Hardware/Hard Drive Set Up Questions

Mr_Christopher wrote on 10/4/2004, 8:57 AM
Ok, I have an IDE 80GB Hard drive and I am running Windows XP Pro.

For better performance I was told it would be ideal to have the application run on one hard drive and all the source and project files on another.

Would it be bettert o get another internal IDE one or an external Fire Wire instead? I have a Fire Wire card already.

If I do another internal IDE drive I could also put my pagefile on that drive as well.

And my machine is a P4, 1GB RAM, 256 MB ATI video.

Chris

Comments

gogiants wrote on 10/4/2004, 11:38 AM
For what it's worth, I use an external FireWire hard drive all the time to do what you described: I capture files to that drive, render to that drive, store intermediate project files to that drive, etc. Works great. I've done the same with external USB 2.0 drives as well.

I can't comment on whether this really yields "better" performance in terms of editing. I also can't comment directly on whether a separate IDE drive or a separate external drive would be better. IDE drives are certainly cheaper.

One thing for sure, though: you'll definitely want a separate drive of some sort. This most definitely yields better performance when doing captures. Capturing to my internal hard drive (which has Windows installed on it) simply won't work since it drops frames all over the place, etc.

One thing to make sure of if you do buy an external drive, or an internal drive for that matter: make sure it is 7200 RPM. Most drives are these days, but it is worth making sure. I have an old 5400 RPM drive that doesn't work for capturing; it does, however, work well enough for storing/editing source files.
Steve Grisetti wrote on 10/4/2004, 12:37 PM
Gogiants is absolutely right! That second drive for just your video files will eliminate the vast majority of capture/output problems. But only put your video and project files on it. Don't use it for your page file. I've heard of putting in a third (small) drive just for your page file, but I think that's a bit excessive. If you've got XP Pro, I'm assuming you have a reasonably fast machine and a good load (about 500 meg) of RAM. If so, adding that second drive will allow your page files to move around without disturbing your capture or output.

(Just as a side note, I recently picked up a 3 Ghz machine with a Serial ATA -- and, amazingly, it manages to capture and output with all background processes running on a single drive without dropping a frame! So, although I still recommend a second drive, it may not be necessary on newer computers.)
gogiants wrote on 10/4/2004, 1:43 PM
One thing I forgot to mention: On my laptop I am able to plug my DV cam and the external hard drive into the same Firewire PCMCIA card and I'm able to capture just fine. Being able to do so was one concern I had going in. I do have a pretty fast, high-memory machine...
Steve Grisetti wrote on 10/4/2004, 1:58 PM
On my "old" computer (actually a 1.3 ghz Pentium 4) the second drive, mounted internally as a slave, made all the difference in the world. I also used EndItAll to shutdown my background processes -- although it was probably only necessary to turn off the virus software (and turn off "indexing" in XP).

Hooking up and installing a second, internal hard drive is very easy -- and most likely all the cabling you need is already in your computer.

I don't know if it's the faster processor or hyper-threading that has made the difference on my new computer -- but that second hard drive sure made the difference in my old one!
IanG wrote on 10/5/2004, 12:46 AM
>Just as a side note, I recently picked up a 3 Ghz machine with a Serial ATA -- and, amazingly, it manages to capture and output with all background processes running on a single drive without dropping a frame! So, although I still recommend a second drive, it may not be necessary on newer computers.

I ran MS on a 933Mhz P3 with a single drive with hardly a lost frame, and I rarely defragged either. That was before I had AV and a firewall installed! I've never gone this far, but a friend of mine always disconnects his PC from the network and then does his video work with AV and firewall switched off.

Ian G.
czander00 wrote on 10/5/2004, 7:31 AM
When I capture to my master drive (w/OS, app), I get a perfect capture. However, when I capture to my slave drive on the same IDE cable, I get a ton of dropped frames. Per the discussion above, I'll try turning off AV, and check whether it's a 7200 drive (I originally just got it for cheap, easy backups so it may not be, and may only have a 2MB cache).

Elsewhere I've read about connecting each hard drive to a separate IDE cable, say DVD + Master HD, DVDR + Slave HD. Is anyone doing anything like that, and if so, what combination/order are you using? Or *should* I be okay with Master HD + Slave HD on the same cable? (It's Dell Dimension <1yr old w/1GB memory).

Thanks for the thoughts! -cz
IanG wrote on 10/5/2004, 10:33 AM
There's a ton of conflicting advice on how to configure IDE drives! The most consistent advice seems to be to have a HD as master and an optical drive as slave on each of the IDE channels. Avoid using cable select. It works for me!

Ian G.
Steve Grisetti wrote on 10/5/2004, 11:29 AM
Actually, I wouldnt recommend setting up a hard drive as master and an optical (or CD-ROM?) as slave. This will slow down your hard drive to your CD-ROM speed.

In fact, whatever you put on the same ribbon cable will run at the speed of slower of the two devices, as I understand it.

Yes to setting up a master and slave with jumpers instead of "cable select."

Oh and this is basic but it screwed me up once: Make sure you're using an 80 wireribbon instead of a 40 wireribbon when you hook up slave and master drives. (They both have 40 pin connectors, so the difference is subtle.) Running two hard drives off a 40 wire ribbon will cause no end of problems!

IanG wrote on 10/5/2004, 1:11 PM
This will slow down your hard drive to your CD-ROM speed.

Get hold of SiSoft's Sandra and run the disk tests - it doesn't slow the HD down at all in normal use. If they're both running at the same time there's an issue, but how often does that happen? The alternative is that you have two fast disks competing for bandwidth.

> Running two hard drives off a 40 wire ribbon will cause no end of problems!

That pretty much makes my point - the 40 wire cables are only ATA60, you need 80 wire for ATA100 or ATA133. The slower bus speed can't cope with two fast devices.

Ian G.

PS I said there's conflicting advice :-)
Steve Grisetti wrote on 10/5/2004, 1:33 PM
Makes sense to me, Ian. In fact, I'm sure you're right.

And once we get this cleared up, we can all argue over whether or not you should set your virtual memory yourself or let Windows handle it...

Real world experience is so much more reliable than expert advice, isn't it?

Take care.
czander00 wrote on 10/5/2004, 4:52 PM
Thanks all. I'll check on those things (80pin cable, no cable select) and maybe try swapping my drive order around and see what my results are--as you said, there are different options and one may or may not work for me. Thanks for the direction though! -cz