Buying a new Hard Drive - What's the best option? 1

[Anastasis]

Hi - I have a 120Gb internal HD on my PC which is creaking a bit under the weight of a lot of files (only 10Gb free currently), over half of which is digital video I have stored on the drive.

When I got the PC two years ago, I never thought that I would get anywhere close to filling up the available space, but it is amazing just how quickly you expand to fill what you have.

Anyway, I think the time has come to get a second hard drive, but what is the best option for me? The main use would be to expand on space for working with digital video files.

Do I...

1. Buy a bigger single internal HD and transfer everything on to that? Doesn't seem sensible really, does it?

2. Buy a second internal HD? 160Gb or bigger internal drives are quite cheap now.

3. Buy an external HD and transfer all of my digital video files on to that and use that for DV exclusively in the future, thereby freeing over half of my master HD?

And if (3) is the best option, should I (a) buy a USB 2.0 or (b) a Firewire external drive, or (c) doesn't it really matter?

4. Do something else?

Thanks in anticipation of your help and advice on the pros and cons of these options.

 

[tf1]

Internal drives are now so cheap, I recommend a second internal drive. I expect that you don't have a SATA controller, so just go for the cheapest 7,200 rpm PATA drive you can find (by cheapest, I mean Gigs per Buck!). You will probably find 200GB is about best value at the moment.

If you do have a SATA controller, then the current fastest and best value is the Maxtor DiamondMax 10 range: the 250Gb and 300 GB run at 7,200 rpm, have 16MB cache and native command queuing. Your current PC may not appreciate the later, but you can always take it out and put it into your next PC.


Regards: tf1

 

[felixc]

If you do video editing, it will be good to just add a second drive as a slave to your first one. If there's a free bay in your system, use a drawer (in the $20. range) for the second drive. Thus you could use more drives for your temporary storage of DV contents. It can also enable you to fiddle safely with new OSes like Linux if your BIOS lets the system boot from another drive, without the use of boot managers on your main drive.

 

[Anastasis]

Thanks for your feedback tf1 and felicx.

You both seem to favour going internal rather than external, although the drawer option sounds interesting. I didn't know about that - does that mean you can buy an internal and treat it as an external connecting via USB/firewire or does it still have to be fitted inside the PC?

One question I didn't ask is what would be the change on performance of the PC in terms of booting and after that using the second drive?

I would have thought boot up would take longer with an internal and to a degree may have some impact with it being there all the time. Whereas an external only has an impact when connected. Are both those assumptions of mine correct?

And if an external what would be the differences with USB or firewall?

 

[tf1]

Boot time will be extended by the miniscule time it takes the BIOS to scan for devices connected to the IDE controller looking for devices - particularly the boot device: as it already has to do this anyway, the actual extra time added by a second IDE drive would be measured in micro-seconds.

The drawer is a unit that fits an emprty 5¼" external bay. It connects using the standard IDE connection just like any internal drive. What it allows you to do is to remove the drive by simply unplugging it from the front of the case. This lets you connecting another drive giving you options to boot to a different OS or carry a large disk full of video elsewhere.


Regards: tf1

 

[Anastasis]

Thanks tf1 again for your reply.

Having a look around (I am UK-based) I have found this:

http://www.savastore.com/productinf...store&product_id=10275763&pid=207&rstrat=3099

and this:

http://www.savastore.com/productinf...store&product_id=10275763&pid=207&rstrat=3099

which it says supports SATA drives. I do not understand what the advantages of SATA would be over IDE?

I think the enclosure is different from the type suggested already. Would an USB 2.0 interface be an issue. I know with my cable modem I was told to use the ethernet connection on it instead of the USB connection as USB would put more load on the processor. Would that apply to a HD interface too.

BTW, my PC is a couple of years old, has an AMD Athlon 2400+ CPU and is running XP Home -

Thanks!

 

[tf1]

Unfortunately, you cannot use a SATA HDD in your PC - not unless you buy an additional SATA controller card, which I really don't think that you need to consider. Stick to IDE(ATA100 or PATA as it is sometimes referred to nowadays) drives. I really think your best bet is to buy a straight forward internal drive. USB or Firewire external drives would be an OK choice but unless you really need the mobility for some reason, not good value for money when all you want is more disk space.



Regards: tf1

 

[Anastasis]

Thanks again. When I saw the SATA compatibility described I thought it meant it also provider the controller capability, but obviously not.

A portable external drive *may* be useful if I wanted to share digital video with a friend (occasionally possible) or on a laptop (not that I have one), but as you say the relative extra cost may not be worth it. I was just concerned that if I did go for an external then firewire or USB may not work so well in terms of speed and CPU load than an internal, but it sounds as though that is not a problem.

 

[cdogg]

So far so good. Just don't forget that USB 2.0 is limited to 60MB/s, which is even slower than ATA/66. Using external drives is fine for backup, but don't plan on booting your system from it or doing any serious video editing through that interface. Hook it up internally for that.


~cdogg
[tab]"All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind";
[tab][tab]- Aristotle
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[Anastasis]

Thanks cdogg. I hadn't realised that USB 2.0 was limited so much. I had assumed that it operated at the standard USB 2.0 speed which I think is 480MB/s, with firewire a little slower at 440MB/s.

