External Lacie Firewire/USB2 Hard Disc ?????

mitteg wrote on 6/14/2003, 4:47 AM
Hello,

I'm interested in buying a Lacie external 120 Gb HD. It can be plugged either with firewire and USB2.0. But I have a question:

I have only one firewire port and no USB2.0 in my PC. So, can I plug the HD to my Firewire port and the connect my miniDV camcorder to the firewire HD and capture the video from the camera to the external HD ? Is this possible ?

What is your opinion about the Lacie external HD ? Do they work well ?

Thanks !

Robert.

Comments

rebel44 wrote on 6/14/2003, 9:04 AM
If you have one open PCI bus you can purchase card with USB 2.0. Last time I saw was $39.
MDVid wrote on 6/14/2003, 10:27 AM
I have had capture errors when trying to plug my Camera (GL1) into the firewire port on my external firewire drive(s). So...I just bought an external firewire hub, (from granite digital), and plug both the external drive (now drives), and the camera into it. Have had no problem since.

JTH
mikkie wrote on 6/14/2003, 10:30 AM
FWIW, usb 2 cards start around $!0-15 US shipped online - may use a via chip but some in this price range have nec I think.

Also, hard drive housings that accept firewire, usb2, or both are pretty cheap now days, starting out in the $30 range... I think I'd try one of those first with an old drive lying around & if I had problems, still have something handy to use - if not, buy a big drive for it. *Might* be a difference going big name, but IMO it's like the usb cards - brand names go for $30 - $50, same thing without the name goes for half or less online.

Some folks have encountered restrictions using a firewire drive and another firewire connection at the same time - haven't seen anyone trying this with usb2, but in theory it should work better.
droppedFrames wrote on 6/16/2003, 7:47 AM
Robert,

I am using a 160 Gb LaCie external drive connected to my pc (laptop) over firewire exactly the way you plan to. Since the drive has two firewire ports (acts as a two port firewire hub) my camcorder is connected to the second port (my drive hasn't a USB port, but at least USB 1 would be far too slow for capturing anyway).
Up to now I had no problems with this setup: capturing from the camcorder (via the LaCie disk firewire ports) to the pc and back over firewire to the LaCie disk worked seamless without a single dropped frame yet. I have the cam attached to a TV for external realtime monitoring - no problems there either when viewing footage from the external drive -> PC -> external drive firewire port -> camcorder -> TV (btw. my laptop is an old 400Mhz Mobile Pentium II).