Help with Hard Drive Data Transfer Rate

[Joey Nipps]

I primarily use a DV camcorder and a 1394 card to get video into Premier 6 for editing. I usually pull the video in as uncompressed AVI for Premier. Output is sometimes back to DV or VCR or mpeg. Now the problem. I routinely have to cut various setting below what I would prefer because I get errors inputting or outputting from Hard Drive. I understand that video needs from 30 and higher MB/sec sustained transfer rate to and from the HD. I do NOT want to go to SCSI so I have been unable to find a HD with those sustainable data transfer numbers. I have been told that an IDE RAID system (PCI RAID controller) with 2 or more nominal IDE HDs will solve the problem. However, someone else said I wouldn't see much data transfer improvement with an IDE RAID system. I come to you for help - simple truths please (or not so simple as the case may be <g&gt.

[kinneera]

I think it depends on how you configure your RAID. Redundant RAID won't improve transfer rates but does improve data security, whereas striping can gain you 1.5-2x the transfer rate (I think). I have no actual experience with it, though, so I will leave further discussion to others.

[Joey Nipps]

Yes, it is stripping I must use - thank you for pointing that out. Anybody with real world experience? I must know this before I can determine which (and how many) hard drives to add to the system.