External storage for laptop

[adam_m]

Hi all,

Just ordered a 40Gb Kingston SSD for the MBP so now in serious need of some fast external storage. I reckon a total of about 2TB would do it, so do I:

- Get 2 external FW800 drives, quite like the new WD My Book Studios
- Get a DAS like the Edge DAS401 with eSATA and an eSATA expresscard for the MBP
- Something else?

...I like the look of the Drobo's but they're super pricey and quite slow from what I've read.

I dont need an NAS, already have a 2TB My Book World doing that for now.

Cheers!
A

 

[NickK]

I have a 1TB FW800 MyBook Studio. It's good although there have been questions about it's reliability when used continuously. I did note it gets very warm.

I've used the Studio with USB, FW800, FW400 and eSATA using two port PCI ExpressCard/34. The fastest method is FW800.

It is possible to get the MBP to use two eSATA attached drives in RAID0. I've used two external drive caddies in RAID0 as a scratch space drive. It's easy to set up and it's quick. You could mirror them as well.

If you go down the PCI ExpressCard it's worth using Snow Leopard. There's better internal OS support for the ExpressCards.