Hi, I am in the process of upgrading my system for NLE. I am purchasing the Pinnacle Pro-1 RTDV system and want to know what hard drive to get for video storage. Right now I have an AMD 1600XP with 256RAM and 40G operating hard drive. I want to add an additional hard drive for video, I am looking at 120g 5400rpm hard drive. Is it better to have one single hard drive with lots of memory or 2 0r 3 seperate drives with 80g each,and is 7200rpm better than 5400rpm?

Dale C. Elliott

Try looking at http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/article/1540/
for info on hard drive speed. Most of the major large drives are compared for speed, heat and noise.

Some NLEs (Non-Linear Editor) do not work well with the slower drives. You should get a drive no slower than the recommended spindle speed. It may take a call to the NLE vendor to find that out.

Faster is always better. Especially when the price is so similar nowadays.

If you are planning on buying several smaller HD's, just buy one now, and buy the rest as you need them. Chances are, when you need them, they will be 1/2 the price they are right now.

I'd primarely look at data throughput, noise and then heat
production in getting a drive. A new 5400 rpm drive should not
have any trouble keeping up with DV's 25 mbps (or 3.6 MB/s)
low data rate. 7200 rpm drives need extra cooling (officially)
and tend to make more noise. See what data throughput
speeds are available for 5400 rpm drives before writing them
off.

Good luck with your decision.

I'm not sure how loud my HD's are. I can't hear them over the 5 fans SCREAMING in my computer. :( Didn't think about fan noise when I bought it, just wanted maximum cool. Got one blowing over both HD's for HD cooling.

Dale,

Personally, I think the 7200rpm drives are worth the small extra cost. I also think 1 drive with lots of space is a better idea, unless you're using a RAID-0 set up. A single large drive won't run into problems when you're creating very long projects. I don't have the luxury of choice like you do. My drive capacity is already maxed out (2 HDD on primary IDE, 2 CD drives on other IDE, and storage drive on RAID/Serial controller)

I recently purchased a 120 Gig drive soley for DV. I had a budget, but also demanded performance. I purchased a Western Digital 120GB Cavier special edition (8 meg cache, 7200rpm), and dammit this thing rocks. It's quiet, and a lot faster than my other drives.

My primary drive is an IBM 75GXP (20 Gig, 7200rpm), and it houses the OS, all my programs, and a 1200 meg pagefile. I have an older Quantum Fireball, 4 gig drive soley for storage (mp3s, install files, etc)

The WD is so good, I'm thinking about replacing the IBM drive with the 80GB WD.

You also live in Ontario, and I'll tell you the best price I get my equipment from is NCIX.com. Located in BC, but cheaper prices, and 1 tax gets my business. NCIX also provides price matching so you can get stuff even cheaper (provided price match is from a canadian online retailer)