If both are so limited on speed, then internal is the only way to go, preferably with an internal drawer/caddy as suggested.

 

[tf1]

Ah! USB speed is another confusion - probably maintained by the vendors of USB2-ware.

There are three standard speeds covered by USB2 specs: 1.5, 12 and 480Mbps. Very few devices actually reach anywhere near the potential of 480Mbps. The majority of USB2 (compatible) devices run at the lower speeds. In the case of HDDs, the limitation is with the mechanics of the disks which even the fast DRAM cache and native command queuing cannot overcome. What's the point of a USB2 printer connection: it would take milliseconds to send a print to the inkjet but still only print a few pages per minute.

Think about it: if USB and/or Firewire were really that good, what is stopping motherboard/chipset manufacturers switching from IDE (SATA or PATA) to internal USB or Firewire? Why do servers still stay with SCSI arrays and SCSI connected backup devices?


Regards: tf1

 

[Anastasis]

Thanks tf1 - internal IDE HDD with drawer it is then!

I really appreciate all the help you guys have given.

Cheers!

 

[Anastasis]

Sorry for another question, but is this what I need to get?

http://www.savastore.com/productinf...me=Savastore&product_id=10214024&pid=45&tid=2

Will any IDE drive I choose fit in this?

TIA

 

[cdogg]

tf1 and Anastasis,
Well, you're right and wrong! I'll explain...

First of all, firewire is limited to 400Mbps (megabits per second) and USB 2.0 is limited to 480Mbps (megabits per second).

The biggest confusion (elaborating a bit more on what TF1 was getting at) is the fact that many out there confuse bits and bytes. Since there are 8 bits in 1 byte, the true max of USB 2.0 is 60MB/s (480 divided by 8). IDE and SATA, on the other hand, provide even more bandwidth with ATA/133 peaking at 133MB/s and SATA at 150MB/s.

Now if you look at most ATA/100/133 hard drives, you'll find that they only average around 35-40MB/s transfer rates. 2nd generation SATA drives are slightly better averaging closer to 50MB/s. Even though these averages are well below the 60MB/s that USB 2.0 allows, don't let that fool you. Peak transfer rates (which get as high as 90MB/s) allow the averages to be that high. In slower ATA/66 drives, for example, the average transfer times are well below 30MB/s.

As tf1 points out though, the point is that the mechanics of a drive are the limiting factor in most cases. I was just trying to make a simple, short suggestion but now look what you made me do!



~cdogg
[tab]"All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind";
[tab][tab]- Aristotle
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[Anastasis]

No problem cdogg - thanks for the "detailed" explanation.

I should know better about the speed issue as I do remember that there are 8 bits in a byte etc, so I should have worked that one out

BTW, is the drawer I need one like in the link above?

 

[tf1]

The caddy is exactly what you need.

tf

Regards: tf1

 

[felixc]

I suggest that you buy two or three of these drawers now. In a year or two, this company may not exist anymore, so that will leave you will enough compatible drawers for your additional drives.
These drawers are made by just a couple of manufacturers (like SNT), but many of the available brands are just a new carton on the same drawer. There's no way to know until you see one.
To add a nail to the USB drive coffin, any USB access goes through a driver almost as complex as an Ethernet protocol. There is no such thing with an IDE port. So any application that requires fast transactions, like video editing, will be slowed down with an external drive.

 

[paulrw1]

Well, here's my two cents. I'd add the SATA controller (they aren't terribly expensive) and the largest SATA drive I can get ahold of. Currently the largest drive is 400 GIG!!!

I have a 160 gig SATA drive on my home pc with an internal controller. It's FAST. The drive has 8MB of cache (as stated the newer ones have 16).

It's much faster than my 60 Gig IDE drive with it's 2MB of cache.

And with what you are doing speed is everything.

Here at work, we are in the process of setting up a SAN soultion built around SATA drives 400 Gig each, eventually totalling 24 drives. Can't wait to see our users faces when they get the documents they want soo much faster (we will use the SAN as mass storage for our imaging software, we process several hundreds of thousands of pages each year).

 

[cdogg]

Well now if you're just adding a regular PCI card, then it doesn't really matter if you go SATA or PATA, because both will max out at 133MB/s (that's a disadvantage of PCI vs. integrated). Plus, your PCI drive is going to share bus time with other PCI devices.

But yeah, any internal drive using the extra controller and/or cache would be a plus.


~cdogg
[tab]"All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind";
[tab][tab]- Aristotle
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[Anastasis]

Sorry guys, but I'm getting a little confused again. From what has been said I think you are saying SATA drives are superior compared to IDE, although I'm not sure in exactly what way.

If the advantages in terms of performance and relative cost are appreciable then maybe I could get a SATA controller as I think I have a free PCI slot. But cdogg, are you saying that SATA via a controller on a PCI card is not going to be any better anyway?

Also, if SATA was still better, could I use a SATA drive in a drawer as seems to be the best way to go for my circumstances?

Thanks again!