Firewire or USB2.0 external hard drive?

[dubieman]

Hi all, just wondering if there are any differences between using an external firewire or USB2.0 hard drive when capturing video through my ADVC-100. Thanks!

[redwudz]

Just my opinion, but Firewire seems to be more compatible with external drives. I've tried both, but Firewire just seems to work better. I think it really depends on your interface card. With firewire to external drives, never any problems, even with a cheap Firewire card on my laptop. USB 2, couldn't burn to DVD, slow access times. My external drive box has both USB 2 and Firewire, can't go wrong with this setup. Highly recommended.

[vivisimonvi]

I bought an $80 Western Digital USB 2.0 80GB harddrive and use it exclusively for capturing. I can't compare it to firewire but it really should do what it's supposed to do. The transfer speeds are incredible as I capture almost uncompressed 720X480 AVI (about 1.5 compression ratio). At about 11,000 K/bps, I won't lose any frames...

I think it's a good investment so you won't wear your main harddrive down, the external ones are easily replaceable.

[Will Hay]

I have an external HDD which has the option of either firewire or USB2.0.
For me there's no doubt, firewire.
Will

[dubieman]

Hi all, thanks for the replies! I think I might settle for one that has both Firewire and USB2.0 like some of you have...I already have an external WD USB2.0 (like vivisimonvi) but use it strictly for data backup and don't want to risk the chance of 'corrupting' the HD through video capture (if there's such a thing!) Thanks!

[SatStorm]

I also vote for firewire.

[Hardcoreruss]

I have an external HDD which has the option of either firewire or USB2.0.
For me there's no doubt, firewire.
Will

Same here I have two, firewire all the way.

[Biodroid]

firewire is the one, usb 2.0 seems to be slightly imcompatible with some chipsets like VIA personal problem. more convenient use a intel chipset. i have an external drx500-ul fire and usb but use fire instead of usb. on a via chipset works great. i also purchase a usb.2.0 box 5.25 to put inside another burner but dont work on m via chipset i pluged the unit on a intel chipset and works great. ? what use digital camcorders DV to pass data to your PC FIREWIRE or DVI or IEEE 1394 whatever is the best...

[ronnylov]

Another alternative may be the external SATA drives that are coming now. You'll need a SATA controller with an external connector. The good thing is that the interface is fast enough to use the full speed of the harddrive.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/01/09/HNdrives_1.html

[lechtin]

I recommend the use of firewire. I also have a USB2.0/firewire enclosure and use only firewire. Even though USB 2.0 has a higher theoretical bandwidth (480Mbps) vs firewire (400Mbps), you always get better performance out of firewire. Look to www.tomshardware.com for some test results.

[Gazorgan]

I have both. There's not much difference (under 5%) between USB 2.0, Firewire, and UDMA100. Yep, ain't removeable drive bays great? I benchamarked some standard WD 80 GB drives in all 3 configurations and there's not a significant difference in speed. This won't hold in UDMA133 drives, or better drives (no 8 MB buffer here). Max throughput for me was around 14 MB/sec (sequential). Random was around 11 MB/sec(I don't thnik I've ever come close to a random test , which was 1000's of small files, all my files are over 100 MB).

I usually capture onto an IDE channel, but I edit and encode via USB (same drive).

[ipgpe13]

I have both an external hard drive and DVD burner, both connected to my Windows XP PC through USB 2.0 using a cheap usb 2.0 card I installed. I have not had any problems at all and have had great perfomance. Everything I have used through the usb 2.0 card has been just plug and play.

[DTSL06]

My experience only.

I was using a Bytec USB2.0/Firewire case for my Plex 708 burner. With Firewire a full DVD burn took 14 min using Memerex 4x media that was identified by Nero as 8x. With USB 2 it took 10 min. Now I just moved the burner inside via IDE (slave) and it takes 7-8 min. So in my case the firewire for some reason was slower then the USB 2 connection. Both was via the mobo connectors (Gigabyte) and not thru addon card. I always thought that firewire was faster, but in my case the USB 2 was faster. I was blaming both the burner firmware and Nero for not allowing me to burn at 8x when it was the realy the external connection. Funny thing is that now I got my Pioneer A05 connected in the case via USB 2 it burns at the same as it it did when it was IDE, 14 mins (4x) which is its max speed.

