Choosing a Hardrive Please!!!!!

krisneph

I need to buy a hardrive for my 800mhz Superdrive iMac cause I need the space. I heard it's really hard to capture straight though I firewire hardrive but I want to be able to capture from a DV camera to my firewire drive is that possible without dropped frames? Also do I need a big Buffer Size or is 2MB OK? Also can someone explain what that does?



I've been looking at some drives at Mac Zone what do you guys think?



Links



http://www.maczone.com/cgi-bin/zones...l?id=000571529



http://www.maczone.com/cgi-bin/zones...ml?id=12822901



http://www.maczone.com/cgi-bin/zones...ml?id=12822902



At first I wanted to spend about 160 cause that's the price of 120Gig that I saw. If it's really neccesary I'll go up to 200.00. I was thinking of getting one that's compatible with firewire 800 since I want a G5 soon what do you guys think.

gsxrboy

I use a LaCie D2 FW800/400/USB2 160gb drive and its been perfect (connected via FW800 to pbook 1.5)... no probs with any dropped frames etc when importing via iMovie 4.01 from a DV exported source.

madmax559

or....



1.go to frys & pick up an empty hdd external case for 40$

(firewire & usb



2.grab a seagate baracudda 120gb 8mb buffer for 49$



3.open case & stick hdd in



4.attach to pc or mac via fw or usb



enjoy

o4blackwrx

Definitely go with what madmax559 said. I went to New Egg got an External Firewire 400 & USB 2.0 Case for $50. Went to Best Buy (because they had a great sale) on a Western Digital 8MB Cache 250GB HD for $110 and I had the sweetest setup. I have noticed very little frame drops when I export my iMovie videos to my External HD. Go with 8MB Cache because the way I was taught it. the hard drive will read 8MB of data from the harddrive whether it needs it all or not. That extra data already fetched will speed the process up when you have large files. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. Not saying that it's a huge difference over 2MB but when they cost the same price get the 8MB cache one.

krisneph

OK guys thanks for the advice I totaly forgot I could do that I had read an article on how some guy did and said that he got less drooped frames when capturing straight to the firewire drive he put together. Is there a pair that works well together?



What kind of drive do you recomend it needs to be PC and Mac?



And What case is good?

o4blackwrx

Any Combo is good, I went to New Egg and got a Firewire 400 & USB 2.0 case. The case can be totally your choice if you want a Firewire 800 then get one. As for the Hard Drive any hard drive will work great with any case. Get the biggest HD you want. Like I said I got a 250GB one. Make sure to get a 8MB Cache HD just because it's the same price as the 2MB one. I got a SanMax external enclosure and it works great. Hope that helps. It will work with PC and Mac as long as you format it on your PC with FAT. I have heard of people having issues formatting it with NTFS, such as it wil let you read but not write to the External HD. I have mine setup with FAT32 and it works great. If you need more Info let me know.

dvd_junkie

Quote:

Originally posted by krisneph

OK guys thanks for the advice I totaly forgot I could do that I had read an article on how some guy did and said that he got less drooped frames when capturing straight to the firewire drive he put together. Is there a pair that works well together?



What kind of drive do you recomend it needs to be PC and Mac?



And What case is good?

Kris, it is easy to try to save some dollars as others have done and posted here but be aware of one fact: not all enclosures are reliable. I tried a Vantec combo enclosure but their Firewire I/F just was terrible as errors would occur almost randomly during some file transfer tests I did. I finally paid the small extra cost and purchased a Maxtor One Touch. It's extremely quiet, fast and reliable. Well worth the extra dollars for no aggravation and you get a high quality enclosure too. A build yourself solution may well save you money but the quality of the enclosure is often not on par with the Maxtor's, WDC's, LaCie's etc... cases.

wilddude92

I have a OWC Mercury Elite Pro FireWire Enclosure from <http://eshop.macsales.com/Static_Pages/index.cfm>. I have used a 80GB 5400 2MB and 120GB 7200 8MB drive in it. I have never had any problems with iMovie importing from Canon 100MC mini DV movie camera.



You can buy the drive enclosure and then find the best deal on a drive to to put into it. I have not seen any *REAL* difference importing DV between either drive. (I do not run other apps when importing DV).



A 7200 RPM 8GB buffer drive will be more usefull down the road. But if you can get a larger capacity 5400RPM drive for less...



I have bought memory from Other World Computing, they have excellent service and competitive prices.

krisneph

Wow guys thanks for the replies, I have to buy this cause I running out of space on my boot drive. That was the thing that worried me, the bridge chip on the Enclosure I had read an article on the that talked about a specific chip that was realiable. I will buy I good quality enclosure but my last question is;

What kind on Hardrive interface should I buy?



Do all kinds of drives work with these encolsures?



And what interface is better performace wise?



Thanks to all that posted

lates

o4blackwrx

Serial ATA is the fastest next to SCSI, and I don't think they make an external SCSI. They do make a Serial ATA Case but they are a little more expensive. The typical case is IDE interface, which 90% of HD's are. So in reality it's up to how much you want to spend. If you want the best go with Serial ATA HD in the enclosure. Be careful that it's not an IDE interface internally but a Serial ATA external connection. But in all reality you can go with IDE like I did for my 250GB HD, plus you can have Firewire & USB 2.0 for those cases. For example here are enclosures that are Serial ATA compatable (but notice some are IDE HD's with Serial ATA interface:



Newegg Enclosure

whisper

Quote:

Originally posted by O4BlackWRX

Serial ATA is the fastest next to SCSI, and I don't think they make an external SCSI.

On more than one occasion I've had to buy SCSI drives specifically because the were external.

o4blackwrx

I meant an external SCSI Enclosure that connects to Firewire or USB. Is that what you're taking about?

krisneph

OK great I really appreciate all of the advice and the comments. I've looking around and this is what I got.



I'm feelin this enclosure



IDE compatible

Aluminum Case

USB 2.0 and Firewire

Supports up to 350 gigs

and it's a 3.5" (which is the standard size right?)

Here's the Link

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...146-308&depa=0



I'm having trouble chossing between a Seagate 200 gig and some other brand

that seems like a no name brand (forgive my ignorance) the other one is a 250 gig



Heres the Seagate

http://shop1.outpost.com/product/4008252



and heres the other one

http://shop1.outpost.com/product/3700356



what do u guys think will the Seagate be that much more reliable?



or should I go for the most space I can get. (I'll need it for video)



Thanks guys I appreciate your time

o4blackwrx

Go Seagate and get more storage if you need it. I think Seagate only makes a 200GB HD as their biggest because that is as big as newegg.com has for seagate. I just bought a Seagate 160GB HD to put in my PowerMac G5, the same one that comes from Apple and I love how quiet they are. I like that case, might have to get it. 3.5" is the size of all HD's except those in notebooks. The 250GB one on your link is Maxtor (did a google search by the product model). Maxtor is good as well, so it's up to you. I've had 3 Maxtors and 2 Seagates and I like Seagate better, but it's up to you and your capacity needs. Looks great man, I know you will enjoy