External hard drive & only 1 firewire on MM

applepiapplepi
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
So the Mac mini only has one firewire jack. If only it had two.

Basically I need to capture video from a DV camera to a large and fast external hard drive. I know USB 2.0 drives exist but I've heard they aren't good to use with digital video for whatever reasons.

Is anyone hear capturing DV with a USB 2.0 hard drive? Any dropped frames or poor performance? What kind of drive do you recommend?



What about if I used a firewire hub and hooked the camera and firewire harddrive up at the same time? Would I get any performance problems?



Thanks

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 5
    relicrelic Posts: 4,735member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by ApplePi

    So the Mac mini only has one firewire jack. If only it had two.

    Basically I need to capture video from a DV camera to a large and fast external hard drive. I know USB 2.0 drives exist but I've heard they aren't good to use with digital video for whatever reasons.

    Is anyone hear capturing DV with a USB 2.0 hard drive? Any dropped frames or poor performance? What kind of drive do you recommend?



    What about if I used a firewire hub and hooked the camera and firewire harddrive up at the same time? Would I get any performance problems?



    Thanks



    FireWire can daisy chain like SCSI, just make sure the HD your getting has two FireWire ports. HD is connected to Mini Mac, the Camera is connected to the HD.
  • Reply 2 of 5
    costiquecostique Posts: 1,084member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Relic

    just make sure the HD your getting has two FireWire ports.



    My LaCie (designed by Porsche) has 2 FW ports. It's one of the cheapest among 7200 RPM drives (granted, 2MB cache) and is very quiet. I'm really happy with it.
  • Reply 3 of 5
    relicrelic Posts: 4,735member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by costique

    My LaCie (designed by Porsche) has 2 FW ports. It's one of the cheapest among 7200 RPM drives (granted, 2MB cache) and is very quiet. I'm really happy with it.





    Second that ,they stick Seagate Barracuda drives in them to, Varoom.
  • Reply 4 of 5
    guarthoguartho Posts: 1,208member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Relic

    FireWire can daisy chain like SCSI, just make sure the HD your getting has two FireWire ports. HD is connected to Mini Mac, the Camera is connected to the HD.



    Yeah, I've even done it with a bargain basement, no-name, 5400 rpm firewire drive with no problems.
  • Reply 5 of 5
    connerconner Posts: 22member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by ApplePi

    So the Mac mini only has one firewire jack. If only it had two.

    Basically I need to capture video from a DV camera to a large and fast external hard drive. I know USB 2.0 drives exist but I've heard they aren't good to use with digital video for whatever reasons.

    Is anyone hear capturing DV with a USB 2.0 hard drive? Any dropped frames or poor performance? What kind of drive do you recommend?



    What about if I used a firewire hub and hooked the camera and firewire harddrive up at the same time? Would I get any performance problems?



    Thanks



    I have owned a 12" powerbook (which has only one firewire port) for a bit over a year now, in that time I have captured dv from a camcorder and from a formac media converter onto firewire HDs, I've done this thru daisy chaining and thru a cheap 6 port firewire hub. I've never had any issues at all with having 'just' one port.



    It would be nice if the mini mac had fw800 and gigabit ethernet, but it would be nice if my 12" powerbook had that too, heh.



    Anyone want to buy a well treated 12" Powerbook? (:
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