I'm looking into a firmtek enclosure/controller combo to give myself nearly 3.6TB of data for an HD Online Project I'm working on. The project will be comprised of approximately 4 hours of HDCAM footage.

I've heard good things about the firmtek, but always appreciate more input on other's experiences...

thanks in advance!

check out the new eSATA 5 bay Burly enclosure & Seritek card on macgurus, and same card with i think it's called Fusion enclosure.

You might want to take a look at Mike Curtis' website, hdforindies.com.

He tests and posts links to other tests regarding hardware for HD production. A lot of in-depth information and analysis can be found there.

Another good site: barefeats.com. Also a lot of real test data on systems and hard drives.

I recently had a very positive experience with FirmTek. George Rath, the developer went out of his way to help me and accomplished things that many said was impossible.

To make a long story short, I bought a four drive RAID 0 from a guy who stripped it for me. After capturing 45 hours of footage and editing about a third of a TV show, the RAID disappeared from my desktop. Apparently one of the drives had developed a problem. I spent 24 hours trying to fix it. Nearly everyone advised me that if one drive failed I would lose all data. George didn't think so. He felt the data was in tack that it was just the partition on one drive was corrupted. I sent the drives to him, he found that they had been improperly striped yet he salvaged all data. Saving me 45 hours of recapturing and many hours of re-editing.

I am now buying 4 more drives and enclosures from him so i that I can back up on a regular basis. It is rare in this day and age to have someone stand behind his products and go the extra mile that FirmTec did. There tech support people worked with me well past their normal hours. I can't say enough good things about them.

I highly recommend them. Just be sure that whoever stripes your drives and sets them up does it correctly.

Mickey Stroud

I recently had a very positive experience with FirmTek. George Rath, the developer went out of his way to help me and accomplished things that many said was impossible.

Ah yes, the Rath of Firmtek...

... couldn't resist that one!