New Hard Drive, What size??

[zap4]

I just got a DVD burner. I am now beggining to capture things. Right now I have a 30GB HD. I only have about 16 GB left. That is after everything I need. So I am planning on getting a new hard drive so I can capture stuff. I will mainly be recording TV programs, and VHS->DVD. I would like to do this at the best quality I can. I figure that will be Huffy or PicVideo. Probably Huffy. My question is, what size hard drive would you suggest I get to go with my current hard drive? I am thinking about the Special Edition 80 GB Western Digital HD with 8mb cache. Do you think I should get this or would a smaller one like a 60 GB be good enough?

[fmctm1sw]

Buy the biggest you can afford. I got a 7200RPM 80GB western digital. It cost me $95 (newegg) a few months ago.

[rsuave5]

i have an 80 and i do video often, i use it up fairly often if i have a few projects going and then start capturing. id say if your novice and do this once in a while then 80 is great and enough. if your going to do it a little more often and plan to do alot of hi res captures then go for 120! or 80 plus your old 30 would work! read up on partitioning and formatting first!

[Tommyknocker]

The size of the hard really does not matter, it is the speed of the hard drive that will matter to you the most. I think you shoould opt for the larger drive if you can afford it, but try to get a hard drive that is around 7200 rpm or higher. Especially if you decide to take up DV capturing from camcorders, it will come in handy.

[zap4]

I think I'll go with the hard drive I mentioned in my first post. It is 7200 RPM and with the 8mb cache, I don't think spped should be a problem with this drive. It's been reviewed by 165 people on New Egg and every single one of them gave it 5/5 stars. I think that should be good enough for me. I don't have a DV camera yet, but I am thinking about getting one for christmas. Thanks for all of your opinions.

[zap4]

What is the advantage to partitioning a drive? I could never figure this out. I was just planning on getting the HD plugging it in to the motherboard and to the one I have using one cable. I asked some people on another message board about it and they said to just plug it in and it should work. They said it will be two seperate drives, not one big drive though. I figured this, because I would need RAID or something like that to make it one big drive. With partitioning, you would just be sectioning off space. What does this help with?

[fmctm1sw]

What is the advantage to partitioning a drive? I could never figure this out. I was just planning on getting the HD plugging it in to the motherboard and to the one I have using one cable. I asked some people on another message board about it and they said to just plug it in and it should work.

I'm not sure about that. I believe I had to partition mine with "fdisk." I think it is in this process that the drives are determined who is who. And if you are buying one from an online site make sure you have someone that can help you install it if you run into trouble. Mine arrived in a white box with just the drive. No instructions, no pictures, no smiley faces, no nothing....

[Tommyknocker]

Partitioning helps those of us with only one hard drive. We partition our drive using one partition for our system and program files, and the other strictly for holding our captured/encoded video files. It makes capturing and encoding more efficient. Since you plan to use your additional drive for capturing, and do not plan to use to store any program or system files on it, it will not help you to partition your new drive.

[SLK001]

Take the old adage "Video expands to fill the available space" (that I just coined!!) and consider the cost difference between the 80 and the 100 and 120GB drives. Does this delta gouge the pocket too much? If not, then I would get one of these (I have two 80GBytes - no longer enough space). Also, 7200 RPM is the minimum I would consider (but this is pretty much the standard, now).

Partitioning will allow a slight increase in your average seek times, since the partitioned drive is confined to a smaller section of the physical drive (no more first sector to last sector swing of the read/write arm). Partitioning also allows easier cleanup of the drive by not requiring the entire physical drive to be done at once. It also allows for easier locating of files and directories, since fewer are on each drive (no more having to have to scroll down to the bottom of the directory tree to find that VIDEO_TEMP direcory).

Partitioning has nothing to do with plugging in the HD (but this MUST be done). Partitioning is just telling the file system that it should consider sectors 0 thru 100000 as one drive, sectors 100001 thru 200000 as another, sectors 200001 thru 300000 as another, etc, etc, etc. Partitioning is basically a "software setup" of the drive. I usually partition my drives to have a minimal drive C:, then divide the rest into two or three different drives. In my 2 80GB system, I have 7 different HD partitions (labeled as to function). However, this is a matter of personal taste (been doing it this way this for over 16 years).

[zap4]

And if you are buying one from an online site make sure you have someone that can help you install it if you run into trouble. Mine arrived in a white box with just the drive. No instructions, no pictures, no smiley faces, no nothing....

I put together my own computer not too long ago. Putting in the hard drive shouldn't be too hard. Thanks for the advice though

Partitioning helps those of us with only one hard drive. We partition our drive using one partition for our system and program files, and the other strictly for holding our captured/encoded video files. It makes capturing and encoding more efficient. Since you plan to use your additional drive for capturing, and do not plan to use to store any program or system files on it, it will not help you to partition your new drive.

Okay thats what I thought. I may make a small partition for some programs just in case. Thanks.

