Firestore FS4 - 40GB Upgrade to 100GB
 

Hi

I am about to buy a Z1 and have started looking Direct To Disk. Firestore seems to pretty much the only solution- unless there are any others out there??- but they are expensive.. The 40gb solution is ok (£600 ish) but the hard drive is not very big.. This is my idea.. Replace the 40gb hard drive with a 100gb hard drive -£120 off ebay for a Hitachi 5400rpm 8mb cache-..
Has anyone looked inside a firestore device? I would imagine it is simply a matter of changing the drives..
If there is a partition with "system" files on it then connecting it up using a 2.5 " to 3.5 " converter (£10 off Ebay) one could Ghost the image from the 40gb drive to the 100gb drive, after connecting it to a PC running XP, Linux, OS X etc..
Has anyone tried something like this?
What do people think?
For £140 one could upgrade their 40gb drive to 100gb and increase the recording time from 3 hours to 7.5 hours!!

mat

Interesting idea, but until the FS4 has a bigger battery available, the limitation for mobile use is power, not disk size.

Ray Liffen

Sounds like a very possible idea, I took mine appart and took a couple of pictures

http://www.videomemoriesinc.com/pics/firestore.jpg

http://www.videomemoriesinc.com/pics/disk.jpg

Also I have an external battery pack (do a search Jon East has a write up) that powers the FS-4 for about 7 hours, and costs around 80 bucks.

7 Hours of video and power would be great!

Excellent
 

As i suspected it is jsut a standard 2.5" drive..
Funnily enough the 100gb is a Hitachi aswell.

To check to see if there is anotrher small partition with "system" files on it one could do the following!

Connect the drive to a PC running Windows XP
Right click on the MY COMPUTER icon in Windows XP and left click on MANAGE.
Then left click on DISK MANAGEMENT and on the right hand window you should see a list of drives C, D etc.
One of those will be the FIRESTORE drive
If one could report on what they see it will tell us if there is a partition on the drive ..

cheers

gonna check out the exteneded battery pack idea..gotta be good..

matw

Matt,

There are no system files on the drive.

There we have it then..
 

Welll there you go!!!
Purchase a 2.5" Hitachi 100gb Drive
Replace the 40gb Drive with the newly purchased one..
7.5 hours of recording time..

Jsut a thought..
I am about to buy the Sony Z1..
If I shoot in HDV mode will the output from the Firewire port be in HDV format?
If so I would assume that I would need the HDV updated Firestore device?
7.5 hours would equate to how much HDV??

mat

Assuming it remains an m2t it should be about the same as DV size wise.

Battery Upgrade
 

Hi
I have done a search for Jon East and ofund nothing about upgrading the battery?? Does anyone know where it is??
cheers
mat

Mathew,

I think this is what you're looking for:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=43420

aha..thanks!

Deleted...wrong thread

So can anyone confirm whether it's a fairly simple matter to replace the hard drive in a Firestore FS-4? I already have an 80GB laptop drive I could swap in if I buy the 40GB model, so that would be a handy thing to be able to do.

HI

I havent tested it as I do not own one but I do have extensive experience with computers and a hard drive is a hard drive.

Kevin..

I have taken mine apart also and from what I can see its a very simple change over..HOWEVER....what we dont know until you try is if their is something in the firmware that limits your FS4 to 40GB, or if a format on it when its installed will show the increased store time...

I don't suspect Focus will be too eager to chip in as the upgrade is a small fraction of the cost of an 80GB pro unit. Here in the UK its about a £400 difference, and after having used both I only really need the extra space the 80GB gives me. The other features I can live without..

Bottom line I think is someone is going to have to 'bite the bullet' and see, although I don't see why you should do any harm, so long as you don't do anything to the original HD..

Mark

If nothing happens with the new drive for wahtever reason jsut swap the old one and u r back where u started.. if u have a 40gb hard drive u might want to test it with that.. i doubt very much it would blow anything up!! it is after all still a hard drive..just bigger!!

The swap was painless for me - 40GB to 80GB.

Be aware though, that you will kill the guarentee on your unit as soon as your screwdriver touches the first screw. So make sure everything else on the device is working to your satisfaction before you open it.

