So I got some new toys last month and wanted to give some feedback since they are fairly new. I've had a Lacie Little Big Disk 1TB for about 6 months and I love working from it, the thing absolutely screams for video (and I'm sure stills are no different). But I got a couple new ones recently that I felt were worth mentioning:
1)
Sonnet Expresscard Thunderbolt Adapter(
http://www.sonnettech.com/product/echoexpresscard34thunderbolt.html) - This thing essentially gives you an express card slot that you can use for all kinds of stuff. I bought it specifically so I could use the Sonnet Dual-CF card reader(
http://www.sonnettech.com/product/produalcfadapterexpress34.html), which allows you to dump 2 CF cards at the same time. This was very helpful at my last shoot, dumping 16GB of footage only took a couple minutes at most. I still had 1 FW800 reader hooked up for the 3rd card (which I would dump first) and this thing would dump 2 cards simultaneously and still get done a few minutes before the FW800 reader. The only thing I don't like about it is that there is only 1 thunderbolt port, so no daisy-chaining, but I just put it on the end of the chain with no problems. The adapter is $149 and the Dual-CF express card is $100, so it's not cheap but very effective if you have to work fast.
2)
Lacie Thunderbolt eSata Hub (
http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?id=10574) - This thing really brings your hard drives back to life. I have 10 Lacie Quadra and G-Tech drives that I've always had hooked up via firewire, but they all have eSata ports. Now granted there are only 2 eSata ports coming off of it, so you can only use 2 drives at a time, but the ones you do have hooked up will scream. I've only had 1 shoot to use it, but so far I love it. For $200 I think it's definitely worth it.
Utilizing Thunderbolt hasn't been cheap so far, but these are 2 accessories I feel are reasonably priced and very effective. At the last shoot I was working off of the Lacie thunderbolt drive, which I daisy chained to the eSata Hub (which was connected to 2 drives full of footage via the hub's eSata ports), with the Sonnet Expresscard Adapter chained to the end. So I was transferring footage from the express card adapter to the 2 drives hooked up to the esata hub, and working in FCP/Compressor/Photoshop off of the Lacie Drive at lightning speed, I mean not a hiccup from any of it. Constantly transferring, editing, compressing without any issues was wonderful.
