External hard drive question for small video production

[Mike Barber]

Originally Posted by Terry Lee

With eSata do you need an eSata card?

Yes.

Originally Posted by Terry Lee

alot of people are just using fire wire, and some USB but fire wire seams to be the performance choice.

eSATA is faster than FireWire. USB is never good for video editing. USB 2.0 is faster than FireWire 400 (the more common "flavour" of FireWire), however it does not have a sustained bandwidth high enough for video performance where as FW does.

Originally Posted by Terry Lee

In terms of disc size [...] 1TB is good but I think I think i'll be fine with 500GB or 320GB and perhaps in the future get a second hard drive to configure on RAID1.

I would stick between 500 and 750 GB drives. It is better to have more and not need it than have not enough. Especially considering renders, exports, etc. You will find the drive filling up faster than you expected.

Originally Posted by Terry Lee

I would like to get something that will work well with a larger scale work flow. Currently I am working with the HV30, but I may be working with raw footage from a JVC HD GY-200 in the near future.

These are both HDV cameras. The file sizes don't change based on the camera, 1 minute of 1080i HDV from the HV30 will be the same size as 1 minute of 1080i HDV from a GY200.

If you are talking about capturing the uncompressed signal from the GY200's analogue component output then you will need both a very large drive (750 GB to 2 TB, depending on project specifics such as length of footage and whether it is 8- or 10-bit uncompressed) as well as a capture card (Kona, DeckLink, etc) or other I/O device (Aja ioHD).

[Bryan Daugherty]

Originally Posted by Terry Lee

...With eSata do you need an eSata card? how exactly does that work? I am curious because I hear alot of people saying that it is the fastest route (I suppose it is a faster connection?) However alot of people are just using fire wire, and some USB but fire wire seams to be the performance choice. The computers I will be working with I know have fire wire connections so I suppose fire wire will be my perfered choice...

With eSATA you will get the same performance on an external disc as a SATA II (aka SATA 300) If your motherboard does not have eSATA built in you will need a controller card (I have had good experience with my Lacie card) but shop carefully there are eSATA cards and eSATA HDD that are set to the SATA 150 standard, make sure you buy the right one. I use Firewire 800 (aka 1394b) for my external work drives and eSATA for my backup/data recovery.

In my experience, the negligible performance boost of eSATA does not make much difference (for the price) in capturing/editing/daily use (especially when you factor in buying another card and taking another PCIe slot.) Where these discs shine is in large file transfers, the larger the transfer the greater the performance increase.

Firewire also has the advantage of daisy chaining, something you cannot do with eSATA. If your controller has 2 eSATA ports you can hook up 2 eSATA devices. There is one exception to this which is called multi-lane eSATA, these cards have port multipliers (usually by 4) and can be used (depending on the manufacturer) to connect multiple drives via an octopus like cable to one port or with some external raid arrays you connect one multilane cable and then inside the raid array it breaks out into multiple connections.

That's what I know but if you do a quick search on eSATA, i am sure you can get gobs more info with specific data numbers.

[Bryan Daugherty]

Originally Posted by Mike Barber

...You will find the drive filling up faster than you expected...

I find my HDD are like my closets, the more I have, the more I fill up, so I would agree with Mike and recommend more HDD space too.

[Mike Barber]

Originally Posted by Bryan Daugherty

In my experience, the negligible performance boost of eSATA does not make much difference (for the price) in capturing/editing/daily use (especially when you factor in buying another card and taking another PCIe slot.) Where these discs shine is in large file transfers, the larger the transfer the greater the performance increase.

IIRC, eSATA also has a greater bandwidth, does it not? This would mean an advantage of being able to play more video streams at once. Doesn't make a difference if you only have one video track, but if you have three or four -- or multi-cam clips -- then this is where eSATA will do you much better than even FW800.

Of course, you make the very good point about the cost:performance ratio. It depends on whether you will experience the full performance of eSATA or not.

My .02¢ for Terry is this: if you are working with HDV or even DVCPRO HD (720p) then FW400 drives will be fine. When and if you step up to working with uncompressed 8- or 10-bit 1080 HD footage, then you will be in a different weight class which will require more power (all around).

[Bryan Daugherty]

Mike- You make a compelling argument. I have only 1 HDV cam (at this time) and use either DVCAM or DV on my other cams depending on what i am working with. I typically, edit off my four 1TB internal Hitachi Drives (all set to SATA 300) for my own projects, my externals are for client drives (drives supplied by clients that they take back), website and doc files, and backup. When i bought my first quad (USB 2, 1394a, 1394b, eSATA) interface Lacie, i tested editing on it for a month hooking it up via firewire 400, 800 and eSATA, and I finally settled on FW800 for daisy chaining capabilities. I did not see a noticeable difference in editing via the 3 connection types, but I was not editing uncompressed...so it would depend a lot on the workflow. I do see a huge difference between editing on the external client FW800 discs vs. my internal SATA II drives. And would not go back to PATA no matter what. For the external drives though, you add up the cost of drive, controller card and PCIe slot limitations on most computers, and it costs you more than you gain (my opinion) unless you are doing backups.

What i would really like to see is eSATA controller cards with more ports or motherboards with more PCIe slots (without sacrificing other PCI access) or a mulit-lane controller at a lower price point (or better yet on the MB) maybe hooked up to an eSATA hub.

