2nd Hard Drive Question

dalydose wrote on 10/16/2002, 7:50 PM
My Sony system came with a 100GB drive, but it is only 5400rpm. I have a 100GB/7200 drive in my old HP system that I could bring over to the Sony. The VV requirements say that 7200rpm is required, but I haven't experiences any dropped frames or any other problems. I found that to be very interesting and maybe a bit 'careful' on the part of SoFo.

That being said, I do want to put that 7200GB drive on my Sony system. I had heard somewhere and some time that one should always put the fastest drive first and make the slower one the slave. I would rather not do that since I want the second drive to be the 'media storage' drive for videos and maybe a partitian for mp3s.

Question 1: Is there any reason to make the 7200 the master?
Question 2: Is it necessary to format an entire drive after doing video editing or will formatting the video partition be sufficient?
Question 3: Will I notice any change in performance (good or bad) by having VV on a seperate drive from the media?

Thanks!

Jeff Daly
Burbank, CA - USA

Comments

Paul_Holmes wrote on 10/16/2002, 8:15 PM
My experience with 5400 versus 7200 was that with 7200 I could fill up the drive completely without having capture problems. With 5400 I could only fill up half of it before I began to have problems with dropped frames and playback problems.

The cardinal rule of video editing systems is to have a separate harddrive to put and access the video from. This is mainly to achieve good captures. It you capture with the C drive the system may decide to write or read things from it, causing possible problems with your capture. I would say, use the 5400 for the system and the faster one for video.

Don't reformat your video drive after finishing a project. Just dump everything in the recycle bin, empty the recycle bin, and you've got a new defragmented drive. (Even if you leave a few gigs on there, you won't need to defrag it).
HPV wrote on 10/16/2002, 9:35 PM
Your OS HD is on the primary IDE channel as master. Your new video storage 7200rpm HD should be master on the secondary IDE channel. CDROM can be slave on either. Vegas and all other programs should stay on your OS drive.

Craig H.
swarrine wrote on 10/16/2002, 10:13 PM
I would configure 5400 as OS on Primary Master, 7200 as Secondary Master and CD as Secondary Slave.

Note: on my laptop I use VV3. A lousy 4200 rpm drive - stand alone and VV3 works great. The only thing that happens is that the first frame gets dropped. 1/30th of a second, I can live with that on the road.
Laurence wrote on 10/17/2002, 8:44 AM
If you're getting dropped frames on a half filled 5400 RPM drive, it probably just means you need to defrag that drive.

Laurence Kingston
wcoxe1 wrote on 10/17/2002, 10:13 AM
"Vegas and all other programs should stay on your OS Drive."

That will NOT work for me. I fought my computer for days before I found that if I had the OS on C:, then I HAD TO HAVE Vegas on D:, or it dropped frames all over the place. The next thing I learned was that if I had Vegas on D:, then I HAD TO Render and Prerender to C:, or it skipped and stuttered all over the place. This is with two 7200 drives with adequate throughput on each.

The OS was making calls at the same time Vegas was doing something, so if they were on the same drive, a mess resulted. Likewise, when Vegas was working, it got messed up if something called that same drive.

I have NOTHING else running on this machine when doing video. With the above arrangement I have WONDERFUL results, and have not dropped a frame in months. Boy, what a relief. For a while I thought I would NEVER finish a project.

Sometimes experimenting helps when logic fails.
dalydose wrote on 10/17/2002, 10:47 AM
Now I don't know *what* to do. :(

I have to first figure out how to install the drive and then configure as Master on the IDE channels. Would I look to the manufacturer of the drive or the computer to figure that out?

So if the drives are Masters I should then have the DVD+RW/CDRW as the Slave on the first hard drive and my second CD drive as Slave to the other hard drive?

Thanks again,

Jeff Daly
Burbank, CA
craftech wrote on 10/17/2002, 11:07 AM
Question 1: Is there any reason to make the 7200 the master?

No

Question 2: Is it necessary to format an entire drive after doing video editing or will formatting the video partition be sufficient?

No, just delete the files as someone said and if you have a problem defrag the drive.

Question 3: Will I notice any change in performance (good or bad) by having VV on a seperate drive from the media?

It should work better with the program on the primary Drive and the video on the secondary. Hook it up as Swarrine said. If it doesn't work you haven't lost your primary drive info. However, it would be best if you used the ecomputer as a video editing computer and not as a multifunction computer. You mentioned mp3's so that's why I thought maybe this was going to be your "do-all" computer. I have two computers. One general computer and one video editing computer.

Control_Z wrote on 10/17/2002, 11:59 AM
You set newer drives via their position on the eide cable. First set their jumpers to CS (cable select) then put the Master on the black connector and the slave on the gray. Actually, if it's easier (depending on your internal layout), you can set the jumpers to Master or Slave and reverse this without a big hit.

And don't worry about Master or Slave being faster - they're the same, so either will work. You just don't want both drives on the same eide channel. And ignore the old truism that you shouldn't hook a cd on the same channel because it will slow down the drive - that just doesn't happen anymore.
riredale wrote on 10/17/2002, 3:51 PM
I have never used Cable Select, and thought this method was almost never used anymore. I assumed this was a compatibility throwback to the old, old days of computing.

I set my master and slave devices strictly by the jumpers on the drives. Oh, I also found out that if you "reverse" the cable (meaning that the end with the two connectors is attached to the motherboard) everything works fine anyway. I had to do this because the two IDE devices were too far apart for the cable to connect to in the normal orientation.
Control_Z wrote on 10/17/2002, 6:28 PM
Not with the newer ATA100 (and up) drives. For these you should use an 80 conductor cable which has the colored connectors. And, in theory at least, you should observe the proper placement. In practice I've had little trouble myself abusing the procedure. The OS will resend any corrupted data.
BillyBoy wrote on 10/18/2002, 12:06 AM
I second what Control Z said about the ATA 100 and 133 cables. I just moved everything in my main computer to a monster sized box so I could have multiple removeable drives. If the standard IDE cable is too short larger 30-36 inch versions are available with the spacing on the drive end much wider between the master and slave connector, about a foot. Find them in larger computer stores or on the web for about $20.