New project drive. Int. or Ext.?

BPB wrote on 2/14/2008, 3:18 PM

I have a new project coming up and I am considering a terabyte drive.
My machine is a DELL 8300 xp2
I currently have 3 La Cie 200gig firewire drives in various stages of fullness mostly all 3/4 full with Vegas and Protools stuff and an internal 150 gig internal drive partioned into 2 drives..one for BFD drumware and audio mixes and one for video renders.

My question is should I get a 1T ext. drive to archive stuff and clear off all the other drives for project work. or pull the internal drive and add a 1t internal drive which would then be my project drive for Vegas (thinking an internal drive will perform better for video ) and also hold BFD for audio and then organize and offline the LaCies for storage and renders.

Thanks for your opinions..also a brand recommendation would be helpful.

BB

Comments

NickHope wrote on 2/15/2008, 1:22 AM

Personally I like to work with internal drives as much as possible. External drives, whether firewire, USB 2.0 or even eSATA have never proved as straightforward in my experience. I only use external drives for backups or when I'm on the move with my laptop.

I have a small C: drive (a Western Digital Raptor) which has my OS and programs (including Vegas) on it, a 500Gb drive for data including Vegas project files, and a 750Gb drive for assets used in Vegas (video and audio files).

I like Hitachi and Seagate at the moment. I once had a Maxtor that failed really quickly and Western Digital seem to have declined in reliability. The Seagate server-grade drives may well be worth the extra money.

I read somewhere that 1Tb drives are not as reliable as 750Gb, but that might be utter rubbish.

Chienworks wrote on 2/15/2008, 3:52 AM

I always opt for internal wherever possible. I've got three PCs on my desk and between them they contain 11 internal hard drives. Every external drive i've ever used has lost files over and over again, often with the entire file system being trashed.

Seagate is my current choice. Rock-solid reliable and a good value. I used to go with WD only, but their current models all run way too hot and that's usually a sign of a device destined to die soon.

Never go with bleading-edge technology. 1TB sounds nifty, but i'm sure much more prone to failure. A pair of 500GB will cost less and have all the bugs worked out.

If you don't have enough room in your PC for more internal drives, well, your PC case isn't big enough! The case i like to use can hold 7 drives and it's easy to mount a couple more if you're creative. Another option is external drive case that is network attached or eSata rather than firewire or USB. These drives are permanently attached rather than being removable. They're just as reliable as internal drives.

UlfLaursen wrote on 2/15/2008, 4:06 AM

Seagate is my current choice. Rock-solid reliable and a good value

Me too - I have had very good experience with seagate in the last years, and I vote for internal where at all possible.

/Ulf

farss wrote on 2/15/2008, 5:06 AM

Anything but LaCie. We've had one of those 1TB drives for some time and although the 1394b connection is pretty fast as we found out the hard way loosing 1TB is not good.

I've not found any difference reliability wise between internal or external. A disk will fail or not regardless. The only difference is making certain it doesn't cook and some external drive enclosures just don't have enough cooling. All mine have three fans.

Bob.

Steve Mann wrote on 2/15/2008, 2:48 PM

External drives, except eSATA* will have slower throughput than internal drives, but you probably won't notice the difference.

* Some eSATA drives are really IDE drives with a SATA to IDE adapter internal to the box.

I don't have any Tb drives yet because I am waiting to see how they perform for real. These are the first mass production drives that use the vertical orientation of the magnetic material on the disc surface invented by IBM/Hitachi a few years ago.

My personal experience with Seagate is that Seagate handled a warranty claim for a replacement drive for me a few years ago that was one of my best experiences with customer service. (LightSpeed and APC share that distinction).

Other industries could learn a lesson from those three companies.

johnmeyer wrote on 2/15/2008, 3:05 PM

On my computer, Vegas will sometimes temporarily "hang" when playing back video from an external drive, both USB and 1394 drives. I have a dozen external drives.

I second all the recommendations that you use your internal drives during editing and then archive to external.

