Will a USB External Drive Suffice for Editing in Vegas? at DVinfo.net

Alan Henderson · November 20th, 2007, 01:22 PM

I am currently using 1394a external hard drives, but have a problem with one of the drives dropping off when I add a camcorder to my system (for capture).

Because of this issue, I was thinking about USB this time around.

My primary workload will be adding FX filters to an AVI file in Vegas 6.0, then exporting.

Would I be digressing by going with USB?

alan

Mike Kujbida · November 20th, 2007, 01:32 PM

I use USB drives all the time (at work and at home) and haven't had any problems whatsoever.

John Miller · November 20th, 2007, 01:57 PM

Ditto.

Camcorders interfering with hard drives on the IEEE-1394 bus is a well known issue. Many of my external drives are USB and FireWire but I always use the USB option.

Alan Henderson · November 20th, 2007, 02:13 PM

Thanks for taking the time to respond.

I'm off to get a new drive.

alan

Sean Seah · November 21st, 2007, 07:25 AM

Wait Alan!! there is a get around to the problem. I always load the camcorder first and get it regonised before starting up the ext HDD. It works fine. Firewire will be better for editing. I have both options with USB and Firewire.. my advise is to go for the latter.

Steven Davis · November 21st, 2007, 08:07 AM

I use external/usb for both editing and capturing. You just want to make sure you don't get a crappy drive. I would stay away from generic drives. Honestly, one of the best things I have is an icy dock usb/firewire bay and I just swap drives in and out. It's like butta.

Edward Troxel · November 21st, 2007, 08:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sean Seah

Wait Alan!! there is a get around to the problem. I always load the camcorder first and get it regonised before starting up the ext HDD. It works fine. Firewire will be better for editing. I have both options with USB and Firewire.. my advise is to go for the latter.

I run my deck THROUGH the drive :-)

Computer -> firewire -> hdd -> firewire -> deck

I can still capture/PTT with that external drive in this configuration as well!

John Miller · November 21st, 2007, 08:47 AM

One of the things that can happen when you daisy chain the drive and the camcorder/deck is that the IEEE-1394 bus will drop its speed to that of the lowest device on the bus. Typically, this is the DV device and can result in the drive running at 100Mbps instead of the expected 400Mbps. Whether this happens is very specific to the camcorder/deck. Either way, the bus can only support 400Mbps in total so if data are being transferred to/from the DV device, it will take away from the overall bandwidth available to the drive (though a drop of 25Mbps + overhead is relatively minor).

Andy Wilkinson · November 21st, 2007, 09:50 AM

One point regarding USB external drives. I use two Seagate 320GB Barracuda drives for storing all my master HDV video clips etc. These were relatively cheap about 6 months ago and seem to work really, really well on USB 2.0 ports. They are 7200 RPM, both set up as NTFS (not FAT32) and have a 8MB internal buffer.

I was wondering if the newer external drives with 16MB buffer that are starting to appear everywhere now might be better for video editing?

Any comments from anybody that knows the details on this kind of stuff?

Andy

Alan Henderson · November 21st, 2007, 05:28 PM

I just purchased two Hitachi 1T USB drives.

Each has a 32mb buffer.

If I load a file off of that drive, and a copy of the same file off an internal 10,000 RPM Seagate drive, there is a noticeable difference in performance.

The Seagate drive is 150 gig and cost twice as much as the Hitachi.

I also have Firewire drives, but use them for normal data, not video editing.

For the price, $199 each, I could not pass on the Hitachi drives.

I am also editing AVI files, as opposed to smaller MPEG files.

alan

John Miller · November 21st, 2007, 06:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alan Henderson

I just purchased two Hitachi 1T USB drives.

Each has a 32mb buffer.

If I load a file off of that drive, and a copy of the same file off an internal 10,000 RPM Seagate drive, there is a noticeable difference in performance.

The Seagate drive is 150 gig and cost twice as much as the Hitachi.

I also have Firewire drives, but use them for normal data, not video editing.

For the price, $199 each, I could not pass on the Hitachi drives.

I am also editing AVI files, as opposed to smaller MPEG files.

alan

I assume you are seeing the internal drive being faster.

Current generation external USB and FireWire drives will never compete with the speed of an internal drive, especially modern SATA ones. Depending on the flavor of SATA, it can achieve transfer rates of 300MBps, i.e., 2400Mbps compared to both USB2.0 and FireWire 400's approx 400Mbps.

