Finally bought FCP 4.0, but...
 

Finally broke down and bought FCP 4 after problems with my arse backwards way of installing FCP 1 and FCP 3 upgrade. I just transferred the programs to a firewire drive and back to the G5. Didn't do so great this time around.

I also bought a 120 gb firewire drive (Lacie), only to find out CompUSA is offering, for just $10 more, a 200 gb FW Drive for $200. Of course, I have to mail in the rebate, and I always forget to do that. I'm debating taking this drive back, pay $19 to restock, then buy the CompUSA drive. Of course, I'm nowhere near either store (Apple or CompUSA) and I already have the drive plugged in. It's almost feels like a hassle...And murphy's law, of course. Buy one, find out later there's a better deal. Sigh...

heath

It'll be cheaper still after the holidays. The retailers are not discounting as much this year as last (with a few exceptions). Digital cameras may be an exception. The big discounts in electronics will probably be after the first of the year. Again, I'll repeat my warning to wait until after MacWorld SF (first week of January) to buy Apple hardware.

Jeff,

Are there any rumors about major leaps in external HDs with mega storage coming out after MacWorld?

No, but I suspect the big drives (160gb plus) will come down in price. Last summer I bought a WD 160gb drive for $99 USD at Office Depot. So, the prices can definetly go lower. It wouldn't surprise me to see the 200gb or even the 250's go for $99 after rebate.

And those are reliable?! Wow...that's three to four times cheaper than here. If they're reliable, I'll definitely order from overseas.

The larger drives seem just as reliable. They are in heavy use at the bigger post houses for their internal media networks.

If you buy overseas you have to watch out for customs, shipping, *brokerage fees (they can be outrageous), and taxes. Some of the good retailers like newegg.com don't ship overseas. I live in canada and I can't get a lot of the US deals. But sometimes they pop up... 120GB for around USD$80 after rebate (around $110CDN).

There might be hot deals sites for your country.

Big drives should be more reliable than a larger number of cheaper drives. They have other advantages like taking up less space, require less cooling, being more future-proof, and being faster. For video editing it makes sense to get the biggest drives you can afford. You can actually use up all of it even if you buy too much (keep old projects on there).