[Colindale]

Ever tried defragging a 60 or 80 Gig HD?, your operating system should be on a separate "Partition", 3 to 5 Gigs.

Partioning is the product of an orderly mind

[thxkid]

Always partition your drive, you will be glad in the long run the 1st time you get a corrupt file or crash your drive, its alot easier formatting that extra capture partition than having to rebuild the entire system.
If your using anthing larger than 30 gigs I would also sugest using Win 2K or XP for an operating system cause anything as large as you are using you want a drive that is NTFS.

[zap4]

I have Windows XP on the 30 GB drive right now. All I will have on the 30 GB drive will be a few programs, internet, and windows xp. The 80 GB drive will be set aside for capturing. I may partition a small portion of it for programs in case I run out of space on the 30 GB drive. Thanks for all of the replies. If anyone else has anymore suggestions, please post them.

[zap4]

Just to let you know, I went ahead and purchased the Special Edition 80 GB Western Digital HD from newegg.com for $116. I can't wait till it gets here so I can put it in. I like newegg.com. I ordered all the parts for my computer from there. They have good shipping prices. I got free fedex super saver shipping with the HD just now. Thanks again for all of your help.

[Craig Tucker]

You can also reduce a hard drives access times by partitioning it, which is obviously of benefit during video capture.

http://partition.radified.com/partitioning_2.htm

I would also go for the biggest hard drive you can warrant the cash for. If you do a lot of video capturing and editing you will be surprised at how quickly they fill up. I have 2x120GB, a 40GB and a 30GB, I have just ordered another 120GB because I am running out of space.

[SatStorm]

Everytime I type "Format C:" I thank the guy who invent the HD partition!

[SLK001]

Everytime I type "Format C:" I thank the guy who invent the HD partition!

Do you do this often? Maybe a keeper is in order for you!

[SatStorm]

Yes, Centuri Prime is full of them....

[xed]

Rule of thumb:
Never capture to your OS drive.
Windows loves to constantly rewrite files, and this quickly fragments the drive.
Always dedicate a separate empty hard drive to capture video. That way, when you want to defrag after you've ginished archiving all your captured video, just erase the drive and start capturing with a completely blank drive. No degragging required.
Rule of thumb 2:
If you do video editing, count on twice the drive size. This means you'll need a minimum of 2 large drives plus an OS drive if you plan to do video editing.
For examples: a pair of empty 80 gig drives (1 for capture, the other for writing edited video to) and (say) a 20 gigi or 40 gigi drive for Windows XP.
Having empty source and destination drifves speeds up video editing drastically, since while one drive reads the other one writes. It's the only way to go.
Fortunately, hard drives have now become dirt cheap.

[crahak]

Oh yes, they're dirt cheap, and HD space is the first thing I always ran out of on every machine I ever owned. This one has 2x60 and 2x80 on a promise fasttrack 100 TX2, and a separate 20 gig (and yet, I'm running short on it...)

[LabanB]

Hi Guys,

Slightley off topic. I have two drives (20gb and 120 gb) I also have two other EIDE devices (CD-ROM and CD burner).

How do I get another HD attached to the system? My understanding is you can only have a maximum of four devices attached at a time, i.e. two EIDE cables connecting to four devices. Can I get around this?

Bill Lowery

[Craig Tucker]

You can buy EIDE pci controller cards to add more EIDE devices.

[LabanB]

Cheers

[statuspending]

check this number out

just picked up two maxtor ata133 7200rpm 2mb cache 120gb drives from compusa today. hundred bones after rebate. i believe these are the last of the 3-year warranty maxtor drives

http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product%5Fcode=296881&csearch=1

oh...apparently sold out. sorry!

[jeepers94]

They may be the last of the 2 meg buffer drives with 3 year warranty,but the Ultra with 8 meg buffer is 3 years!

[statuspending]

doh!

well. i doubt i would get that nice price of 100 bucks each. i got two weeks to decide what to do with these then.

thanks!

[zap4]

I went and bought one from CompUSA also. I am just going to return the WD 80 GB with 8mb Cache I had ordered from newegg. The 120GB I got from CompUSA may be slower, but it was 40 extra gigs for less than the 80GB. I actually wasn't going to buy it first, but one of the workers showed us to the 120GB with 8mb cache. But when I got up to the register, they switched the box. I didn't realize they had given me the one with 2mb cache till I was at home tearing the shrink wrap off of it. I just decided to keep it after that.

[Craig Tucker]

The new IBM drives now also have an 8MB cache

[zap4]

The new IBM drives now also have an 8MB cache

From what I hear IBM is terrible at making hard drives. I have been told to stay away from IBM HDs at all costs.

[Greg12]

The size of the hard really does not matter, it is the speed of the hard drive that will matter to you the most

I totally disagree.

I have a 5400 RPM drive, I don't drop a frame but I can only record 30 minutes on my hdd.