External harddrive, good idea?
 

Hey guys,
I was just wondering If I should get an external to save my video files on. I have an 80 gig hdd and a 120 gig hdd installed, however I do big projects that require a lot of space. I know its possible to get a 3+ hdd drives installed however my power supply only has 4 (p1, p2, p3, p4) "ribben" cables. So I dont have another cable to connect another hard drive. I guess I could get another power supply but I was just thinking maybe I should just get and 80gig external, what do you think?

I'd go bigger than 80GB personally. Is it a good idea? Well I'm looking at four 160GB, two 100GB and a 300GB in front of me right now (in addition to a slower 80 and 30 used for backups)...

Just make sure you're getting a fast enough drive and interface. Theoretically slower drives can handle it, but I've had problems. I only buy 7200 RPM firewire drives with the Oxford 911 chipset or better. Most of these have USB2 interfaces as well, but I haven't tried that.

Wow, my projects are not quite that big. Do you use all of that? That would be pretty awesome though. Any good buys anywhere on external harddrives. I would think USB 2 would be a little faster then firewire I think USB 2 is 480Mbps vs firewires 400Mbps, alittle faster..not much. Thanks boyd

That 480 Mbps is just a theoretical speed for the bus. I don't think anyone actually gets better performance from hard drives on USB 2.0 than on firewire - at least not yet. There are plenty of good buys on external hard drives to be had, and you can just install a drive in a pre-made case yourself, but you should beware of the cheapest of drives. Ask anyone who's had a discount drive fail (i.e. me). I thought I was getting a good deal on a LaCie F.A. Porsche drive a year ago because the cost per GB was low, but I ended up having to pry it out of its case with a screwdriver to save a project after the firewire bus in the case failed. So watch out for low cost drives if you care about your data. I don't trust them anymore.

I found an 80 gig external for 49.99 on circuit city after rebates of course. However I dont want a failing drive in like 10 months.

http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Weste...oductDetail.do

I might just buy an internal (bigger) since they are cheaper and then get an enclosure for it. How does that work exactly.

Sometimes there are rebate deals on drives in the 200-300gb range.

If you want to roll your own:
Buy a firewire enclosure. Ideally, get one with the oxford 911 chipset. Avoid the prolific chipset unless you want to mess around with flashing the drive (otherwise the drive will kill your data).
But a ATA hard drive (parallel ATA, PATA). NOT SATA. Typically the enclosures only work with PATA.

You buy the drive and then assemble the thing. It's not hard. You may have to move the jumper to the master setting. The drive will either come jumpered to mastered or cable select, both of which will work. Sometimes cable select won't work.

And that's it. You can buy parts off newegg.com. If you live in that state, then check other online retailers to avoid tax.
Useful sites:
pricewatch.com
resellerratings.com
froogle.com
pricegrabber.com

For the hard drive, there are lots of rebate deals on them... so you may want to get that seperately.

2- Enclosures: The main differences is the chipset and the cooling.
Those with fans help cool the drive. If the fan fails then the drive will get hot, which is very bad for reliability.
Other enclosures have passive cooling... the enclosure acts as a heat sink. They are typically smaller and make less noise (the hard drive still makes some noise).

sounds easy, im sure it isn't hard. I just got a segate 80 gig external, however I'm probably going to buy a internal and just get a enclosure as well for even more space.

Heh, ain't it the truth. I've got 3 160gb and 3 300gb (all external) and 2 200gb (internal) drives just for projects. Still not enough.

Yeah, its crazy sometimes how many gigs you need. :(