Daniel..

I take it all you did was do a reformat the HD using the utilities in the FS4...

I have to say I should have thought of that before I purchased the 80GB Pro version, woiuld have saved £££'s

Mark

That's it.

However, I think that there are some functions which the FS-4Pro promised, which I wouldn't take for granted. That is if they are really there. Like time-code Free-run and time-lapse.

If you have a chance, I would still like to know if it is possible to set the Pro version's TC to Free-run. This function would make a lot of sense for those of us who would like to do multi-cam shooting using the FS-4.

Daniel..

Let me know what specifically you want to know, test criteria and i will try for you, have a bit of time today...

I'm guessing you are looking at setting the timecode to a particular value so that the theoretically start at the same time for multicam work. But unless you press record on all machines at the same time wont it be out of sync anyway, or do you have some remote triger ?

Regards

Mark

If you look under the menu SETUP, scroll down to TC EXT and TC REC RUN, there should (hopefully) be something that says TC SET and TC FREE RUN.

If so, one could set all the FS-4Pros to say the time of day and then trigger the FREE RUN. The TC would function like a clock on each of the units. The FS-4s would not be synced frame accurate, but they would have a constant offset which would make syncing them in post much easier.

OK i'll check it out and let you know...

Although doesnt the fs4 save the files with the date and time of the unit for every file it creates ?? Would this not achieve the same thing, so long as you set the date and time on all the units to the same values, although i guess this has a greater chance of drift according to the internal clock rates..

Mark

Daniel...

OK made the tests finally.

Indeed it works as you described. Set the clock to current time and recorded a few clips, also advanced the clock to check it took the new times and verified in FCP that the timecode had changed to the new time.

It appears that as soon as you set the time and click on the 'back' button the clock starts, therefore so long as you press back on all the units at the same time you should be all set..

Hope this helps..

Mark

Thanks Mark,

This is good to know.

Using the file creation date as a reference is ok. But you can't change the creation date of the clips in post, like you can the TC (at least with FCP). But most importantly, there is also no way of seeing the time-date information imbedded in the clips metadata while editing (which is a real shame). So, the second best way to synchronize multiple cameras, is to have them all run real time free run. (The first best, is to have them TC synced, but that function is only available on pro cameras.)

One other advantage in having free run real time, is that a third person can makes notes about what is happening at an event by writing down the time on there watch, instead of looking at the camera's TC display. This gives a reporter or editor/director more freedom (frees the cameraman from them breathing down there neck) and makes finding things in the edit, much easier.

This function is valuable for those who need it. And is, at this point, the major reason for me to buy two FS4-Pros.

As soon as I'm sure that the fan noise problem has been solved, I will be getting them.

Thanks again for checking that.

Syncing
 

Hi
With the FS Pro version you can connect multiple drives together -for increased recroding time - if you were attempting to sync them up maybe bby connecting all the drives together -daisy chaining- and then specifying the Free Run option it would snyc them all up? Maybe focus could confirm that..maybe you shuold email them!!
cheers
mat

Hi Daniel Kohl, your fs4 still working ok after your upgrade ?

It is still working, in-spite of all my modifications.

Hi Daniel Kohl,
How do u remove the IDE cable (properly) ,as i find the connector very delicate.

Thanks in advance.

I removed it by grasping the two ends of the plastic plug with one hand (thumb and forefinger). You have to rock the plug back and forth along it's length, making sure that you don't bend the last two pins on the last side you rock to. If the pins get bent, then you will have to straiten them with a small screwdriver using light pressure. If any of the pins are not strait when you re-insert the plug, you will damage the plug by poking the pin receptacles in the plug up through the ribbon. This happened to me. I had to push the receptacles back down into the plug and carefully re-solder them.

I think you can only really do damage to the ribbon cable when you re-insert the plug. Or if you pull on the ribbon itself to get it out of the plug. The soldered points on the plug are a pretty delicate.

There is also probably some tool that is made specifically for this purpose.

Good luck,

so.. call me drunk and stupid on a lonely night as i avoid a client whom i despise.. but can someone reassure me that any Laptop HDD will run on this unit??

