[Eee-Tee]

I realise this is slightly 'off topic' but it does concern camcorders and edititing.

Due to the ammount of storage space Digital Video needs, i'm thinking of enlarging my hard disk. Instead of buying an internal one, i've thought about an external one. Does anyone know much about these? eg what sizes (Gb) you can buy them in?
Am i right in saying that they are connected by firewire?

Also, does anyone know of online shops that would sell these cheeper than places like Pc world /ect.?

Thanks in advance.

I've also been considering extra storage for my dv footage.
It looks like internal hard drives are much cheaper than external.
I'm going to add a second internal drive which costs approx. £1 per GB. I've not decided between 80 or 120 GB yet.
If you really want an external drive check out the Maxtor drives at www.microdirect.co.uk which use USB or Firewire connection.

[Eee-Tee]

Scott- i agree that external HDD are v. expensive, the only reason why i might opt for them insrtead of in internal one is that they're easier to install- you just plug in ( as far as i know)

Do you Know how to install fresh internal memory- could you (simply ) explain?

What i am not sure about is how installing more would affect every thing else on my PC- would it all work as before but with the advantage if more storage space, or would it be necessary to alter any thing? [SIZE=3][COLOR=blue]

I'm not a computer expert. I have installed a firewire card and added more RAM to my PC, but thats it !
I'm going to have a go adding a second hard drive sometime soon. If you want to know more about it just type in "adding a second hard drive" into any search engine and you will find tutorials with pictures. If you're not sure you could take your PC to a local PC store and let them install it. It might still be cheaper than buying an external drive !?

Internal Hard drives are cheaper, more reliable, and a lot faster to transfer data. If you have the spare slots, fill them up, it's really, really easy.

Go for IBM deskstar 7200 rpm.
You can get various capacities 20,30,60, up to around 120GB are fairly usual. Try dabs.com.
You can get 60GB for around £60.


I've got several external Firewire drives, but only because I need them for Final Cut Pro on my laptop.

I would avoid Maxtor, I bought several and they all dropped frames when working with DV footage, which demands very high bitrates for firewire connections. I've got Lacie drives and they are superb.

Internally connected drives will easily manage DV footage. You should be able to install another drive in a couple of minutes, and it won't affect you computer at all. It will just appear as another usable drive.


Lots of benefits, just remember to keep things tidy cos you'll soon fill it up with crap otherwise.

[Adlopa]

External hard drives cost at least twice as much as the same capacity internal drive and are available from a number of manufacturers. Look for a USB2 or FireWire connection though -- USB (USB 1.1, technically speaking) is far too slow. If your PC isn't relatively new, you will probably need to add a FireWire or USB2 expansion card inside too but this is pretty simple.

FireWire/USB2 hard drives work as soon as they're plugged in. I've used the Maxtor models and they seem fine to me but I have no experience with them for video editing.

Providing your PC has a free 3.5in drive bay (it almost certainly will have), an internal hard drive is a much better bet -- look for a speedier 7200rpm model rather than 5400rpm. 120Gb drives cost around £100 now, which is a bargain. Fitting one is very straightforward and if you buy a boxed consumer drive (rather than a cheaper brown box OEM model), you'll get full instructions. Otherwise, I'm sure a net search will turn up some useful info or failing that, try searching one of the computer magazine sites, such as Computeractive (good for newbies ).

And finally... IBM hard drives have a very bad reputation but I can only say good things about Maxtor and Seagate.

[Eee-Tee]

Thanks for your advice- its given me something to think about

Just to recap- Intenal as opposed to external
IBM, Maxtor or Seagate
7200rpm
Anything else i should know?

thanks

You'll get away with 5400 rpm drives if you can find a good deal for one.

Originally posted by Adlopa
And finally... IBM hard drives have a very bad reputation

Yes AVOID IBM hard drives at all costs (I was unlucky to own one of the dodgy ones)

Go for Western Digital if you want Performance
Go for Seagate if you want a near silent drive
Go for Maxtor for an inbetween drive

[tomson]

As Duncan Craig mentioned Lacie are very good - i've used quite a few and all have been reliable. They aren't the cheapest tho.

I'm currently using a firewire version of this from Smartdisk and its fantastic for such a tiny drive - but if you dont need anything portable they also do standard sizes They also do a 800Mbit firewire drive with 200gigs of space.

[Eee-Tee]

Can anyone advise an online shop that sells good value (internal0 hard drives ?

You will struggle to find a cheaper site than www.dabs.com
I've lookad at loads of sites and after delivery etc dabs seems to be the cheapest. Sometimes if they have deals on www.ebuyer.com can be almost as good. If anyone knows of a cheaper site please tell !

[Eee-Tee]

Cheers Scott- i'll take a look

Try scan.co.uk.

They are about the easiest thing in a PC to fit and always work so don't worry. If you are able to put it off the same cable that your current hard disk is connected to, make sure it is set as a slave. There is a little pin on the hard drive. If not just plug it directly into the spare ide port.

