If you've got that setup and some free time to learn editing you might want to check out opencut.org for 25 bucks they give you 160gb of 4k footage to cut however you want you could even win an aja io-hd which is a fun little toy as well.

Good luck in your editing career the best way to get better is to keep doing it and keep talking to people, and having a screaming fast mac-pro and 27tb of space doesn't hurt either...

Theoretically, Firewire 800 is not faster than gigabit ethernet. Its 1000Mbps vs. 800Mbps. Beyond that I'm not the expert I should be (Physics degree). I should be able to talk about attenuation and the (possibly) different speeds you would get with a direct firewire link, a firewire hub or an ethernet network but I'm afraid that would require alot of revision, then research on my part. I will suggest that based on the fact gigabit ethernet is a much more common medium than firewire 800 in networking, it should be better refined and therefore faster. Remember they are using the same TCP/IP protocols, so only the infrastructure between the cables (or the quality of the cabling which I have no reason to doubt) should really make any difference.
If you need top speed, you need fibre channel. Better take a loan out.

Fibre channel is out. Too pricey for me. I'll try the Gigabit ethernet. I think it will work ok. I visited the Final Cut Pro Tour in Manhattan tonight and the people I talked to told me that what I was building would work fine. No one recommended anything better. Of course I skipped the "Promise" guys because those drive arrays are crazy expensive.

Apple offered attendees 20% off all training courses, but their course are very expensive. I'll stick to the books as I think the software is very easy to use, from what I've seen and what I've learned talking to editors tonight.

Thanks for the tip on opencut.org. It looks very cool. I'll be taking a course on FCP real soon so that might be a nice option to practice on. I've also got a bunch of video I've been storing up to practice on, over a TB of files.

I'm shopping for a camera now, and like the new Panasonic HVX-170. I like the Red camera's also. But I'm not sure I can afford one right now.

wow. very nice updates and pictures. Looking good.

I've been working in England for the last four months, so naturally, I have not made any progress on my Second Case--Pisces II. Well, I'm home now and I just started opening up the power supply I bought and I'm trying to decide how much I want to modify the power supply.

I have three options:

1) One thing I'd like to do is use the original power switch on the front of the G5 case. That will take a little circuit design. Most elegant, but it will take the longest. At the same time I could put a USB hub in the box and make the front USB Ports active. Frankly, this whole box does away with the need for USB drive--which I never use anyway. Also I have about five free ports now between my keyboard, monitor and my Mac Pro case--Pisces.

2) Move the existing power switch from the back to the front. Fairly easy job. It would mean I'd have a live AC circuit in the bottom of the case. I'd have to shield that and I would not want any stray E-M fields mucking up my bottom hard drives.

3) Leave it on the back. This still requires some changes to the case. How often will I be turning it on or off anyway. I like this option least. I hate going behind my cases to fuss with wires. I might knock something loose if I move it. There will be four eSata connecting cables--these I will bundle together, one power cable, and perhaps one USB 2.0 connector--three groups of wires. I can manage reaching around to switch on.

I'm going to see if I can figure out the circuit that is attached to the G5 power switch and perhaps hook that up to a relay for the on/off switch.

Another thing I need to research is the Apple power cord and connector. I'd prefer to use this on the case as it would mean fewer modifications to the case. I will have to check on eBay, and with Apple, to see if I can find a power cord and a female connector.

Other news.

I started designing a tray for the optical bay. But I recently learned that there is a company making a mount for this--the catch is they don't show a picture of it on their web site. I'll have to call them after the holidays to find more information on that. That will be the last of the fabricating needed to mount the last four drives. I'm eager to get this finished, and the drive bays populated as drive prices for TB drives have dropped 50% in price since I started this project about six months ago.

I think I just crapped myself. Very nice indeed.

Mr. Sailor,

Nice work. Just wondering how's it coming along. I think this might go in the "small world" category, but I think I bid against you for that case on ebay back about 10 months ago. If that was the same one, it's at leas good to see someone putting it to good use.

hyram

I should add that it is possible to link two gigabit ports together for a 2Gb link. I know its built into OS X server, maybe not in the client though.
If you connect this 2Gb link via a switch, the switch will also need to support link aggregation.

I am on the home stretch. I've had a couple obstacles in my path lately. One was the fact that I've been traveling so much. The other was the fact that I wanted to use an Apple Power cords and an Apple Female connector. I called Apple several times, I walked into a store. I tried online. I could not find what I needed. My options were to buy a power supply and the price put me off. The other option was to go through Apple or a Apple hardware vendor. Apple was useless. The other hardware vendors seemed to think Apple parts were made of gold.

