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Backups go to LTO tape... that fucker is looooud.

I think Samsung sold its 3.5" drive business to Toshiba so they should be pretty similar to the Samsung F3s. Toshiba also just purchased OCZs ssd business.
Are the LTO tapes very expensive? I know a couple of businesses which run LTO and it seems really convenient for backup.

Here's an interesting article about reliability concerning consumer vs enterprise drives.
http://techreport.com/news/25730/data-suggests-consumer-drives-are-as-reliable-as-enterprise-models

To be honest, if you do RAID 0 then it doesn't make any difference if one drive or all of them fall over at the same time. You'll still lose the volume regardless.

From my own experience I tend to run RAID 10 using the intel storage controller RST. I only use Hitachi's and when they were still available Samsungs but YMMV. I tend to avoid the WD and Seagate consumer 7200rpm drives (the Barracudas and the Blues? ) because they  push some of the redundancy write/read features off their consumer drives and save them for the AV or enterprise drives. Although this isn't something I've researched for awhile. I may be tempted with the Blacks, Reds or the SVs at this point but I still just stick with Hitachi Deskstars (owned by WD now). If I could afford it I would probably look at the Ultrastars but I tend to try and order them from separate shops (say when I've done 6 at a time) because my fear with sequential serial # drives is they may all fall over at the same time, which is my nightmare. I never mix models though.
RAID 0 should increase your write and read speed plus you get the benefit of a volume with the combined size of the number of drives but obviously it is fragile to data loss should one of the drives fall over.Can work with odd number of drives and I think on some controllers you can expand the size of the volume by simply adding another drive and letting it rebuild but I'm not sure.
RAID 1 may increase your read speed (controller dependent) and provides a redundant drive in case of failure (also taking into account the ability to continue "up time" if its a mission critical volume or you operate a business) but you lose 50% of total drives capacity and a RAID 1 can also fall over despite the redundant drive. As in one drive drops out and, even though it shouldn't), pulls the whole array over forcing you into a lengthy rebuild. One advantage of RAID 1 is that you can pull a drive out and still access it on another computer (atleast using the Intel controller at either end).
RAID10 mirrors two pairs of drives and then stripes them between multiple twin arrays. Giving you some of the read/write benefits of RAID 0 along with some of the redundancy features of RAID 1. You need 4 drives and up but you only get 50% of the total capacity. For my money I find RAID 10 the most reliable for a Scratch or Project volume and I find the Intel RST software fairly easy to use.
No RAID (0,1,5,6,60,10 et al) is a replacement for a backup. RAIDs have a tendency to let you down when you least expect it and don't underestimate the rebuild times with larger drives on some of those more complicated RAID configurations. It can be epically long and if you're making a living with what's on the volume this can drive you nuts ( I speak from experience ).
Sorry if I'm just repeating what you already know but some of the info in here seemed a little incorrect and having watched RAID failures destroy valuable project data and footage I thought it might be useful to offer my perspective.
Best of luck ( and just to reinforce the point, No RAID is the equivalent of a regular backup).

Hah, not so much an ad I'm just romantic about the (false) idea or dream of it being as simple as a cable or adapter. I saw this thing for sale and I just thought I would share it.
SSDs are so cheap now the prospect of spitting RAW to a 480gb drive would probably cover me for most of the drama shooting I do.
I wish I had the technical know how to help. As it is I just have to watch appreciatively from the sideline.
Sorry for the interruption.

Sorry I know this is redundant but I just saw this and while I'm sure its useless maybe it will stir some creative juices. Perhaps there's a CF card one too.

http://www.officeworks.com.au/retail/products/Technology/Cameras/Memory-Cards/SDSDHC-Cards/WEOL5404G

Its a shame its not as easy as this thing with an extension cable but such is life. 

As always I'm looking forward to a breakthrough in this area, best of luck.

Good to see some progress in this area, thanks for your hard work. My concern is that for those of us that work with camera rigs the extended battery grip wouldn't be ideal with the equipment we've got and might make some gear (for instance follow focus) incompatible due to the new lens height.
For me, I like everything you've suggested except if I could choose I would prefer to have a simple external box that I can mount. I need a little more flexibility and I find the battery grip inconvenient.
Looks like a good project.

On a side note could I suggest a mounting option on the bottom (if you go that way) so its not a single screw but also has a registration pin like a normal film cam for base plates and so forth.

EDIT
It hasn't been attached to a camera yet? I think you'll find that's the tough bit, its more than just a physical interfacing problem. Looks like a good project though, best of luck.

While Camera-SD-USB interface is probably doable, it's not trivial  My idea is more like stringing a cludge from COTS components.

Thanks Grunf good to know, looking forward to what you all come up with. I read in another thread a little about the difficulty of getting the usb hosting to work, its a shame it wasn't that easy but I'm sure you guys will crack it.
For longer form stuff an ssd (or equivalent) is going to be pretty useful (or necessary) at the roughly 6GB a minute rate these are putting out.
This Sata interface you're working on could prove to be as useful as the RAW hack in the first place for some of us.
Looking forward to developments, best of luck.

I've been avidly following developments. Thanks to the devs for their hard work its yielding some incredible results.

Following over from the other thread in regards to an external hardware component I thought I might suggest something a little more generic in regards to the interface.

I love the ribbon CF extender cable, is there a way to slip the ribbon in under the cover of the 5d for a painless external mod? Flap could stay closed. Permanently.

But I wonder if something more generic using more robust existing hardware could be a tidier solution.

I have no expertise in this area but couldn't something like this

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/845797-REG/Lexar_LRW307URBNA_Professional_USB_3_0_Dual_Slot.html

interface between the cf extender and a USB 3 male to male to a USB 3 SSD battery powered portable drive? It may prove cheaper (If there was some way to get it to work) and a bit more robust for those of us in the field. Also USB 3 cases are fairly ubiquitous and maybe there is a RAID one which could provide some level of redundancy.

That reader could also host something on the SD card slot so it maybe easier to code (again well outside my realm of knowledge) something that was compatible with the sd card model canons aswell? A Universal magic lantern solution. I'm not sure what challenges this represents but I could imagine something like that rubber banded together and secured near the flap.

Also might allow for easier mag changes. What do you think?

Just spitballing, love the work you're doing.