@Terry
If you're fine with FW800, then there's probably no need to upgrade to the Thunderbolt (which is quite expensive currently).
A lot will depend on how large your RAW video files are.
I'm working on mainly 1080i25fps, 1080p24fps, 720p25fps and FW800 handles them well enough.
The best would be to have the working video files on your internal drive, and then backup them to external when you don't need them anymore. Internal drive if often faster than USB3 or FW800.
If you go up to 1080p at 50 or 60fps, then it might be worth considering Thunderbolt.
When you're exporting, the bottleneck is from the processor. The drive can always save and write files faster than what your processor can render out.
Here are my rough disk speed tests you can use for reference:
@Terry
If you're fine with FW800, then there's probably no need to upgrade to the Thunderbolt (which is quite expensive currently).
A lot will depend on how large your RAW video files are.
I'm working on mainly 1080i25fps, 1080p24fps, 720p25fps and FW800 handles them well enough.
The best would be to have the working video files on your internal drive, and then backup them to external when you don't need them anymore. Internal drive if often faster than USB3 or FW800.
If you go up to 1080p at 50 or 60fps, then it might be worth considering Thunderbolt.
When you're exporting, the bottleneck is from the processor. The drive can always save and write files faster than what your processor can render out.
Here are my rough disk speed tests you can use for reference: