I have a collectiion of both 5400 and 7200 RPM drives and it doesn't seem to matter at all. No dropped frames. It really doesn't impact render speeds at all.
Back in 1998, my Compaq had a real hard time keeping up with the 4MB/sec DV data stream. If you looked at the disk drive cross-eyed, it would drop a frame.
Today, ANY disk drive is at least 5 times faster than that drive in my old Compaq. While 7200rpm/100ATA/8MB buffer drives are even faster, any drive will do.
I'm using a Toshiba MK6022GAX in my Dell laptop. Never any problems. In fact I'm surprised with some of the problems described in this forum. I've NEVER (knock on wood) had any problems with my system, except for the freeze with external Firewire-disk which is why I bought the internal Toshiba for the so called media bay. However, a 7200 rpm or more should be even better.
Best/Tommy
I suppose capture is easier than print to tape (PTT).
My computer is right at the borderline: It can do capture but not PTT.
State of the art system...a few years ago :-)
>What if you render to complete AVIs and print using the capture program.
Nope. Surprisingly, that actually turns out worse, i.e., a higher rate of dropouts.
P.S. And yep, I have my PII 350 Mhz CPU, 5400 rpm drive tuned to the max: setting vidcap at high priority, all background apps KIA, preview off, hard drives defragged, no IRQ conflicts et al. I know what I'm doing and I've done all I can :-)