external hard drive help?

wandering journalist wrote on 11/15/2009, 7:09 PM
help please... running out of room on the Sony VAIO notebook I use to edit with... of course with Sony Vegas Pro 8. Anyway looking to get an external hard drive, because I have three projects that I have to balance at the same time for the next month or so. All three are in HD. Do I need to go with e-SATA or can I grab a USB 2.0? What are my trade-offs?

Thanks,

Dale.

Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 11/15/2009, 7:44 PM
A USB drive on my cheap Sony Vaio works just fine. There are some deals on Simpletech 320 and 500 MB portables at microcenter.com and mine has worked perfectly for capture, edit, and rendering since purchase a few months ago. Firewire drives by Seagate also work perfectly.

There is no e-sata connection on my notebook, but I'm sure it could be accomplished with the ExpressCard slot.

HTH
Sierra Nomad Photography wrote on 11/15/2009, 8:53 PM
I use an external HDD for my editing. I have USB and have never had any problem...but I'm not editing HD.
TheHappyFriar wrote on 11/15/2009, 9:02 PM
i'm not using a laptop, but the biggest issue with my USB external is that windows always seems to shut down the drive & when I access it for the "first" time it needs to spin up. No setting I've changed has stopped this, the settings always revert back to shutting it down.

It's slower playing back then my internal IDE & SATA but it's quite useful.
wandering journalist wrote on 11/16/2009, 7:18 AM
Great thanks for the help... I had looked at the e-sata drives but knew I was going to have to deal with getting a card for the slot in the notbook and then a cable and then the drive and do it all by mail order... ugh! With the USB 2.0 or Firewire I could just grab one off the shelf and go. Thanks for the input I think I'll go with the the USB and give it a try.
musicvid10 wrote on 11/16/2009, 7:23 AM
If that is what you're going to do, and you're not on a tight budget, I would suggest grabbing a drive with firewire and usb. Despite my good report, it is generally accepted that firewire is more stable than usb drives, which is certainly the case on my older desktop.
jdv group wrote on 11/16/2009, 12:47 PM
I am using a Lacie 1TB hard disk with USB 2.0 interface for all my HD capture and editing on Sony Vegas 8c. It has been running very successfully since it was installed in Feb 2009.
Byron K wrote on 11/16/2009, 6:44 PM
Unless you need to transport your external drive, IMHO I've found these are the most versitile. I picked up a single but am looking seriously at the dual. Raw drives are much cheaper and these are USB and eSATA.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Thermaltake+-+SATA+Hard+Drive+Docking+Station+with+eSATA+and+USB+Connection/8990443.p?id=1218007083869&skuId=8990443

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Thermaltake+-+Dual+Bay+Docking+Station+for+Most+Internal+SATA+Hard+Drives/9419596.p?id=1218102199901&skuId=9419596
rs170a wrote on 12/7/2009, 7:37 AM
Apologies for resurrecting an old thread but I'm looking for one of these that I can plug an IDE drive into (lots of them still kicking around my place) and have had no luck finding them at places such as NewEgg and Best Buy.
Lots of SATA/eSATA units but nothing for IDE.
If anyone has a link, it would be greatly appreciated.

Mike
Jay Gladwell wrote on 12/7/2009, 7:50 AM

You can buy a SATA/IDE adapter.

rs170a wrote on 12/7/2009, 8:10 AM
In the words of the immortal Homer Simpson, DOH!!
Thanks Jay!!

Mike