That said, I have edited 7 cam edits on an external FW800 drive with an additional 4 tracks of PSD overlays and it performed fine.

I love eSATA and if I could get all my ext drives to be eSATA that would be awesome but, for me, it goes back to available slots and controller card limitations.

[Terry Lee]

Hello everyone!
Thank you all for your feedback.

I now have decided on either: LaCie | 1.5TB Big Disk Extreme+ with Triple Interface | 301200U

Or: LaCie | 2TB Big Disk Extreme+ with Triple Interface | 301201U

Really the difference is pay $300 for 2TB or $200 for 1.5TB. I honestly can't make the decision. I'd rather save $100 but would hate to be short in the end. I don't really know that I will be storing this much footage on this hard drive. I will be rendering from tape to an editing system then saving the useful clips and video progress to the external hard drive for later use. Bassically I just need it to store my works in progress on.


Terry.

[Mike Barber]

Originally Posted by Terry Lee

Really the difference is pay $300 for 2TB or $200 for 1.5TB. I honestly can't make the decision. I'd rather save $100 but would hate to be short in the end. I don't really know that I will be storing this much footage on this hard drive. I will be rendering from tape to an editing system then saving the useful clips and video progress to the external hard drive for later use. Bassically I just need it to store my works in progress on.

Go for the 1.5TB drive. At that price point I would personally rather buy two 1.5TB drives (a combined capacity of 3TB) for $400 than one 2TB drive for $300. Much more efficient use of money and makes sense to scale in that way too. Buy one 1.5TB now and save $100; if you think you might need more (and you should be very good for space with 1.5TB) then scale when you need it.

[Ervin Farkas]

In your original post you were concerned about security - now you seem to throw your worries out the window... what's gonna happen if your drive crashes?

Both of your choices are RAID 0. I hope you're not going with the Lacie just for the sexier look; the WD I recommended looks bulkier, true... but it's configurable as RAID 1 and it's less expensive, too. Did you know that all Lacie makes is the enclosure? Chances are, the actual drives are the same Western Digital drives inside the Lacie box.

Good luck! You will badly need it if you work without backup.

[Terry Lee]

Originally Posted by Ervin Farkas

In your original post you were concerned about security - now you seem to throw your worries out the window... what's gonna happen if your drive crashes?

Both of your choices are RAID 0. I hope you're not going with the Lacie just for the sexier look; the WD I recommended looks bulkier, true... but it's configurable as RAID 1 and it's less expensive, too. Did you know that all Lacie makes is the enclosure? Chances are, the actual drives are the same Western Digital drives inside the Lacie box.

Good luck! You will badly need it if you work without backup.

Hey Ervin, well I actually planned on getting the one you suggested but its out of stock at B&H :(

[Ervin Farkas]

Just another sign it's a good choice.

It's available in lots of other places.

[Mike Barber]

Originally Posted by Terry Lee

Hey Ervin, well I actually planned on getting the one you suggested but its out of stock at B&H :(

NewEgg is a good source too, if they have it. Check out if any of dvInfo's sponsors deal in that kind of thing too. I don't know of any that do, I don't pay close attention to the ads. ;-p

[Terry Lee]

Well I found it here for $225 but I've never heard of that place.

WD 2TB My Book Studio Edition II - CompUPlus Direct

[Shaun Roemich]

I've said it before, I'll say it again:
Make sure if you buy a WD hard drive that it doesn't spin down when not in use. On the WD's, this is NOT user controllable and can result in real workflow problems during playback. I own a WD MyBook and use it ONLY for DVD image output and miscellaneous files because waiting for drive spool up has ruined several print to tape outputs on my system. Other than that, it's been solid but it's affect on my workflow does not offset the lower price. Of course, your mileage may vary and I DO earn a living at video so I'm less concerned with saving a couple of bucks and more concerned with workflow.

[Ervin Farkas]

Originally Posted by Shaun Roemich

I've said it before, I'll say it again: Make sure if you buy a WD hard drive that it doesn't spin down when not in use.

Shaun, I am curious why does this affect you? What is the setup/software/hardware you are using?

As far as I'm concerned, the fact that WD drives go to 'sleep'... it's a MAJOR PLUS , because I often times leave my computer to render overnight - and the drive(s) will stop spinning shortly after the render is over. Actually this is one of the biggest reasons I use exclusively WDs, both large and small/portable (bus powered): they all run cooler than every other drive I tried, and the big ones go to sleep.

I am really curious what happens in your edit bay; when I go to my PC in the morning, all I notice is that I have to wait 3-5 seconds before I can access my files on those drives. If I look at the content of the drive (in Windows Explorer), it shows all of the files, including those created just before the drive went to standby, so if an application needs to access them, they report 'present', the application should just wait a few seconds to access the actual file...

[Shaun Roemich]

Ervin: I routinely have media spanning several drives - project media usually resides on a dedicated drive for THAT project and some of my "usual" items live on drives that are constantly attached to the system (FCP6). If on a long form project, the WD spins down, when the timeline gets to the point where media is required from the WD, I get stalled playback, thus ruining a Print to Tape. Therefore, I use only drives that don't sleep in my edit bay, or more specifically, drives that I can CHOOSE to make sleep or not. IMHO, drive sleep should always be a user choice, at least on drives intended for pro or semi-pro use.

Not saying everyone should adopt my methods, just saying drive manufacturers should give US the choice (which virtually every OS does - don't understand why manufacturers insist on negating the OS).