External Hard-drive Questions.

[Fabulousamelie]

Hello there,

I'm looking to purchase an external hard-drive so as to provide enough space to edit a feature film using Adobe Premiere 7.0. I'd be very grateful if anyone would relay assistance given the following queries…

* My current hard-drive has about 3GB space left. I'm wondering whether you need a certain amount of space on your original hard-drive so as to install and house an external hard-drive. If so, how much space would you require approximately?

* A friend's advised me to buy a FireWire-enabled hard-drive because a hard-drive with a USB-only connection would be likely to mess up and corrupt data if transferring files more than say 4GB from external hard-drive to main hard-drive and vice versa. Is this indeed the case?

* My hard-drive tower has only one FireWire port, so I'm trying to fathom how I'd go about capturing footage into Adobe Premiere (requiring a FireWire connection to a digital video camera) and saving that footage in a project stored on the external hard-drive (also requiring a FireWire connection). Any advice?

* This is the latest drive I'm pondering whether or not to purchase...

http://www.microdirect.co.uk/(17695)...-Firewire.aspx

Please tell me what you think of it considering my outlined editing objective. Microdirect's the only UK-based site I'm aware of for external drives. Can you recommend any other stores/sites to visit?

Thanks

 

[Lemon13]

afik there are no probs transfering bigger files than 4 gb on a usb external hd, as long its formatted with ntfs

u usally need only a small driver, other soft is backup stuff (i.e. maxtor onetouch), u dont need that

i would go with usb, nearly same speed (usb2.0), every new pc has usb and it is cheaper than firewire

 

[Nelviticus]

If you're editing video you'll want to keep it in DV format to do your edits. DV takes up a gigabyte (or more) per minute of footage and you'll need room for the final cut as well as 'scratch' space so I'd recommend getting the biggest hard drive you can afford.

Also, unless you want to be constantly gnawing your fingernails off in frustration, you'll need the fastest connection you can get. Remember, you'll be reading and writing very large files very frequently. USB2 will work but FireWire 400 is better, FireWire 800 is even better and eSATA is better still. To get around the problem of only having one FireWire port I would recommend buying an add-on card for your PC to give you extra FireWire 800 or eSATA ports, and buying an external hard drive with the same connectors.

(An internal hard drive would probably be better than any of the above but I assume you have a valid reason for wanting to use an external drive).

As Lemon says as long as the drive is formatted as NTFS rather than FAT32 you won't have a problem with files over 4GB in size.

When buying hardware I normally look at Scan and Dabs. The Dabs site also has customer reviews of many of their items.

This wasn't part of your original question, but if you have spare cash I'd also recommend getting as much memory as your PC can handle. Editing video is very memory-hungry. A fast processor is also important for applying effects, and also for converting to compressed formats such as MPEG for DVDs and so forth. If you leave the compression until you've finished your final cut you can just leave it running for as long as it takes, but if you need to compress things quite often then upgrading your CPU will save you a lot of time (although I don't know what CPU you have at the moment).

I think I've rambled on enough!

Regards

Nelviticus

 

[electronicsfreak]

Very true on what Nelviticus said. You should get at least a 150GB drive or bigger. I recommend around a 300GB. From my past experience of video editing back when I did it, 30 minutes of uncompressed video took up around 30GB till you compressed it. Video editing will take up space fast. If you are in the us take a look here on newegg.

http://www.newegg.com

http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=414&name=External-Hard-Drives

There is a point in wisdom and knowledge that when you reach it, you exceed what is considered possible - Jason Schoon

 

[Fabulousamelie]

Thanks very much for your advice, folks. I've a few leads to explore there. Please bear with me as I cab be a bit dim sometimes when it comes to technical stuff...

* I need to ascertain whether my computer's formatted to FAT32 or the required NTFS. How would I go about this?

* It'd probably be worthwhile finding out the CPU of my computer as well so as to gauge whether the processor's fast enough. Whereabouts would I access this information?

* I'm unfamiliar with eSata-enabled drives. Does the eSata cable fit in the Firewire port or would I have to buy an add-on card with an eSata port if choosing this connection?

* Would I have to fit an add-on card inside the hard-drive tower or is it a kind of adaptor you can plug into a USB port or something?

 

[TomCologne]

I need to ascertain whether my computer's formatted to FAT32 or the required NTFS. How would I go about this?

Right click on the drive in My Computer, Properties.

It'd probably be worthwhile finding out the CPU of my computer...

Control Panel > System

TomCologne

 

[Fabulousamelie]

Cheers :>)

The CPU's 2.80GHz. Is that going to be fast enough? Clicked on My Computer and Properties, but couldn't find either "FAT32" or "NTFS" mentioned throughout the tabs. Where should I look next once the Properties window's popped up?

 

[Freestone]

Open My Computer, right-click on the drive in question, select Properties, on the General tab near the top you'll see File System.

 

[Fabulousamelie]

That's promising, then, as it reads NTFS.

 

[Nelviticus]

I need to ascertain whether my computer's formatted to FAT32 or the required NTFS. How would I go about this?

Just to clarify, it's your external drive that will need to be NTFS-formatted, otherwise it won't be able to store files larger than 4GB. The same rule applies to your internal hard drive but isn't really relevant, because you won't be storing your video files there as you don't have enough room.

The CPU's 2.80GHz. Is that going to be fast enough?

It will be fast enough. When converting video from one format to another, the faster the CPU the less time it will take. Even a slow CPU will do the job, it will just take a long time. Yours sounds like a fairly speedy one though.

