external hard drives

auggybendoggy wrote on 9/9/2006, 11:37 PM
Guys,
I want to build my own ext. hard drive and I'm looking at these specs.
1) 2.5 usb powered external -usb 2.0 -
2) 2.5 5400 40 gb hard drive.

My thoughts are to use each drive individually for each project. approx costs about 68.00

My other option is to go with an SATA 3.0 gbs 80 gb usb 2.0 (needs power adapter). bout 75.00

or an IDE 160 gb (need power adapter) bout 75.00

I like the Idea of just pluggin in the usb but I'm afraid the 40 gb wont be enough.

My biggest question is whether I will work right off the drive or copy then work and then copy back.

If I went with the 2.5 inch usb power 5400 rpm drive (using a usb 2.0) will it be fast enough to edit with vegas or would I have to copy it to my may system hard drive. If it's too slow then perhaps the other two options are better.

and advice

Auggy

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 9/10/2006, 4:00 AM
USB 2.0 should be fast enough, depending on the number of simultaneous event reads you have going on. Each DV stream needs about 30Mbps of bandwidth from the drive. USB 2.0 is supposedly 480Mbps, but this gets shared with all the USB devices in use. You can probably count on at least 120Mbps from the drive thought, which means that as long as Vegas never needs to read more than 4 clips at the same time you should be fine.

If you need more speed try to find firewire enclosures as that will give you 400Mbps.

External SATA is probably the best option for speed and reliability, but it will be a bit more expensive.

Another option is to look into "drive caddies". These sit in a 5.25" slot in the front of your PC and connect directly to IDE or SATA on the motherboard. Hard drives can be placed into them kinda like putting in a floppy disk, though you have to have the power off when doing so.
farss wrote on 9/10/2006, 4:05 AM
eSATA is the way of the future. No adaptor / electronics in the external enclusure so it's cheaper, more reliable and faster.
You can also get SATA caddy / draw units. Also very cheap.
We're still mostly stuck in PATA land with all but one PC with caddies and around 10 draws loaded with PATA drives.

USB and firewire is sloooow by comparison, more expensive and less reliable.

As to 40GB being enough, I don't buy anything under 200GB these days and that only holds a days worth of capturing but then we do a LOT of video,all just events stuff.

If you're editing off a laptop then none of the options I've mentioned are really available however you can get a 5.25 firewire / USB2 enclosure that will take the caddy / draw units, works out a bit cheaper if you've got lots of drives as you only pay once for the interface electronics and our units have three fans, one in the enclosure and two in the draw. Keeping drives cool is pretty important with video work, the drives work way harder than just handling office / domestic duties.

Bob.

Bob.
auggybendoggy wrote on 9/10/2006, 4:56 PM
ok
I've seend the removable caddys. My case even has an open 5.25 bay for it.

Where do I find it and my set up ? would be this:
1) if the unit is removable then how does the master and slave pins work.

If I have a single master (jumper set to master no slave) setup and now I plug in a slave (jumpers set to slave with master) the first unit hs to change to a master with a slave....
how does that work.

I realize sata does not have master/slave and stuff and I am not using my sata on board ports so perhaps I should set up this using that???

Auggy
auggybendoggy wrote on 9/10/2006, 5:31 PM
guys what about this one...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817121179
auggybendoggy wrote on 9/10/2006, 5:39 PM
heres another.
This one has a Sata cable to run it like an external enclosure but now I need a PCI sata2 port on the back of the pc with a 6 ft sata cable : )

http://www.satagear.com/SS-302i-Silver_SATA_II_Product.html
auggybendoggy wrote on 9/10/2006, 6:10 PM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813997001

Ive got 2 sata2 ports onboard (mb) not being used.
how bout this...

the only thing I dont like is that this item says sata to esata
which leads me to believe it will only be 150mbs
auggybendoggy wrote on 9/10/2006, 6:20 PM
and more info...
http://www.cooldrives.com/duesiipcipob.html

The sata2 ports on my mb are L shaped as shown on this wab page. I dont know my MB model as my HUGE graphics card is in the way. I dont know if it supports esata but I figure it will run at sata anyhow. So though I may buy all the parts the esata it should run at at least 150mb per second.

I should find out cause I could buy a esata pci card.

Auggy
auggybendoggy wrote on 9/10/2006, 7:41 PM
ok I screwed up...
I've got 2 sata (150) ports on my mb

the sata2 just means the 2nd port

so I'm looking at a esata pci card and then to a esata external hard drive.

for about 93.00 its 160gb at 3.0 gbs

I think that should do ok.

Auggy