Firewire hard drive question...

[margib]

Okay, I will probably need to get another drive soon since I only have one 40GB EIDE in my computer now. I don't want to add another drive to my current controller (I only have one HD on 1st channel and DVD+RW drive on 2nd channel). So, this leaves me with either buying a new controller and traditional drive or a firewire card and some sort of external drive.

My questions for those of you that have a firewire drive:

Is the performance on par with a traditional EIDE solution?

If yes, how many firewire drives can you add before they will not perform well (in case I wanted to add a second at some point)?

Thanks in advance.

[kazzer]

I use an external Maxtor firewire hard drive (7200 rpm) and ive yet to drop a frame from my MiniDV cam. My source is mainly 5 year old VHS so its not in great condition. So this solution works fine for me.

If yes, how many firewire drives can you add before they will not perform well (in case I wanted to add a second at some point)?

What exactly do you mean "perform well"? In terms of video capture I assume?
I cant see this ever being a problem, realistically.

[RabidDog]

Think about it ..480mbps.., so you add a 2nd drive and this bandwith is shared .. so your second drive will have to make do with 240mbps. I would have thought that you would need to have 5 or six b4 you really start to worry. your wallet will run dry before you have bandwith worrys.

[kazzer]

I agree with RabidDog, in practice it should never be a problem.

Anyway, if your capping, simply disconnect the other drives. Problem solved. You have the full firewire bandwidth. You can only capture to one drive at a time, right?