So back to plan B. Which was to relocate the existing power connector. Once I made that decision thing started moving rather quickly. Here are a few pictures of my last few days work.

Here is the power supply before I started work on it.



I started by unsoldering the female connector and the power switch from the power supply. I spent $0.94 on wire at West Marine. Their wire is made for boats--tinned, stranded wire--it is really the best wire I've seen anywhere--it has to be for a marine environment. Ok, so i used a small butane torch to unsolder the leads. It is not pretty. ha!



Ok, now the connector and switch have been removed. This is the circuit board with those components removed. Now I need to attach some wire to it.

Now I need to deal with the circuit board. I didn't want and stray AC shorts. I taped up the outside for some protection and tie wrapped it to the power supply case. This one shows how I added wire to the connector.






Should I mount the connector with the flange on the inside or the outside. Well, if it is on the outside, I'll have to de-solder to take it out. Bad idea. And it is the uglier of the two options. Why do I care what the back looks like? It is not like anyone will see it!



Here is the final on the Female Power Connector.

And test fitting the power supply into the G5 Case. I had to play with it a bit. It needed to be back tight against the Female Power connector. One reason I installed the connector first.

Ok, now where to put the power switch. At first I thought I'd put it on the back. But none of the precut holes for USB or Firewire were the right size. Then I thought, why not put it on the front? I thought about using the original switch, but that meant getting a relay and I just wanted to get this thing into service. I have a pile of external drives and I'm fed up with them.

Here is a view of the front with a template I cut to help me choose where to put the switch.


Here is the hole I cut in the front. I'm counting on the flange on the switch to cover up the rough edges. Lets see how it turns out.

[img]http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a170/Night_Sailor/PISCES%20II/PiscesII019.jpg[/img]

Not bad. Good enough for me.
[img]http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a170/Night_Sailor/PISCES%20II/PiscesII018.jpg[/img]

Ok, off came the switch and it was time to run some wire to this location. My piece was a little short, so I routed it back through the interior of the power supply, out through one of the vents and forward to this spot.
[img]http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a170/Night_Sailor/PISCES%20II/PiscesII011.jpg[/img]

I soldered on the connection. During this period I test fitting the drive cages.
[img]http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a170/Night_Sailor/PISCES%20II/PiscesII010.jpg[/img]

Now the drive cages are secured. It didn't take long to run the wires. This was a golden moment for me. I've been waiting for this moment for a long time. I still need to get a floppy type micro connector to hook up the upper bank of drives. I had just one of these on the power supply. I thought there were two. So for now, only the lower bank of five cages is operational.

As a bonus, one of the connector on the power supply hooked up to some existing wiring in the case that feeds the optical bay, and the double drive bay on back top area. I still have two old SCSI drive populating the slide out tray I build and described earlier. I did not build a new drive carrier for the optical bay, because I am now thinking of putting a second optical drive in there.
[img]http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a170/Night_Sailor/PISCES%20II/PiscesII009.jpg[/img]

So I need one converter connector to power the second Port Multiplier. I decided to hold off on buying a third and fourth port multiplier until I need the drive space.

Here is it late at night and I can't find any Electrical tape. I want to tape up the leads on the power switch before seating it into the case.
[img]http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a170/Night_Sailor/PISCES%20II/PiscesII008.jpg[/img]

I lay the LED power indicator in the front under the switch. It needs a tie wrap after I seat the power switch.

So here it is. Only the bottom five bays are functional. I'll have the rest done shortly after a few small parts.

However, I plan to put it into service tomorrow, and order a bunch of new drives. It just occured to me, that will 2TB drives being sold now, this case could hold more than 40TB of drive--but I'd never fill that up! And 1TB drives are so cheap now.

I'll be selling my old external drive cases on eBay this week. I'll post another picture with the two machines linked up later in the week.

What else? The door opens and closes well without a hinge, which would throw off the dot pattern. I may just put a little handle on the door and a latch. On the other hand, I like the clean look of no handle. Perhaps I;ll just do a latch.

I'm still debating putting a USB hub inside, and I thought a firewire connector to one or two drive--might be useful.

I like the LED's. The Port multipliers have led connectors so I could if I want run some nicer LED to the grill in the front. I may do that. I think I could drill out holes in the grill and press-fit them into place. I'll have to think about it. I'm not sure it is worth the cost.
[img]http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a170/Night_Sailor/PISCES%20II/PiscesII007.jpg[/img]