I am going to add an external hard drive, DVD recorder, and audio A/D device to my laptop so I can do some editing and recording on the go. My laptop has several USB2 ports and 1 1394 port (which is currently used for my camcorder). I know that I can chain 1394 devices and that all things being equal, 1394 is the better port for all these devices.

The camcorder and the DVD drive need never be connected at the same time, so I’m not worried about those. But the hard drive needs to work with everything, and it’s possible I may want to connect the camcorder and the audio device at the same time. My question is, given that, what should stay on the firewire and what (if anything) should be moved over to the USB2 ports. I can get a hard drive and a DVD recorder that will work with either, but while that gives me flexibility, it doesn’t answer my question of what is the best configuration. Any opinions?

// Ric

Hi Richard,

May I point you in the direction of this thread: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?threadid=24612. Its a test that Rob Lohman done. That might help you out.

If you get a DVD recorder/ HD which has both firewire and USB2 connections, then you can see what best suits you. generally you'll probably get good results running the HD from the USB 2 ports. Leaving the Firewire free for your camera.

Linking the camera though the firewire drive will probably not help.

Cheers,

Thanks Ed!

Richard: I did get a harddisk with both an USB2 and firewire
interface and I can recommend to anyone to do the same. This
makes it a lot easier to connect the drive to various machines.
Not everyone has firewire for example.

The first priority on connecting devices is the camera. Personally
I had problems with my older laptop when connecting the XL1S
daisy chained through my drive. Half of the times my system would
not see the camera or almost always not capture from it. If that
happens simply hook the drive up on the USB2 connection.

Both connections should be more than fast enough to capture
to the drive. Yes, USB2 is fractionally slower in the real world
(as it seems) and it has a slightly bigger overhad. But that
should be a real issue on any "fast" system.