I also use the external drives for capture. I hook them up to various computers in other rooms, and capture from multiple cams. I then bring them into the editing room. Sometimes I just edit from the externals (despite what I said above) when doing these multi-cam edits, although as soon as I have a 10-second freeze on the timeline, I curse myself for not just copying the files over to the internal hard drive (which of course takes a half hour or more).

Cheno wrote on 2/15/2008, 3:40 PM

I've got 3 500 gig internal Seagates - can't bring myself to do a full Terabyte drive on it's own just yet - and then oodles of internal drives used in ADS drive casings - I love this because I can back up large projects for customers and then remove, put in the static bag and shelve. Other external drives are mainly used for personal back up.

I have nothing bad to say about Seagate - love 'em. Have a LaCie Porche drive that is one out of 11 I haven't had problems with. WD mybook 500 gig is just problematic enough for me to not use it very frequently.

Nice thing about my MacPro though too, is swapping out drives. Almost easier than external enclosures, but not in the habit of cracking open the tower often from my old straight PC days.

cheno

John_Cline wrote on 2/15/2008, 4:39 PM

I have dozens of bare (Seagate) SATA drives that I use for client projects and backup. If I need the full SATA speed, I use a Kingwin KF-91 rack mounted in my computer. It's only about $25 and the trays are about $13. There are no active electronics in the rack, it connects directly to the SATA port on the motherboard.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817121172

For the times when I just need to grab a few files off one of the drives or make a few mods to a project, I use one of these SATA to USB docking stations. This one is really nice because you just drop the drive in the top, it just doesn't get any easier.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153066&Tpk=blacx

Here's the link to the product page at Thermaltake:

http://thermaltakeusa.com/product/Storage/hdd_station/blacx/blacx.asp

They also make one of these with a 4-port USB hub.

http://thermaltakeusa.com/product/Storage/hdd_station/blacx_se/blacx_se.asp

John

By the way, I believe that "LaCie" is French for "will fail eventually."

Cheno wrote on 2/15/2008, 4:52 PM

Thanks for the links, John.

That SATA docking station rocks! - Now call me computer illiterate, but having one for my IDE drives would be cooler than my ADS drive tanks - I can't imagine this would work for IDE too, would it?

cheno

John_Cline wrote on 2/15/2008, 5:08 PM

No, sorry, it would not. Both 3.5" and 2.5" SATA drives have a standardized placement and dimensions for the data and power ports, they slip quite easily into both the Thermaltake docking station and the Kingwin internal drive rack.

IDE drives have a 4-pin Molex power connector and a 40-pin data connector and the placement of these connectors is not standardized, nor would it be easy to simply "slip" one into either devices. Even if all IDE drives were designed with the connectors in the same position, It would require way too much force to connect.

For my few remaining IDE drives, I use one of these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812156102

It handles SATA as well as 3.5" and 2.5" IDE drives (including CD and DVD drives.) Not quite as simple as dropping a drive in the top, but still pretty darned easy. One very minor problem with this particular solution is that the drives sit flat on my desk when I use it and they tend to run a bit warm if left on for an extended period. With the docking station, the drive is standing up and the natural airflow in my room allows them to run a bit cooler.

John

Chienworks wrote on 2/15/2008, 6:13 PM

IDE power connectors are amazingly difficult to work with. The easy ones require enough force to bruise your thumb while inserting the plug. I've had many that require a large pair of pliers in order to get them out. I've even had a few where the only way to remove the plug was to break it and replace it. It's almost like the designers figured you'd never ever want to remove a drive, and that you'd sue them for a trillion dollars and their first born children for the next 40 generations if a plug ever came loose.

Kinda reminds me of a lamp i bought once. It was a lot more difficult than usual plugging it into the wall outlet, but i didn't think much about it. Then a few days later i decided to move it somewhere else, but couldn't pull the plug out. Nothing worked, no amount of wiggling with any size tool would get the plug out of the outlet. Then while i was sitting there frustrated i noticed a tag on the cord that said something like "Introducing the new safety plug, designed and guaranteed to never fall out of the outlet. This plug has been specially designed to permanently attach itself to the wall outlet with no chance of it ever being removed." I had to replace the wall outlet and put a new (non-safety) plug on the end of the lamp cord in order to move it.