External Drive for PB. Faster than internal. Fast enough for FCP capturing etc

locopanolocopano
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
Im going to get the PB17" 1.5 w/4200RPM HDD and i want to know if an external one will run faster.



I want to capture video (just amateur stuff) onto the external disk and edit it off there. Will a USB2.0 or Fireweire 400 external HDD be faster than the internal 4200RPM one if the external one is 5400/7200RPM. I'm interested in real life scenarios not just tech specs. I understand that 5400 is faster than 4200 etc but i want to know ifthere is any lag in the USB2.0/FW400 part of the operation.



I will use FCexpress and DVDSP. Let me know what your experiences are with the external HDD.



Will the internal HDD run smothly enough to capture 30 mins of miniDV footage at a time?



thanks in advance



I've justheard all this yaping about changing HDD in the New PB's and i want to make sure an external HDD can handle the job.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 16
    intastellaintastella Posts: 16member
    I have a Lacie Firewire external drive (7200 rpm) and it's butter for DV footage. I'm using it with my 12" Powerbook (rev A) so you should be more than fine.



    Plus, if you ever fill it up you can just get another one.
  • Reply 2 of 16
    locopanolocopano Posts: 38member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by intastella

    I have a Lacie Firewire external drive (7200 rpm) and it's butter for DV footage. I'm using it with my 12" Powerbook (rev A) so you should be more than fine.



    Plus, if you ever fill it up you can just get another one.



    So its faster than your internal drive? Can you run minidv footage right of the drive fast with no problems, can you do all your editing capturing etc at the same speeds as if it were of the internal one... or even faster???



    thats what im really getting at. are externals faster in real life scenarios.
  • Reply 3 of 16
    intastellaintastella Posts: 16member
    Oh, it's ten times faster than my internal drive. Yeah, I edit right off of it and it screams. It's pretty quiet too, though you can hear the clicks.



    I would definitely recommend it over the internal one. You could probably capture to the internal one but if the disk got hit during it that might be a problem. Playing back a bunch of clips while compositing in realtime will definitely choke you though.



    I've read on Creative Cow that you should never really capture to the system disk, but keep the cache directories on your system disk for frequent small changes.
  • Reply 4 of 16
    ipodandimacipodandimac Posts: 3,273member
    i would at least upgrade your hard drive to 5400, jsut in case you wanna capture on the internal.
  • Reply 5 of 16
    tbonebstbonebs Posts: 3member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by ipodandimac

    i would at least upgrade your hard drive to 5400, jsut in case you wanna capture on the internal.



    I second that. Also, try to get a FW800 drive instead of FW400. Some reviews I've seen give FW800 about a 8-12 MB/s read/write throughput advantage over FW400/USB 2 for the same hard drive, just make sure it's a 7200rpm drive. Unless you're planning on using your PB's FW800 port for something else. But, if it's a choice between FW800 or the upgrade to a 5400rpm internal, I'd go with the 5400rpm internal.
  • Reply 6 of 16
    locopanolocopano Posts: 38member
    Hey i decided to be safe and get the 5400RPM, and the 128MB graphics aupgrade. it will only cost me about an extra $70AUD ~$52US to do it after the educational thing and some other discounts i get.



    Will the 128MB make the playback smoother? What exactly will it help me in? what programs? FCP? DVDSP, Photoshop? i hope its not just for games cos i dont play any.. i just got it done cos it was so cheap to get the additions plus it only takes 2 weeks from today...



    Thanks for your replies....
  • Reply 7 of 16
    macasaurusmacasaurus Posts: 243member
    more video ram just allows for more awesomeness to occur on your screen. especially if you are a gamer.
  • Reply 8 of 16
    kraig911kraig911 Posts: 912member
    MiniDV can really be no more than 5-7Mb/s a stream, so if you're just doing imovie you can have no more than 2 streams and FCP Express you go over 4 you're going to be rendering anyway. Any 7200 External Drive? ought to give the throughput you need and that doesn't even saturday FW400's bus really. You'll see a huge speed increase in video apps, and the internal isn't near fast enough really either. If I didn't use my powerbook everywhere but home so much I'd install the OS on the external too.
  • Reply 9 of 16
    buckeyebuckeye Posts: 358member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by TBoneBS

    I second that. Also, try to get a FW800 drive instead of FW400. Some reviews I've seen give FW800 about a 8-12 MB/s read/write throughput advantage over FW400/USB 2 for the same hard drive, just make sure it's a 7200rpm drive. Unless you're planning on using your PB's FW800 port for something else. But, if it's a choice between FW800 or the upgrade to a 5400rpm internal, I'd go with the 5400rpm internal.



    I disagree on the 5400 drive. It will eat up your battery. If you are capturing video to an external drive, the 4200 will be fine for everything else. If you want a fast internal drive get the 60 gig 7200rpm from IBM.



    Also, you should definitly get the FW800 drive. Although you will only see a small improvement over FW400 because the drives inisde will not be able to reach the full throughput of FW800. But your drive will be future proof and allow you to connect to other FW800 devices down the road.



