Firewire Hardrive encloser questions

epirb wrote on 1/2/2005, 4:15 PM
Just had to pick up another HD for more video files, a 160 gig WD,
my question is I have a two port card and I use 1 port for my cam, the other to my old firewire 200 gig enclosure.
I know, and basicly have plugged the new encl into the old one's other port.
Is there any problems with thru-put say if rendering from one of those drives to the other.
here's my set up as of right now
C: 40 gig system drive
G:120 gig internal -music/audio files, final render files,DVDA temp project storage
F: 60 gig Usb2.0 mainly still pics
Z: 200 gig firewire Video files, veg's (sometimes w copy and trim media file in the same folder.)
X: 160 gig firewire the new drive, thinkin of using it to hold capture folders, and more vid's

what do you think? any better suggestions?

Comments

Bill Ravens wrote on 1/2/2005, 5:49 PM
I beleive there are issues with trying to capture video data from a camera and write those captures issues out to an HD on the same Firewire bus. The bus can't seem to handle two simultaneous streams when one of them is capturing video as too many dropped frames occur. Whether this applies to reading and writing two two separate drives on the same bus, I don't know. The solution for capturing and writing to a drive is to use two seperate firewire bus cards, one seperate card for each port. I'm sure that solution would work for you, however, I'd try running both drives off of the same bus to see if you've got any problems, first.
epirb wrote on 1/2/2005, 6:17 PM
Mmmm yeah, that does make sense I think I'm gonna rethink the whole deal.
Maybe move my 200 gig to the internal.
I just about had a HEART ATTACK between these two posts....
seems the new drive was formatted Fat32 and I went to reformatt it to NTFS
with the disk manager in windows, somehow the drive letters got messed up so I thought I had changed them to the way I had them and gave the new drive a new letter. The new letter confirmed (by size I could tell) and I went to reformatt it . started fine but then I noticed my 200 giger with most of my video files including vegs etc. Sudennly displayed 100% free space!!!!
I quickly shut everything down, disconnected all external drives except the 200 rebooted.........didnt see the drive......tried disconnecting it and reconnecting it....stilll nothing 50% of the stuff inside including the video I have been working on for 4 days ....gone.....
Finaly, and I dont now why or how I tried connecting it thru its Usb2 port.
BAng all files were there, now I could go and change my shorts.
I dont know how or what happened but Im in the process of backing up ALL of the files.
This 200 giger is in a lesser known brand encloser that I've had troubles with before,so i think I'll dump this case and go get another ADS enclosure like I have for my 60 gig.
The new one is a WD enclosure, with the one touch back up buttons.
A little bird is wispering..no scratch that YELLING in my ear, use it for a back up drive.
Guess I rethink things here before I start loading more files.
Plus,time to start burning some more back up DVD's
I think this is another good reason to consider a DL DVD burner too.

What doe you think? has the color come back into my face?
farss wrote on 1/2/2005, 6:59 PM
I use a Sony VAIO for capturing, it's a mere 900 PIII with one 1394 port, that goes to an enclosure then to DSR-11 without ever a problem. I did buy a dual 1394 PCMCIA card and it's been a disaster. I'd always though things work better having things on sperate ports but it would seem not so.
Some things are very twitchy though about where they are in the chain, the Firewire 410 being one I have.
Bob.
riredale wrote on 1/2/2005, 11:15 PM
Apparently, different systems have different quirks. The Firewire protocol itself is plenty fast to handle multiple parallel DV streams. I capture all the time with a cheapo Dell lnspiron 2650 laptop (1.6 Celeron), a firewire PCMCIA card, an external ADS Pyro box holding the hard drive, and a Sony camcorder daisy-chained off the ADS box. Works great.
scdragracing wrote on 1/2/2005, 11:24 PM
run the extra drive on the usb 2.0 port, it's plenty fast enuf for dv.
apit34356 wrote on 1/2/2005, 11:52 PM
eprib, I use two external firewire drives connected to an IBM thinkpad with a camera at the end of the chain. I have done this for a couple of years and have not had any problems captiving live or tape in the field. Only time I had some problems was when my system drive became too frag, though all video was going to an external drive, I defrag the system drive and the problem went away.