External Harddrive

I´ve been thinking to get me a external harddrive to get me started properly on my dvd editing. What things should I conseider when I make my decision? Like what port it uses, what brand it is...

I´ve been planning to get a Lacie 250gb usb.2.0 thingy.

Please sahre your information and experiences about the subject.

Image file not present in the recovered backup

Buy DEX's.

I got a Maxtor 300gig for like $200.

I use firewire though, not USB 2.0. It's great.

Mine's a Freecom 160gb USB2, I love it.

Hows the transfer between usb hdd and comp? Like If I have all my big videofiel on that hdd and I try to edit them...?

Mines just sold
I wouldnt buy a LaCie, because there really expensive. Plus dont have fans in the, so its unlikely but they can overheat and break.

How much it go for man?

250gb usb2 lacie would have cost 119e, 81.022083 British pounds. Didnt think that would be too expensive?

my firewire card only has 1 port, can you get ones with 2? because id also like to use firewire for my HDD thats if it can run from it? because it only has a usb2 lead coming from it...

70% of my footage is stored on my eternal, and honestly, it runs just as good as it would on an internal HD whilst editing.

Is there good reason to pick external instead of internal? I dont even know why I suddenly started to want one. It started right after I left webby´s... Image file not present in the recovered backup

^ No, there isn't.

If you do, I would certainly get fire wire if you can.

USB is far too slow for transfer. In video editing, the most important hardware components are: CPU, HDD, GPU, RAM - in that order. The faster you can read/write to your hard drive, the quicker the rendering process can go. If you are doing this over USB - its extremely slow. Its not TOO bad for simply hosting the raw footage - so long as you are going to render it to a file on your internal.

Internal is much better, because the transfer speeds are much much faster. If I were you, I would just get a 10,000RPM SATA internal HDD. Dedicate that puppy to hosting your video - and even render directly to it, and you will notice a HUGE difference.

What I´ve read usb2 is faster than firewire?

no just abit slower. you can read from it as fast as an internal, but saving back renderd videos it cant do, so I save to internal then just drag & drop the files back to the external. it isnt a problem at all




haha it is a nice bit of kit, keeps me organised and helped me out ALOT with film work.


difference between the two? external is plug & play, can remove it and take it to a different computer and makes transfuring stuff that much eazier. lots of benefits

Im so short on money that I might just get new internal hd, becasue I have to get ne hd if I want to finnish my dvd someday...

Did some reasrch, transfer rates:

usb: something too little

usb2: 480

that little fw plugin: 400

that bigger fw plugin: 800

(dont quote me on those, but Im going to base my decision on those figures)

didnt know there was 2 sizes of firewire

Here is how I think it is, there is two sizes of plugins. The normal and small one. Normal is used to most applications e.g. computers and dvd players, but for little items, small is used, e.g. videocameras and laptops. Normal plugin has six pins intsead of 4 that small one has. Hence the different transfer rates (400 & 800)

Pictures to show the difference:

fw800

External image not preserved — inspect source: http://www.zpluscable.com/images/products/firewire-6pin-end.jpg

External image not preserved — inspect source: http://www.concurso-de-modding.com/web/images/firewire.jpg

fw400

External image not preserved — inspect source: http://www.zpluscable.com/images/products/firewire-4pin-end.jpg

External image not preserved — inspect source: http://support.axiolearning.org/images/kyc/laptop/firewire.jpg

At least this is how I understand the matter after browsingthe net for while.

Isnt that the two different ends on the cable?

No its two different firewire plugins. Fw800 and fw400. Like scart: Superscart with all 21 pins and normal scart with just few; Fw800 with six pins and fw400 with four pins. You can see the difference when you watch the pictures closely.

Yeah, its true that you can get adapter cables that has fw800 in other end and fw400 in other end. And actually those are most known in Hg scene obviusly because most camcorders use fw400 and most desktop computers use fw800.

But if you want e.g. to plug your computer to laptop, you most probably need a cord with fw400 in bith ends. Thats how I connect my cam to my fathers laptop.

hell I would get one of these to replace my freecom 250 external - just for the fact it looks like lego!

lmao wtf would u want it looking like that for?

get this....
http://www.savastore.com/productinfo/produ...=45&tid=174

:-P

Vode, if I were you I'd get a portable box. A portable box is basically a box to contain a standard IDE internal drive with the standard IDE connector leading into a chip on the inside of the case which then converts the throughput to a firewire / USB port.

They cost around $15 - $20, then you can simply purchase an 80GB, 7200RPM internal HDD, slam it into the box and you have yourself a truelly portable hardrive. The true beauty of these portable boxes is that they allow you to hot swap hardrives, so if one fills up then purchase another and you've got another x amount of gigabytes of data and you can store all your content away until you need it again.

Works out a lot cheaper too.

Edit: They look like this: http://www.9130.cn/eng3/spjj.asp?Product_id=726

The box in the link is a dated one so doesn't have a firewire port, all modern portable boxes do.

I have a 320gb external Toshiba USB 2.0 hardrive, its the shit, despite what people say about USB being poo on a stick.

Aaah, thanks for the in G, luw cah.

Very true - if you need portability. But if all you need is storage for video that is going to stay in your PC - may as well just an internal. Its cheapEST, and has the fastest transfer.

On the firewire cables - they are both the same (1394a) specification - both are 400Mbps. Then there is firewire (1394b) 9-pin connecter, which has the 800Mbps. The ONLY difference between a 4-pin and 6-pin firewire cable is that the 6-pin has a 2 power cables, which supply power through the additional 2 pins. That means you can use your cable to power your firewire device - and not use battery power (not usually a big deal for your purposes). This is not important - especially considering most cameras only have a 4-pin connector - and so they can't even take advantage of the extra 2 pins. You would then have to use a 6-pin to 4-pin cable. Then again - even if your camera takes a 6-pin connector, and has the capability to be powered via firewire - you have to have the firewire built in directly to your motherboard - because PCI devices don't supply enough power to supply enough power to the cable to supply power to the device (camera) - so if you have a firewire card, instead of integrated firewire on your motherboard, again, it will do you no good whatsoever.

Its unlikely you will find a camera with a 9-pin firewire connection - so you won't be getting the 800Mbps transfer speeds anyway.

But vode, you are right - USB IS faster than firewire - it can get 480Mbps. The difference is that firewire has no compression schemes - its direct throughput, and the transfer speed is always 400Mbps, with no fluctuation. USB on the otherhand can fluctuate - so though you may top out at 480Mbps - you may also be transferring at 200Mbps. Firewire is just a better technology all around. USB 3.0 will have 1 Gbps transfer - but thats not out yet.

edit: almost forgot I was talking about external HDD - not a camera. The EHDD will take advantage of the 6-pin connector - so long as you have integrated firewire on your motherboard.
Modern SATA has transfer of up to 3 Gbps..

lol @ hi cutie pie