External Hard disk drives

[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!).