Something that really comes into it's own when capturing video and then editing it is a RAID array. If anyone's interested I'll post a complete guide to setting one up (should be cheaper than an external hard drive!).

[Eee-Tee]

I've had a look at Dabs, and they dont seem badly priced.
Could some one clarify a couple of things?
On the search window, it has an option for 'seek time' Can someone explain what this means, and if it is impeotant. if so, what value would be best?.
as well as the 3 makes recommeded, they also sell others-


HP
Compaq

IBM


any recommended? Otherwise i'll just go with one of what was recommended previously.

Thanx!

[m@rk]

There are a couple of options here.

You can buy an external HDD caddy for about £15 to £30 and then you just put your new HDD in that and connect it via USB or Firewire so the cost isn't that much more.

Or.

You can get removably HDD bays that fit in your PC and then you just put the HDD in the tray and slot it into the front. On my current PC I have a full tower case, so I just fitted every bay with a removable tray and wired it up inside (the trays are about £10 each) and then when I want to add another HDD, I don't even have to take the lid off the PC. With this option, you can even have different HDDs for different reasons and swap them as you need to.

[MarkE19]

Originally posted by Eee-Tee
On the search window, it has an option for 'seek time' Can someone explain what this means, and if it is impeotant. if so, what value would be best?.

Seek time is how long it takes the disk to find a file and access it.
Any disk that is ATA66 or better will be fast enough for video editing.

Mark.

[Eee-Tee]

Regarding my question about 'seek time'- on dabs, the choices are in Ms- what's the best for me pls?

I've just ordered another Lacie external firewire drive.

The new d2 model - 7200rpm/200GB with the
new oxford chipset for £280 all in from www.cwonline.com.

I'll let you know how it runs once it arrive, no doubt it will be faultless like all Lacie gear, well worth the extra £'s.



(The next day)

It's here, and it's very nice, the best external drive I've ever seen.

Made of aluminium, a small, quiet fan inside and an external PSU with a power light, medium length 6pin-6pin firewire cable. Comes with a detatchable aluminium foot so it will stand on it's end, it's very small and sturdy. 2 firewire ports, and a nice blue neon activity light.

A quick 15 minute test capture from a camera to my iBook showed no dropped frames on capture or playback! That's with the camera looped through the drive (cos the iBook only has one firewire port)

I'm a happy bunny.

[Eee-Tee]

Going back to my previous question about 'Seek time' can some one advise me what value i should go for?

Also, i'm a bit confused regarding the interface. On dabs, there are quite a few different choices.
I have a year old PC with what my manual calls ' UDMA--133'
Is this what my second drive should be, or is it not important which one i get? are there better types?

I've got two of the LaCie d2 200 GB drives now, running really well.

Producing a 3hr video every month for worldwide publication, shooting it myself, all around Europe.

I would recommend these drive very highly, because of size, build quality, and the fact they deliver DV video very well, they use the oxford 911 chipset I believe which is supposed to be the best.

£280 each all in, from www.cwonline.co.uk

The PSU's accept any electrical input and come with European and U.K. connectors.

[Eee-Tee]

Duncan, its the price thats causing me to lean towards internal drives....if i had the money, i probably would get one like that

Can anyone answer my queries?

[MarkE19]

Originally posted by Eee-Tee
Going back to my previous question about 'Seek time' can some one advise me what value i should go for?

Also, i'm a bit confused regarding the interface. On dabs, there are quite a few different choices.
I have a year old PC with what my manual calls ' UDMA--133'
Is this what my second drive should be, or is it not important which one i get? are there better types?

Seek time is not too important as largewr drives tend to have a slower seek time.
UDMA-133 is basically the speed at which data is transfered from the drive - PC - drive. anything above DMA-66 is good enough for DV editing. This basically means ALL modern HDD. DMA is the speed rating of the interface on both the PC and the drive.

Mark.

[Eee-Tee]

Thanks Mark, so which interface do i need?

[MarkE19]

Any modern IDE disk will do the job.

Mark.

[Eee-Tee]

so Mark, basically i can get any interface, as listed in Dabs?

[MarkE19]

The IDE interface is part of the motherboard of your PC.
You will be able to connect 4 IDE devices. This is any hard disks CD-(R/W), DVD-(R/W) etc.
If you already have 4 devices on the PC then you can add a PCI IDE interface card to the PC and plug another 4 devices onto that. Otherwise just use the onboard IDE.

Mark.

Hi Eee-Tee,
Just to let you know that I ordered an Internal Drive ( Seagate Barracuda - 80GB) and installed it without any problems.
I'm about to put all my video footage on to it....
I bought it from E-buyer for £72. ( free del over easter)

[Bexlee]

An valuable thread for me, as someone setting up in the home dv capture/ editing/ production lark.

From what I have read here I think I will do as scott69- the offer lasts until 1 May.

So could someone please tell me, if as stated in my Dell Dimension Reference Guide: 'The ATA-66 controller card supports ATA-66 UDMA hard-disk drives...' does that then mean a Seagate Barracuda ATA IV with ATA-100 would not be supported?

If not, what do I need to support it, and where can I get it from?