Comments

RalphM wrote on 4/1/2006, 5:03 PM
I'm not aware of any issue that makes a swappable drive any less reliable than a drive firmly mounted inside the PC (unless you drop it). They are the same drives.

RalphM
Coursedesign wrote on 4/1/2006, 6:50 PM
There are more things to go wrong with an external harddisk.

Still, if you have tested them carefully and don't move them, there is little to worry about.

I would go bonkers if I only used internal drives.

One of my editing machines has 4 internals + 3 FW externals that are used as needed. The other has 2 internals + 4 FW externals used as needed.

I definitely prefer FW to USB because it doesn't make the CPU do all the shoveling.
farss wrote on 4/1/2006, 6:56 PM
Depends what you mean by "swappable".
We use many IDe drives in caddies, exactly the same if not more reliable than fixed mounting in the case. They're more reliable because the caddy has two fans.
Using firewire or USB probably isn't quite as reliable, as said above you can knock them off the desk or the interface can have problems. Also the speed is restricted by the USB or firewire bus.
But even more of an issue is it's a waste. With caddies there's no superfluous electronics to pay far, just a box, fans and electrical connections, should be able to get good caddies in the USA for around $20, ours cost $35 in Pacific Pesos (AUD).

Bob.

Oh, and the caddies are pretty small, more so though a firewire enclosure.
snicholshms wrote on 4/1/2006, 7:42 PM
We've been using removeable HDDs as the D Drive/Video for years. We couldn't get as many projects done without them! They are completely safe...we DON'T swap them out while the PC is on. We shut down the PC then remove the HDD.

We store projects on USB2/Firewire External HDDs as they are easy to store in cabinets.
riredale wrote on 4/1/2006, 7:45 PM
I use caddies all the time, but there are two minor drawbacks:

(1) more interconnections = more sites for problems (IDE drive connects to short parallel cable inside box; box connects to caddy via pins on back)

(2) for the IDE stuff, you need to reboot.
farss wrote on 4/1/2006, 8:11 PM
The ones we use are Lian-Li RH-58 system.
I don't see the interconnects as a potential source of failure, the connectors that are being cycled should be good for over 100,000 cycles as they're self aligning, self cleaning contacts with a metal shell.
As for having to power down to swap them, well anyone swapping firewire devices without powering down is really courting disaster, we've lost more than one VCR / camera when a client did just that. The 4 pin firewire interconnect doesn't seem as much of a risk as there's no power on the pins however we've had to replace the 4 pin socket on at least one DSR-11 due to it just wearing out. Also cheap firewire cables are very much to be avoided, we've had several where the molded connector shell parted from the cable, the cable got twisted and the wires shorted together, in one instance zapping a firewire port.

Bob.
johnmeyer wrote on 4/1/2006, 8:45 PM
Pretty much all my capture is on external USB 2.0 drives. Some Firewire, although Vegas/WinXP sometimes chokes when I have the camera and Firewire drive connected at the same time.
rmack350 wrote on 4/1/2006, 9:22 PM
I put two firewire cards in a system and keep certain types of devices separated that way. It helps because I have a couple of things that won't play well together on the same FW card.

As Bob said, the caddies are pretty reliable and convenient. They don't have any extra electronics and that's a good thing. I'd get them in SATA if that's an option.

Rob Mack
bbq wiz wrote on 4/2/2006, 7:24 AM
I lost all of my media tags when using a swappable drive. There was a step I didn't know about and did not take, to save the tag information. Lost over 1500 tags due to that. Learn from what I did.
rmack350 wrote on 4/2/2006, 11:41 AM
You're talking about the media manager?

What was the step?

Rob Mack
Dan Sherman wrote on 4/3/2006, 10:19 AM
Just so I have this straight.
When you refer to a caddie,----you mean the trays the HDs fit into,---right?
And these slide into a receptable with pin connections at back?
I have five of these "caddies" if that's what they are?
I have used them without problems before,---but a couple of weeks ago ran into crashing problems.
So the suggestion to only ever edit on an on board HD is a load of crud,---?
DavidMcKnight wrote on 4/3/2006, 10:25 AM
we've been using a caddy system, on a fileserver across the network, since November (medium usage, not every day). No problems aside from an occasional drive not being recognized by windows. I haven't been able to track it down to a specific drive. I usually put it in a different bay and then it all works. We use four removeables in a full tower.

We don't use media manager however; can't report on tag errors that others have mentioned.

<edit> ours are IDE drives, requiring a shutdown and restart between swaps.
JohnnyRoy wrote on 4/3/2006, 10:55 AM
> What was the step?

Rob, After you tag your media, you should select all of it and press the Save Tags and Properties to Selected File(s) button (i.e., the diskette icon) so that the tags get saved as metadata in the files. Then you can take the files to a whole new computer and import them into the Media Manager there and the tags will get imported too.

~jr