That looks like a nice alternative to an Xserve Rack.
I've been pondering and pricing Raid Setups lately and that looks great.
I also found this one
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firew.../EliteAL/RAID/
160gb Raid starting at $240, Firewire 800.
Has anyone tested playback with a Firewire 800 drive?
I'm thinking about the 320gb drive, as I only have about 70g of my content, and usually have no more than 6gb of custom per show anyway.
These really are not a replacement for an xserve RAID rack, not even close.
The external SATA will perform better than the external firewire drives, and sometimes he costs are almost the same.
just got off the road with using a Lacie 250g as my content drive w/ a Lacie 320g as my backup content drive.
never had a problem with running content. i had more issues with my HDs in the G5. Just with all the going in and out of venues and traveling with a truck and all. I chose to use the Lacie and after running it on the backup server for several weeks with no issues, i switched to the main content drive and things have been great. when we rebuilt our touring system for a one-off a couple of weeks ago, way faster to attach a HD via Firewire 800 than to upload to a HD within a G5 server.
In fact we are doing another show for New Year's Eve and will use the Lacie again as the primary content HD.