Buspowered Thunderbolt storage options.

[warpnote]

Hi forum, I'm WarpNote, motion graphics artist getting into live visuals.
If interested, you can check out my reel here -> http://notevarp.com/showreel.html
and other selected work here -> http://notevarp.com/visuals.html

Anyway, enough with the selfpromotion,
I'm looking for some advice, as I'm about to set up a Resolume system.

I got a mbp retina 15" - 2.7ghz - 16gb ram - Geforce 650m 1GB VRam.
Also got a Matrox tripplehead2go dp edtion for multple outputs, and an Akai APC40mk2.

I do mostly my own visuals, and normally render them 1920x1080 @60fps,
and optimally I'd like to run up to 4 layers. Some of those visuals are rather long,
up to 5 minutes, so file sizes do grow.

So here's the questions:
1. Whats the general datarate MB/s for a 1920x1080 @60fps DXV ?
2. Could anyone reccomend a good buspowered drive, or even better, a good buspowered enclosure?
I'd prefer thunderbolt, as my usb ports are filled up, then there's the data rate/cpu to consider.

I already have a LaCie rugged 256GB SSD, but capacity wise a little light..
Also have a samsung 1TB evo 840, so that could be an option for an enclosure.

Any suggestions welcome.
Thanks, Warp

[Oaktown]

Nice work!

A good combination is the Seagate Backup Plus 1TB Portable External Hard Drive USB 3.0 (~S$100) and the Seagate Backup Plus Portable Thunderbolt Adapter (~$150). You just pop the USB 3.0 adapter and install the Thunderbolt adapter and you've got yourself a portable 1TB Thunderbolt Hard Drive for about $250 and you can swap disks on the Thunderbolt adapter.

A bit more expensive, my new favorite drive is the OWC 240GB Mercury Accelsior_E2 PCI Express Solid State Drive inside a OWC Mercury Helios 2 chassis on our MacBook Pros. These PCIe SSD cards are superfast (I get about 600MB/s Write and 700MB/s Read) and the big perk is that I can also use a PCIe capture card on the MBP in the Helios 2 chassis.

[4eyes]

There are weirdly not very many great enclosure offerings out there on the market. The best solution I have found is the Buffalo Ministation Thunderbolt. It's not sold as an enclosure, but there are lots of guides online explaining how to swap out the drive inside. Not only does it have bus powered thunderbolt, but it also has USB3 which is extremely useful for cross platform/backup use. I often use the USB3 as the thunderbolt ports on my macbook pro are a bit loose. I vj off of this drive constantly and the speeds are more than adequate for several layers of HD content.

Throw your Samsung Evo in there and you'll be good to go.

Here's a guide explaining the drive swap process:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZHgFHFZSf8

Cheers.

[warpnote]

Thanks guys, I ended up getting the Lacie Rugged Raid 4TB drive. Buspower over thunderbolt, has a usb3 too, although it needs external power when running on usb. It was expensive, but covers my live visuals storage needs for a good time to come.

Also thanks for the enclosure tips, Might go the the Buffalo, would make a good After Effects scratch disk while on the go.

Warp

[SucculentHam]

Hi warpnote.

I have a similar set up to you and I also just purchased a Lacie Rugged RAID 4TB. Great purchase!!!

SSD anywhere near that size of Hard Drive would be cost prohibitive for me.

The Rugged is great.
Don't even bother with USB 3 - use Thunderbolt.
Lastly - and just as important - USE RAID 0.

I say again...

Use RAID 0.

That will give you the performance as boasted on the box.

Cheers.

[warpnote]

Ive since also purchased a Thunderbolt Lacie rigged (non raid) then opened up the enclosure to swap the hard drive for a Samsung Evo 1TB SSD, has been working very well for me since.