I'm unfamiliar with eSata-enabled drives. Does the eSata cable fit in the Firewire port or would I have to buy an add-on card with an eSata port if choosing this connection?

eSata is another kind of connector, different to USB or Firewire. It's pretty new so not many PCs and not many external drives have it. It is (or can be) a bit faster than even Firewire 800 so if you wanted the fastest possible connection it'd be the one to go for.

Would I have to fit an add-on card inside the hard-drive tower or is it a kind of adaptor you can plug into a USB port or something?

If you wanted to add eSata ports or additional Firewire ports you'd need to install an add-on card in one of the spare PCI slots inside your PC's case (assuming you have a spare slot). This would give you extra ports on the back of the case. You can get add-on cards for extra eSata, Firewire or USB ports.

I don't want to spook you into spending more money than you need to. You could get away with just buying a USB external hard drive and making sure that when you format it you choose NTFS rather than FAT32 (it will probably be pre-formatted as FAT32, in which case you can just re-format it). However, if you're going to be editing a feature-length film then it will be somewhat easier if you go for a faster connection than USB.

Regards

Nelviticus

 

[Fabulousamelie]

Thanks very much for your assistance, Nelviticus :>)

Looks like I'll be buying an add-on card, probably to provide another Firewire port. I need to check whether my PC has spare PCI slots. Would I do this by removing the panel from the hard-drive tower or something?

Oh, and are Firewire external hard-drives usually FAT32 or NTFS formatted?

 

[Nelviticus]

Yes, if you take off the side panel (with the power off!) you should be able to see whether there are any free slots. This Wikipedia page shows what PCI slots look like. If you have a newish PC you may also have PCI-Express slots which look like some of the ones on this page (the caption for the photo there tells you which slots are which). I haven't looked but I suspect that any add-on Firewire cards you can find will be PCI rather than PCI-Express (also known as PCIe).

Note that when you install the card, do it with the PC unplugged and make sure you earth yourself first by touching a metal radiator or something similar. This is because static electricity can damage computer parts.

New external hard drives will probably be either unformatted or FAT32, since FAT32 is compatible with Macs, Linux and Windows whereas NTFS is Windows-only, but there are no rules. You can check the format once it's connected with the method TomCologne described (right-click the drive in My Computer and choose Properties).

Regards

Nelviticus

 

[Fabulousamelie]

Just a quick update with regards to my situation...

I'm either gonna go for a) an add-on card and a F/W + USB external drive or b) another option, mentioned recently by a colleague, that involves connecting an external F/W + USB drive to the hard drive tower and the camera (from which I'm capturing footage into Adobe Premiere) to another F/W port at the back of the external drive (so the external drive'll have two F/W ports). He calls the latter option "daisy-chaining" as the camera's linked to the external drive, which is in turn linked to the hard drive tower. Wanted to run this one by you guys. Would I indeed be able to capture footage and store Adobe Premiere projects simultaneously and efficiently using this "daisy-chaining" method and would you recommend it?

 

[Nelviticus]

I've never actually used FireWire but according to the Wikipedia page for it:

up to 16 cables can be daisy chained using active repeaters, external hubs, or internal hubs often present in FireWire equipment.

If your colleague says it will work I'd be inclined to agree.

If it works like USB, then your PC will see the external drive as both a hub and a drive and should treat the camera as if it's directly attached to your PC.

Regards

Nelviticus

 

[Fabulousamelie]

Thanks again for your advice, Nelviticus. Much appreciated

 

[Fabulousamelie]

Hello again. Happy new year to everyone. I still haven't bought an external hard-drive yet. Currently deliberating over these two...

http://www.microdirect.co.uk/(22034)LaCie-320GB-7200rpm-External-FWire-400-Hard.aspx

http://www.microdirect.co.uk/(22035)LaCie-500GB-7200rpm-External-FWire-400-Hard.aspx

I'm wondering about formatting drives...

If I buy one of the above machines and it's unformatted, how would I go about formatting it to NTFS? Is it an easy process?

Also, if I buy one of the machines and it's formatted to FAT32, can I easily reformat it to NTFS?

Any advice much appreciated :>)

 

[Nelviticus]

Nice drives. I'd go for the bigger one if the extra £20 doesn't put you over budget. More space is always better! Plus it works out as 20p per gigabyte compared to the smaller drive's 25p per gig.

It's been so long since I added an unformatted drive to a Windows machine that I can't remember what happens. If it shows up in My Computer you can right-click it and choose 'format'. If it doesn't, right-click My Computer and choose 'manage', then go to the 'disk management' item. In the bottom-right pane you'll see boxes representing all the drives attached to your computer - it should be pretty obvious which one is your new drive. I'm not 100% sure of the next step but I think it involves right-clicking one of the boxes and choosing something like 'mount this drive'.

However I'm sure it'll be already formatted. If it's FAT-formatted, and there's nothing on it you want to keep, you can turn it into NTFS by right-clicking it in My Computer, choosing 'format' then selecting NTFS as the file system.

Regards

Nelviticus

 

[Fabulousamelie]

You're a star, Nelviticus. Thanks. Yep. I'm prioritising the 500GB one.

I'm confused reading the spec for machines. Are there two types of FW lead? Some say 4-pin. Others say 6-pin :>S

 

[Freestone]

Nelviticus, Disk Management will require a new, unformatted disk to be initialized (Initialize Disk) before it will allow any partitioning and formatting. This is probably the step you are forgetting. But I agree, it will probably be formatted.

 

[Nelviticus]

Er, probably! There are several types of USB connector so it stands to reason there might be several types of Firewire as well. It says the box includes a 6-pin to 6-pin lead so that'll be the type that's used on PCs. Smaller connectors are for small devices that don't have room for a full-sized connector.

Nelviticus