If so ill keep my forestore, if not, im gonna ditch it..
80gb just isnt enough sometimes, especially with that dodgy battery capacity...
either way, if someone has been succesful in swapping drives and has not had issues, what was the biggest drive?
I see some pics and stuff here, but for some reason im not convinced.. i guess when more and more people start doing it, then i'll really look into it.. but if i can wack a 120gb 2.5' HDD into my FSPro, then yeah, why the hell not?? its only 200 bux extra and i can do a hellofalot more with the unit, instead of being forced to buy another one...

I won't bite.

All I can say, is that switching the 40GB drive with the same-make 80GB drive works.

If you are going to ditch the unit anyway, give swapping the 80GB HDD with a same-make 120GB drive a shot. If the the FS-4 baulks, then put the 80GB back in, and buy a housing for the 120GB HDD and you still have a handy FW pocket drive. Just don't mention that you were tinkering around with the unit when you sell it on Ebay.

Let us know how it goes.

thanks daniel..

yeah well i have the FS4 pro simply for Avid use (if i wasnt using avid on some corp jobs, i would have gone the standard model),
Anyways... to me, the price here in aus is on the ridiculous side.. put it this way, with the money for a pro unit, i can build a kick ass workstation... or even better, by a mid to high end laptop and run DVRack...

dont get me wrong, i love the fs4.. but right now price wise... well, its a joke..

if i could up the capacity, then i can make the unit work itself off to shoot weddings.. but as it stands, the unit is only useful for corporate or directed/storyboarded jobs..

From 40 to 80 in 1800s
 

My experience on the subject:

Purchased an Hitachi Travelstar 5400 rpm 80GB - HTS548080M9AT00 HDD.
Formated it (FAT 32) using a WIN98 installation CD (XP only allows formats up tp 32GB on FAT 32).
Changed the volume name to the same name of the old drive.
Swaped the drives and voilá.

Best regards.
Arnaldo

nice post arnaldo, people need to know that there is an easy proven way to put a bigger hard drive into the fs-4.

if you don't have a win98 bootable disk, you can use aftermarket utilities like partition magic, or there are a number of freeware ways to go about it... i found a couple on the 'net, i have not used 'em myself:

http://www.mager.org/mkdosfs/

http://www.allensmith.net/Storage/HDDlimit/FAT32.htm

using a 5400rpm drive instead of a faster drive is probably a good idea also, from the standpoint of possibly less power consumption, and less heat generation.

Hi Dan.

The drive I used is of the exact same series of the original drive, only bigger.

Best regards,
Arnaldo

FS3 HDD Ugrade
 

Hi ALL. Is there any easy way to a similar upgrade Job on FS3 HDD !!!
Thx.

Just another chime in....
 

I purchased a 100GB Seagate 5400 RPM Drive / 8MB Cache in a external USB enclosure at Fry's for 169.00 - I swapped it out by hooking it up to my mac powerbook, formatting MS-DOS and giving it the same volume name as the FS4 drive that was already in the FS4.
Swapped it out, had to do another format once in the FS4 and it works great - 463 minutes record time!!!!
Instead of the water bottle battery (tooooo cheesy) - I use a DigitalCameraBattery.com battery with IBM laptop cable from them as well - fits the FS4 perfectly!!! And it will power the FS4 for over 10 hours.... my longest test so far.

Now I can go a whole weekend and shoot without a computer etc.....

For what it’s worth…..
 

The FS-4 will both partition and format your hard drive ….. at lest mine did….. and I did not have to hook it up to my desktop……

Thats good info to know. I hooked it up to the mac primarily to give it the same volume name per an earlier post in this thread. If that is not required, one step saved!!!

Lets see if I can make a long story short. I had other problems but not with the hard disk. There were times when I did have hooked up to my desktop thinking there was something wrong with the hard dive. I can't remember if I gave it a volume name or not. My problem turned out to be a bad ribbon cable so when I replaced it I took the partition table off and installed the hard disk in the FS-4. The first message I got from the FS-4 was that it was partitioning the hard drive. Then it proceeded to the normal startup routine. At that point I went to the drive utilities and formatted it.

Well I guess this was not so short.....
For more info:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=63372

Has anyone tried swapping in a 320gb or 500gb drive in a FS-4?