Such a thing as too large a disk drive?

gogiants wrote on 8/29/2004, 1:31 PM
Having become a bit addicted to this video editing thing, I find myself having multiple projects under way at any given time. Problem with this is each project has a bunch of captured files that of course take up a lot of disk space. So, no problem right, just go buy a big ol' disk drive, say 160 GB or so.

But, I had read somewhere that maybe there is such a thing as a drive with "too much" capacity, especially for capturing from DV tape. Theory goes that a big drive would have a hard time doing it's housekeeping work while still capturing video.

Is this theory bogus? Let's assume that the disk will be defragged regularly.

So, I'm wondering if anyone out there has experience they can share with one of these larger (160-200GB) drives. In particular, I'll be using an external USB/Firewire drive spinning at 7200 RPM. Same setup works well now on my laptop, but on a smaller capacity drive.

I'm curious in particular about:

1) Capture performance: Will this be good on a defragged drive that might be half-full with other previously captured files?

2) Real-time preview performance: Will I see any noticeable difference in preview performance on a much larger drive?

Comments

cbrillow wrote on 8/31/2004, 5:47 AM
Without offering an opinon on the open-ended nature of the topic line, I will cite some anecdotal evidence to suggest that using drives in the size range you've specified works very well.

I have 3 120-gig drives: 2 internal, 1 USB2/Firewire. A video-editing friend has 2-200gig internals and a 160gig external. I have also connected his 160gig extrenal drive to my system to swap some avi files.

In all cases, with any com bination of drives, there have been no problems capturing, no noticeable difference in preview performance.
gogiants wrote on 8/31/2004, 3:42 PM
Apologies for the open-ended question. Is 50 Terabytes too big?!

Your info was exactly what I was looking for, so thanks. You've also helped me rationalize the purchase of more stuff!
cbrillow wrote on 9/1/2004, 8:02 AM
:^) Good deal. I always enjoy spending somebody else's money...