE. A 250 GB G-DRIVE retails for $199.00, or 99 cents per GB; You need two: so you’re looking at 398.00, or $1.88 per GB.

A 200GB Maxtor One-Touch (purchased from NewEgg.com) costs $91.99, or 45 cents per GB; You need two for redundancy, so you’re looking at: $183.98, or 91.9 cents per GB.

Ok, you get the picture. The WiebeTech solution is cheaper, and in my opinion offers more speed enhancements (it used SATA over firewire or usb), easier redundancy (one enclosure, automatically recreates after a drive failure, no need for software RAID) and it’s portable.

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