I also have a 80gb and a 120gb Western Digital HDs (8mb buffer) via USB 2 and never had a prob with them. I use them for file storage.

I recode/edit/rip to two internal 120gb SATA drives in RAID 0 for pure speed.

After thought: Also it may depend on the external case. I remember burning at 6-8x using using USB 2 in another case when I 1st got the Plex. I went out and bought a firewire/usb case to see if it would be faster via firewire. Never thought it was the case since I updated the firmware and Nero at about the same time and blamed either the fw or nero update. Finally when I got off my lazy behind and replace the A05 with the 708 internally when I realize it was the case.

[dubieman]

Wow...thanks for the replies everyone! I probably forgot to mention, that I'm using a Toshiba laptop to do all this video stuff (please see 'Computer Details') so while I have 4 USB 2.0 ports, I only have ONE firewire port without room for expansion. This being so, will using a firewire hub (for the ADVC-100 and external HD) cause any conflicts between the devices? Does anyone have any experience with such a setup? Thanks again!

[ZzeusS]

Wow...thanks for the replies everyone! I probably forgot to mention, that I'm using a Toshiba laptop to do all this video stuff (please see 'Computer Details') so while I have 4 USB 2.0 ports, I only have ONE firewire port without room for expansion. This being so, will using a firewire hub (for the ADVC-100 and external HD) cause any conflicts between the devices? Does anyone have any experience with such a setup? Thanks again!

I have had terrible experience using PC Cards for USB and Firewire for video capture. If the connectors you are talking about are native on the back of the laptop, it may work. The transfer rates were incredibly slow, and I tried two different cards with 3 different USB2 enclosures.

I don't think PC Card and Video together are useful, but that's just me.

[dubieman]

Hi ZzeusS, I know what you mean about PCMCIA cards...I once had a USB2.0 card for an older laptop of mine that I connected to an external USB 2.0 drive kit and constantly ran into all kinds of problems!

Since then, I've gotten my present laptop and it has a firewire port (not behind, but on the side :P) and I'm not sure if expanding it with a firewire hub would cause conflicts with the ADVC-100 I have and the external firewire HD that I might get..

[lechtin]

Dubieman,

You do not need a firewire hub. Firewire cases (that ones I've seen anyway) have 2 ports so you can daisy chain them. I have my external drive connected to my computer, and my miniDV camera connected to the other port of the external drive. Never any problems with this setup and no dropped frames.

[Hardcoreruss]

Dubieman,

You do not need a firewire hub. Firewire cases (that ones I've seen anyway) have 2 ports so you can daisy chain them. I have my external drive connected to my computer, and my miniDV camera connected to the other port of the external drive. Never any problems with this setup and no dropped frames.

Yeah thats right, my hard drives have a second slot so you can "daisy chain" the hardware together. You can daisy chain up to 255 items together (think thats the right number).

[Shannafey]

I bought an $80 Western Digital USB 2.0 80GB harddrive and use it exclusively for capturing. I can't compare it to firewire but it really should do what it's supposed to do. The transfer speeds are incredible as I capture almost uncompressed 720X480 AVI (about 1.5 compression ratio). At about 11,000 K/bps, I won't lose any frames...

I think it's a good investment so you won't wear your main harddrive down, the external ones are easily replaceable.

I have the same one, and it does an amazing job for me!!

[dubieman]

Dubieman,

You do not need a firewire hub. Firewire cases (that ones I've seen anyway) have 2 ports so you can daisy chain them. I have my external drive connected to my computer, and my miniDV camera connected to the other port of the external drive. Never any problems with this setup and no dropped frames.

Yeah thats right, my hard drives have a second slot so you can "daisy chain" the hardware together. You can daisy chain up to 255 items together (think thats the right number).

Learning something new everyday! thanks for all your inputs everyone!