I just got a new Macbook Pro, and I'm wondering if I should use journaling with the eSATA drive. I understand journaling is "more secure" but wonder if there aren't any "gotchas" when editing video.

* The original HDV & DVCProHD files will be backed up elsewhere.

From what I've read format your media drives with Journaling off.
Explaining OS X 10.3 File Journaling (http://www.larryjordan.biz/articles/lj_journaling.html)

Doesn't make a huge difference these days to be honest. That article was written by the great Larry Jordan but it's 5 years old now and doesn't seem to hold true as much anymore. He might of course update and say otherwise if he happens to read this post, I typically format journaled, the performance is about the same.

-Noah

Hey Michael,

It's been discussed a lot in the past here:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/non-linear-editing-mac/123858-firewire-drives-explanation.html
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/non-linear-editing-mac/88162-trouble-capturing-external-drive.html
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/non-linear-editing-mac/89505-journalling-vs-non-journalling-hard-drive-formatting.html
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/non-linear-editing-mac/60254-dropped-frames.html
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/non-linear-editing-mac/62951-dropped-frame-while-printing-video.html

You know, I tend to agree with Noah these days. I just did a project which used a bunch of external drives and formatted them all with journaling on. No problems so far (using a 3.0gzh iMac and 2.4ghz MBP).

journaling on over here too

journaling can be turned on and off with out formatting BTW.

in disk utility, select the volume and enable / disable.

my vote is off if you are pushing the drives, as FCP has enough problems

yep, if you are regularly pushing / maxing your drive's write capabilities then you might eke just that tiny bit extra performance that one day you need