HDD for DV

[Theus]

Hi, I'm trying to get into video editing but would need some serious advise before i venture any further.

my set-up: centrino laptop (1.6), 512mb sodimm, 40g hdd, 128mb ati mobility radeon 9700, built-in 24x cd-writer & dvd-player, firewire connection & usb 2.0 connection. sony mini-dv handycam.

i'm considering getting a new hard drive just for video editing & a dvd-writer.

question 1: should i get a firewire dvd-writer instead of usb 2.0 connection? (i'm eyeing sony's 16x dual layer external writer, which has firewire or lite-on 16x dual layer, which is only usb 2.0).

question 2: i'm also getting a new external hard drive. should i also get one that has firewire connectivity? or usb 2.0 will do?

question 3: has anyone tried maxtor one touch 250g? i'm also thinking of getting an internal drive (SATA) and just house it in an external hdd mobile rack, as this is much cheaper compared to getting an external drive like the one touch. are these SATA or IDE interface hdd's compatible with usb2.0 connections on external mobile racks?

many thanks!

[Soopafresh]

Firewire is always faster in real life.


My only concern is that your laptop doesn't have the horsepower to deal with DV. Actually, it DOES, but you'll be waiting.

[redwudz]

Definitely Firewire, or even better a external box with both interfaces. That way you are pretty much covered no matter what your setup.

On question three, use IDE drives. SATA would need a controller, probably a PCMCIA card in your case. I don't even know if they exist. I would stick with Firewire for this also, but try to find a Firewire/USB 2.0 combo box for the same reasons as above. For IDE drives, just set the drive to master and it should work fine.

EDIT: I use a PCMCIA Firewire card on my laptop for writing to a 10G HD. I also have a similar USB 2.0 card. Both interfaces operate at similar speed, however when I tried a DVD burner, only the Firewire would work properly. Fortunately my external HD and DVD burner have both Firewire and USB 2.0. This makes them very universal with any computer.

[Alexz]

I strongly recommend to get an external enclosure with both firewire and usb2. For both hdd and dvd-writer. That's what I have for my laptop.

I had a big problem with this a year ago. The problem is that firewire or usb2 may not work properly for an external device for some configuration. This is connected with the well-known issue called DWF (Delay Write Failed error). I was reading a lot about that and came to the conclusion that my configuration (Windows XP on HP laptop with ATI video card and bridge) is the problem case. So here's what I have now: my external HDD works only with usb2 (firewire gives errors - the data flow is corrupted). My external dvd-writer writes only on firewire and reads only on usb2. Believe me I tried many different enclosures, drives, etc. It only works this way. I'm not sure if you have the same problematic laptop like me, but it could be. For example, the other laptop at my work doesn't have this problem, but it's IBM laptop without any ATI chips. Anyway, a dual (both firewire and usb2) enclosure is like 15$ more than a single one, and that could save you much more in a problematic case, or gives you more compability in any case. Just buy a good one.

I see the replies above recommend firewire based on the speed factor. Well, the real speed for firewire and usb2 is the same on my laptop (or any other). The maximum read/write spead is about 10000-14000 kbytes/s. The average is 5000-6000 kbytes/s. That is about 15% of the maximal speed allowed by firewire and usb2 interface. Because the maximum is never reached, both firewire and usb2 act the same. There are limiting factors, like the speed of your built-in hdd, etc.

BTW, do you have firewire and usb2 built-in connection in your laptop, or do you use pcmcia cards?

[edDV]

There are other threads on this subject. Bottom line notebooks are different from desktops for video editing:

- Firewire is best for external HDD (lower CPU overhead), dual Firewire/USB2 is great for connecting the drive to other computers. USB2 is a compromise but can be used if you accept the risk. High reliability capture-transfer from camcorder direct to external drive requires a specialized drive.

- Highest reliability DV transfers to/from camcorder will be to your internal drive. Save at least a 14GB partition there for DV transfers.

- Editing programs will work OK with material on external drives (firewire or USB2). XP will trade speed for data integrity.

[Theus]

thanks you all for the input. i guess i'll just have to get both firewire & usb2.0. i agree with Alexz, i'm willing to spend a bit more for peace of mind.

Alexz, to answer your question, yes i have a built-in firewire port & 2 usb2.0 ports.

[Alexz]

Well I asked because I had experience only with pcmcia firewire/usb2 cards.