Which Hard Drive to Get?

[cosmoscorbin]

I am a relative newbie when it comes to digital video, I am getting ready to do my first big project about 70 min of DV video and I need a new drive (firewire I think) to plug in to my G4 laptop to store the data. I have some friends who do digital video work and they have had problems with drives crashing because they are not built for handling the workout this type of work gives them (2 IBM drives crashed in a month!). Does anyone have any pointers? I really dont want to lose my data.

Thanks Cosmos

[Simon T]

I think it's just the best you use 2 harddrives: one as c: (your programs, OS,...) and then the second for your movie-file. I never encountered HD-problems but of course I don't have a laptop but 2 physicaly HD's and 4 HD's on my OS (I made partitions) Making partitions is also a good idea if you are afraid to loose data. It's also easy because you can format a part of your HD after deleting a file. So that your file can be written in one part and not spread over the HD.

But I wouldn't be too afraid with crashing HD's. The most important is that you don't fill your HD till the bits fall off your disk.

Good luck!

[Batman]

You would benifit from a dvd/cd writer perhaps.

[cosmoscorbin]

how about drive speed? is that importaint?

Any brands you all recomend?

A company told me not to get a drive over 100 gig what do you think about that?

thanks for all the help

[ktajudeen]

If you indend to get over 100GB, make sure it's ATA133 and
also make sure your IDE controller supports ATA133 and DMA.
High RPM like 7200, would be good for Video Capturing.
Latley most of the HD over 100GB comes with build-in buffer
(minimum 8Mb), this would be a plus if you use Video Capture Card,
particularly Firewire 1394 card, otherwise there will be frame drops.

[Von_Etrigan]

Supposedly, IBM has been having ...issues... With it's GXP line of hard drives. Maxtors are supposed to be decent, and I'd agree that you'll want a 7200 RPM drive.
Tho, if you're planning on getting a firewire external drive for your laptop, you might not have as much say over which HD you get. Are you planning on buying an external drive, or do you have an external case and just need the HD itself to drop in?

Von Etrigan

[cosmoscorbin]

I am really just planning on getting the best option... I have been told you can get a better drive if you get an external case and then just drop a drive in... Is this true? It sounds like I should definetly get a drive with 7200 rpm or above, As far as ATA133, what does that mean, and what is an IDE controller. I was just hoping to plug this in to my firewire connector on my G4 laptop.

Thanks for all the help so far...

[Von_Etrigan]

You probably CAN get a better drive if you get the case and drop your own in, simply because you'll have some say over what you get. From what I've seen, most companies selling external drives don't tell you which hard drive they use.

ATA133 and IDE are both, for the most part, IBM PC terms. Without going into too much detail, you're going to have to make sure both your external Firewire kit and your hard drive use the same standard. You might want to check out a page like http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/firewire.html for more details.

I'm not a big mac user, but from what I've seen most of the drive kits use the IDE interface, and run about ATA/66. Pretty much any IDE hard drive should work fine in them. Of course, if you get a pre-built external hard drive, you won't have to worry about it.

Von Etrigan

[Batman]

High capacity hard drives are a fairly new innovation, and relatively in their early experimental stages. They are gettbetter though

[ktajudeen]

ATA/33/66/100/133 ... the number stands for data transfer rate.
ATA/133 means 133mb per sec.
If you have larger HD the data seek time is slower, to compensate
loss of time, you need higher RPM and higher ATA.

[cosmoscorbin]

How about this one?

Ok thanks to your help I think that I have found a sutible solution...

2 MAXTOR 80 GB ATA-133 7200 RPM drives with 2MB Cache

in external hard drive case with dual fire wire outputs. ATA 100

so what's up, is this a good choice? it is definetly ecomonical the whole package will only run $480.

Thanks Cosmos

[Batman]

For two 80gb hard drives the price is right

[Von_Etrigan]

Sounds good - the case will fit 2 hard drives?

Von Etrigan

[cosmoscorbin]

thanks dv forum

Yo, I think I am going to buy those then, I just wanted to say that everyone who posted has been super helpful! I am glad I found this board.

[booly]

I believe the Western Digital Caviar 1000JB special edition with fluid bearing with 8Mb cache would be worth a look. High Cache is supposed to aid video file tranfer rates.

This IDE also beats the IBM 120GXP in most online bench reviews.

I bought myself an IBM 120GXP as they are fast enough and cheaper, the problems with the GXP range appears to have been largely due to teething problems with the first model 75 GXP.

WD - IDE

It is ATA 100 but you need Mobo support for ATA 133 so you would need to upgrade the mobo if you haven't got ATA 133. In any case the ATA# refers to potential bandwidth, but the bottle neck is usually the drive mechanism at the moment. SO even the ATA100 spec is not being fully utilised by the IDE's available, which is why for example the 120GXP is 10% faster than the 75GXP even though they are both ATA100.

If that makes sense