Good harddrive for Dv
 

I'm looking at adding another hard drive for storage and editing. My current Maxtor 7200 60Gb always gets the "Disc speed too slow" error message when I'm capturing through my Canopus Raptor card from my DVX100. Now I'm out of space and am looking at another larger hard disc drive. Any suggestions? FYI I use a P3 933mghz with 400mb RAM (planning to add 512mb to that when I get the new hard drive).

I could use some help quick, too, as I'm running up on my deadline for the Lady X project.

Anything that is 7200 rpm should do. Seagate make nice, cheap, quiet and cool running drives, they Baracuda V series are very nice and reliable.

At the moment in Australia they are $137 for an 80gb model, which would hold around 6 hours of footage, that is about $80 USD.

Zac

Hi Lin,
I really like the Western Digital 250Gb 7200 RPM drive with the 8Mb cache. I bought one recently and it really is one fine drive.

I think there's a promotional rebate program on this unit right now. Here's a sample listing for the drive on Outpost.com.

It's still mind-boggling to realize that we can buy this much storage for $300 or less.

Ken, is the WD nice and quiet?

<<<-- Originally posted by Ken Tanaka : Hi Lin,
I really like the Western Digital 250Gb 7200 RPM drive with the 8Mb cache. I bought one recently and it really is one fine drive.

I think there's a promotional rebate program on this unit right now. Here's a sample listing for the drive on Outpost.com.

It's still mind-boggling to realize that we can buy this much storage for $300 or less. -->>>

My Maxtor is already a 7200. It's 60Gb and chockablock. Are there any other parameters, such as seek speed, etc., I should look for?

The Western Digital looks like a deal, but they only deliver to the US and Canada. I'm in Taiwan. I'll look and see how much they are here, if they are here at all, though.

Robert: The WD is extremely quiet.

Lin: Honestly, don't waste your time worrying about seek times, etc. In the end it won't matter a bit. A spacious 7200 rpm drive will be fine. That 8Mb cache is a real plus, compared to the normal 2Mb on most drives.

Hello Lin,

Maybe I'm putting my noose out now.... But I don't really think a faster HDD will solve the error " "Disc speed too slow" - if it is a modern 7200rpm disc it should give you at least 7mb/sec in writing speed ( 7mb * 60 seconds = 420mb/minute, good enough for DV ).

I think you should look at:

* Drivers for your HDD controller
* Make SURE that the DMA mode is activated for your HDD
* _May_ help to defrag the drive...

Next time you capture, open the Taskmanager->Performance and check if your CPU hits 100% ( or close to it ) - if so, it is a sure sign that you're not using DMA or having bad drivers.

About HDD:s - I'd go for the Seagate Barracuda 5 series, 8mb cache, VERY quiet and quite cool.

Good luck!

// Lazze

Sweden