I need an external firewire drive that I can capture DV on, from a deck/camera (with a computer between of course).

My capture/edit plans are a little elaborate but basically this drive will be the in-between of the capture deck, the NLE, and a long term storage device.

I don't plan on editting on this drive, besides PERHAPS the occasional rough trim-down of tapes via notebook computer, if I'm doing something away from the NLE.

What kind of cache and drive speed should I look for? For my purposes the drive would have to be ~200g. These drives seem to vary wildly in prices so brands and models would be appreciated. Also many drives have USB/1394 capability but for some reason I just don't foresee myself using the USB.
Thanks much!

I am currently using two Maxtor One Touch 200Gb drives - they are both USB 2.0 and Firewire - I run them over USB. I also use a Lacie 250Gb USB 2.0 drive.

I edit directly from these drives and find the performance to be fine.

I have three external drives. Two Western Digitals one 160 Gig and 250 Gig and a Maxtor One Touch 250 Gig.

I use the Maxtor 160 and Western Digital 250 in a firewire daisy chain that works fine with my main editing system. The second Western Digital I use when capturing on the road with my laptop.

I paid in the $200 range for the Maxtor one touch 250 gig and around $215 for the Western Digital 250 Gig.

I brough those two drives earlier this spring and they have been working fine for storing and editing.

I seem to be the only one who has had bad luck with those Maxtor OneTouch's - Mine died two days after I got it. However I'm using a Western Digital 250gig firewire and have no complaints.

Thanks for all the options guys! I'm amazed you can edit on firewire... that sounds cool.... for some reason I just didn't think the throughput would be there, like ide or sata, but I guess it works!

Speaking of hard drives Western Dij just put out a 400g in case you don't know what to ask for for xmas.

you would be wise to get the external drive case that has both usb 2.0 and firewire... it'll cost more, but the convenience factor will make up for it in the long run.

right now i have 4 usb 2.0 ports on my laptop, but only one firewire port... afaik, i can't capture video to a firewire-only external drive that's piggy-backed to the firewire deck and the laptop.

<<<-- Originally posted by Jeff Miller : Thanks for all the options guys! I'm amazed you can edit on firewire... that sounds cool.... for some reason I just didn't think the throughput would be there, like ide or sata, but I guess it works!

Speaking of hard drives Western Dij just put out a 400g in case you don't know what to ask for for xmas. -->>>

Hi,

Internal IDE drives transfers 100 or 133mbit/sec - SATA 150mbit/sec ... Firewire does 400mbit/sec and USB2 480mbit/sec - so both firewire and USB2 is "better" than SATA - today the bottleneck is in the HDD itself.

As I wrote in an other thread - don't be limited on the pre-built external drivers. You may buy an empty external case and mount whatever drive you want. I bought an external 5.25 case with Firewire and USb2 for 80$. In that I can mount either a HDD or my DVD burner!

// Lazze \\