    Another benefit to the FW800 drive is that it frees up your FW400 port for connection to another device (although it will reduce both ports to FW400 speed)



    I suggest one of these: OWC FW800. It has USB2.0, FW400 and FW800 connectors. Plus it comes with Backup software and all of the various cables you could need. I run DV video off of mine all day to my Powerbook without a hiccup.
  • Reply 10 of 16
    murbotmurbot Posts: 5,262member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by buckeye

    I disagree on the 5400 drive. It will eat up your battery.



    Bah. I think this is one of those things that gets said so often on the web, people just start to accept it as fact. I doubt you'd see any real significant increase in battery consumption.
  • Reply 11 of 16
    buckeyebuckeye Posts: 358member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by murbot

    Bah. I think this is one of those things that gets said so often on the web, people just start to accept it as fact. I doubt you'd see any real significant increase in battery consumption.



    You might be right, but on my 1.25Ghz 15inch, every little bit counts.



    I think the new versions have more Battery capacity.
  • Reply 12 of 16
    locopanolocopano Posts: 38member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by buckeye

    Another benefit to the FW800 drive is that it frees up your FW400 port for connection to another device (although it will reduce both ports to FW400 speed)



    Yeah thats why i'm not getting a FW400. At the moment i have heard that FW800 enclosures are having some problems and sellers will not unleash them as yet on the market. So i'll wait for that. But does it realyreduce the FW800 port to FW400 speed if i have a FW400/800 (IS this the general consensus of the forum?). I've gota tiny USB2.0 one at the moment which i got for USD $3.33 and i chucked an unused 60GIG 5400 HDD (it was from my xdrive card reader HDD) in there, that willdo ome for the moment but i still feel firewire to be more stable than USB 2.0.



    Quote:

    Originally posted by buckeye

    I disagree on the 5400 drive. It will eat up your battery.



    On my 17" 1.33GHZ PB (the one i just sold - for 1.5") i had the standard 5400rpm HDD? and the power on that would last me 4 hours. Im not sure what the max battery life is quoted as but it was pretty good for such a monster of a machine to power. I already ordered the upgrade as it was to cost penuts to do.



    ALSO this is a NEW QUESTION, BUT: would having the powerbook plugged into the Powerpoint even when battery is full ruin/damage/hurt the PB in anyway, through extra heat over long period of time or for any reason?? (Note i will have it plugged into a surge protector -s o dont mention lightning etc)



    Thanks all AGAIN in ADVANCE! (ps i dont smoke)
  • Reply 13 of 16
    buckeyebuckeye Posts: 358member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by locopano

    Yeah thats why i'm not getting a FW400. At the moment i have heard that FW800 enclosures are having some problems and sellers will not unleash them as yet on the market. So i'll wait for that. But does it realyreduce the FW800 port to FW400 speed if i have a FW400/800 (IS this the general consensus of the forum?). I've gota tiny USB2.0 one at the moment which i got for USD $3.33 and i chucked an unused 60GIG 5400 HDD (it was from my xdrive card reader HDD) in there, that willdo ome for the moment but i still feel firewire to be more stable than USB 2.0.



    From what I understand, if you have a FW400 drive plugged in to the FW400 port and a FW800 drive plugged in to the FW800 port at the same time, the FW800 drive will only operate at FW400 speed. i.e. 2 FW400 drives working at the same time.



    The solution would be to use a FW800 or 400 card adapter in the PCI slot that would act on it's own bus. Then you could have 2 FW800 drives both running at their theoretical max.



    Please correct me if I am wrong on this.
  • Reply 14 of 16
    intastellaintastella Posts: 16member
    If that's right, that sucks. Is it because both ports are on one controller?
  • Reply 15 of 16
    yomofoyomofo Posts: 35member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by murbot

    Bah. I think this is one of those things that gets said so often on the web, people just start to accept it as fact. I doubt you'd see any real significant increase in battery consumption.





    True.



    Technically, because the 5400 drive is spinning faster, it will have more angular momentum, and therefore it will take less power to keep it spinning than a 4200 drive (when you ride faster on your bike it takes less arm power to keep you going straight). However, if you are moving the computer around a lot while the drive is spinning, and/or you have the hard drive spin down often, 5400 drives will consume more power because it will have to ramp up to a high speed from starting at zero.



    However, I doubt you'd be doing the video capture while jiggling the powerbook, and the hard drive will be spinning continuously during video capture and editing...



    So for video editing a 5400 drive will be faster AND consume LESS power.
  • Reply 16 of 16
    trowatrowa Posts: 176member
    for digital video editing, you should try to get the fastest internal hard drive you can afford. 5400RPM HD's are fine. I have a 7200RPM drive in my powerbook and I only noticed marginally less battery time.



    In terms of external HD's FW800, 7200RPM drives should be fine. The bigger the better. You may want to get a DVD burner as well in case you need to keep some digital files for later use.
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