Best External hard drive to edit video

[mcv]

I've found a great harddrive at a great price at macsolutions.com but I'm not to sure if I want to buy it. It has 80 gigs, and runs at 7200 rpm, but is this fast enough to edit video DIRECTLY to it? I've got about a 15 min. video on my computer and it goes so slow (using iMovie 3) wherever I click I have to wait about 5-15 seconds before it is selected. It used to never do this with iMove 2 (I think). The reason I think this will solve my problem (buying a harddrive) is that my friend bought a internal 120 gig and iMovie 3 sped up about 10 times faster.

thanks for your help,
MCV

ps. Will buying ram speed iMovie up also? As you can tell I don't know too much about tech.
Heres the name of the harddrive:
80GB FIREWIRE EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE 7200 RPM with Oxford 911

[bbrelsford]

mcv -
Unfortunately you are finding the latest release of iMovie 3 has some real speed issue bugs and whatnot.
It is discussed in detail on apple's discussion boards.

http://discussions.info.apple.com/WebX?14@111.xAlcaqaUmaE.0@.ee6bcd9

I too, upgraded to iMovie3 but reverted back to iMovie 2. There are tips and tricks to do this on apples discussion boards.

In my opinion, if you don't really need any of iMovie3 features you should revert back to previous version.

In closing, I don't think you can go wrong with an additional hard drive(everyone needs space)but I tend to think as long as you use iMovie3 you might still suffer speed issues.

Anyone else feel free to chime in with your opinions or findings.
Brian

[gstubbs]

Yes, this is a good idea. The external drive will definitely speed up your process. I have done the same thing and can even plug in my JVC miniDV camera in at the same time. It STILL works much faster than with the internal drive. BTW my system is an iBook 800 with dual USB and firewire port. With an iBook the internal drive only rotates at 4200 rpm as opposed to the external 7200 rpm; that's about 40% faster AND it takes the drive functions away from the systems cpu. You can't really lose. Go for it and let us know how it works for you.

[txpharoah]

A good FireWire drive at 7200 rpm is great.

[digitaldave]

iMovie just got updated. Should work better, we hope.

An external Firewire drive at 7200rpm is just fine for video.

I picked up a Dual Bay FW case from ComputerGeeks.com for $50 and a 80GB Maxtor for $50 (on sale at Frys'). Still have room to shove another drive in the case. If you build the external drive yourself (even a monkey with a screwdriver like myself can figure it out) you can sometimes save a ton of money. There are FW cases out there for $30 or so.

Note on the Maxtors (I'm not sure if I've mentioned it on this board before) but when you first start to use the drive it retards the speed and if you're using it for DV you'll can get dropped frames.

After about a dozen power-cycles it reverts to full speed.

Oh, and there is no such thing as too much RAM.

[tgpo]

I just bought a 7200rpm 160GB Maxtor for $99. Great for video production! Oh, I also use iMovie 2. Everytime I tried to import in iMovie 3 is crashed.