I recently took out a 8k loan and purchased a panasonic hvx200. after buying some additional accessories i have about 1k left. but i still don't have a way to dump the 2 16gb P2 cards in the field. my options are really expensive and aren't satisfactory solutions.


panasonic offers a 60gb p2 store for 1500, so that equates to 60 min of hd.

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they also have a hard drive version that holds 100gb for $2k=100 minutes.

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also you need a laptop to be able to view them, and the new laptops that can run fcs2 do not have a pcmcia reader to read the P2's, so you still need the p2 card reader. and then you need an external raid which will cost 1000's to finally dump them. so now you have 3 items a bunch of cables and 1000's spent. so here's what i'm looking to build my own mega P2 store, an external fan cooled raid utilizing 6 750 gb 7200rpm SATA's powered by laptop batteries, and multiple pcmcia readers housed in a very tough and shock absorbent flight case. my goal is to stream line the process and suck the data off those cards and onto a raid as fast as possible, as well as have no need for ac power, put it all in one box.

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actually i want to keep the laptop separate but room in the container to store it would be nice as well. i know just enough to be dangerous, so i need some advice from the gurus.

1. can i build an external raid that will be compatible with my g5 and a intel mac book pro?

2. how many laptop batteries would i need to power the raid for let say 12 hrs? how could i power them on and off? what would be the cheapest(within reason) way to go about this?

3. where could i find some really silent fans for cheap?

4. any suggestions about mounting them and making it really shock absorbent?

5. what would be the best way to connect the mac book pro to the p2 store, firewire or ethernet, or maybe some other way?

6. would i have to put a processor in the box as well to control the raid or should i keep it brainless and just hook it up to the macbook pro?

7. how could i best configure this?

all advice, suggestions, and comment is welcome and thanks in advance

ps. i want to make this look professional as i will be renting out my gear for extra cash

Yeah, P2 cards are freaking insane. I was looking at getting the same camera for my office, though due to the whole P2 card storage issues I decided we could deal with miniDV tapes and lower quality.

As for going after a decent portable solution, you might as well lug around a tower dedicated for storage. As long as the laptop sees the additional storage as NAS, it should be compatible.

i'd like to not have to drag around as many separate pieces of hardware, less cables and not have to rely on the availability of ac outlets. for instance, shooting out doors.

Yeah, I hear you. I'd actually suggest posting this up on probably a dedicated forum for digital video since I think you'd get more answers and possibly a good solution. It's those damn P2 cards and storage capacity.

Something I'm waiting for is a Panasonic AG-HMC150, which may be something that would interest you. The write speeds to SD are concerning, but this may be a better fit for you in the long run. Unfortunately without reviews and any real data on this camera I can't really say if it's going to do a trick.

i don't the p2 format becoming obsolete for a few years. by that time hopefully he red will be a option for me. until then the prices will probably come down due to the 64 gb p2 card comes out this year as well as the competition from sony's new sxs card based ex-1 camcorder. and even when we're all using a red then we'll still need a good portable storage unit. i'm sure if i can make this happen then when the time comes i can mod it for red media storage. if i build a high quality unit, i could probably sell modified versions of them for the major formats. and i don't see mac laptops offering multiple terabyte storage for a while.

1. Yes, with no issues.
2. I am not sure about laptop batteries. I would try and go another route, and you would need to do some calculations to make sure you have enough power, but I would go with a car battery and a converter of some sort and power everything up.

I would go with something like this...

http://www.macgurus.com/productpages/sata/satakits.php

Although, you are going to have to find a way to tap into an sata connector on the laptop, or find some way to get that. I couldn't locate a firewire option.

Honestly, you are probably going to be best off just making the entire thing a system. Maybe you can add a small screen to the case with plexiglass over it and a trackpad to control it.

check this out...

http://www.macgurus.com/productpages/firewire/BurlyMultiDriveFWFixed.php

You could buy some car batteries and possibly take an old power backup unit and use that interface with the car batteries, then hook this bad boy up with a FW800 out to your laptop and you'd be set. Just power the thing up and down with use...

Might wanna consider some wheels for carrying it around :P

so i'd really need car batterieS, plural? and there are a lot of other fire wire external raids like the ones from cal digit. but they still cost a lot compared to the fact that you can get a seagate 500 gb sata for a little over $100. plus were back to getting a laptop, P2 store, and RAID. it might just be i don't know enough to see why i can't make my magic mega p2 store.

not sure I am following you here.....

I don't know, but I would think having at least 1 deep cycle marine battery would be a good idea. Honestly, I would get 2 to be on the safe side.

What are you talking about with a 500GB sata?

sorry, i meant 750 gb hard drives (my g5 is full of 500gb seagates). i've been surfing forums and product pages, and brain storming all day, little fried. i guess i'm going to have to do some more research before i can even ask the right questions.
here are some things i found that could be modded into my franken p2 store

1tb nas
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822204059#spec

macbook express card to sata
http://www.barefeats.com/hard71.html