Harold Brown · November 21st, 2007, 07:46 PM

USB drives also consume a little CPU power.

Duane Burleson · November 22nd, 2007, 12:33 AM

My external drives have both USB2 and Firewire 400. When I capture from my camera it is plugged into the firewire and the drive into USB2. When I'm editing I switch the drive to firewire. Less use of CPU cycles and it works great.

Duane

Jeff Harper · November 22nd, 2007, 09:37 AM

Where are 1Tb hard drives for sale at $199, that is all I want to know! Never mind, I see now that they were external drives.

A bit off subject, I personally have moved to all internal drives. I set up a server last week due to the slowness of externals. Externals are great for mobility, but I got tired of them otherwise, especially the firewire issues.

I took an old tower that accomodates many drives, and hooked it up to my workstation via ethernet which is a 1GB per second connection. I run raid 0 on 2 sets of 500GB SATA drives and back up everything twice. Transfer rates are extremely fast. Since I run an ethernet connection for my broadband, I had to add an inexpensive NIC card, but otherwise it was an almost no cost solution to my storage issues.

Alan Henderson · November 22nd, 2007, 11:39 AM

Does your ethernet connection between the two computers require that you be running server/networking software, as opposed to plain Windows XP?

thanks..alan

November 20th, 2007, 01:22 PM	#1
Alan Henderson Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Athens, GA Posts: 96	Will a USB External Drive Suffice for Editing in Vegas? I am currently using 1394a external hard drives, but have a problem with one of the drives dropping off when I add a camcorder to my system (for capture). Because of this issue, I was thinking about USB this time around. My primary workload will be adding FX filters to an AVI file in Vegas 6.0, then exporting. Would I be digressing by going with USB? alan

November 20th, 2007, 02:13 PM	#4
Alan Henderson Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Athens, GA Posts: 96	Excellent...thanks Thanks for taking the time to respond. I'm off to get a new drive. alan

November 21st, 2007, 08:07 AM	#6
Steven Davis Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Richmond, VA Posts: 3,065	I use external/usb for both editing and capturing. You just want to make sure you don't get a crappy drive. I would stay away from generic drives. Honestly, one of the best things I have is an icy dock usb/firewire bay and I just swap drives in and out. It's like butta. __________________ What happens if I push the 'Red' button?

November 21st, 2007, 09:50 AM	#9
Andy Wilkinson Inner Circle Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Cambridge UK Posts: 2,853	One point regarding USB external drives. I use two Seagate 320GB Barracuda drives for storing all my master HDV video clips etc. These were relatively cheap about 6 months ago and seem to work really, really well on USB 2.0 ports. They are 7200 RPM, both set up as NTFS (not FAT32) and have a 8MB internal buffer. I was wondering if the newer external drives with 16MB buffer that are starting to appear everywhere now might be better for video editing? Any comments from anybody that knows the details on this kind of stuff? Andy Last edited by Andy Wilkinson; November 21st, 2007 at 09:52 AM. Reason: Typos!

November 21st, 2007, 05:28 PM	#10
Alan Henderson Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Athens, GA Posts: 96	Just bought 2 USB drives I just purchased two Hitachi 1T USB drives. Each has a 32mb buffer. If I load a file off of that drive, and a copy of the same file off an internal 10,000 RPM Seagate drive, there is a noticeable difference in performance. The Seagate drive is 150 gig and cost twice as much as the Hitachi. I also have Firewire drives, but use them for normal data, not video editing. For the price, $199 each, I could not pass on the Hitachi drives. I am also editing AVI files, as opposed to smaller MPEG files. alan

November 20th, 2007, 01:32 PM	#2
Mike Kujbida Inner Circle Join Date: May 2005 Location: Windsor, ON Canada Posts: 2,770	I use USB drives all the time (at work and at home) and haven't had any problems whatsoever.

November 20th, 2007, 01:57 PM	#3
John Miller Major Player Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Hillsborough, NC, USA Posts: 968	Ditto. Camcorders interfering with hard drives on the IEEE-1394 bus is a well known issue. Many of my external drives are USB and FireWire but I always use the USB option.

November 21st, 2007, 07:25 AM	#5
Sean Seah Trustee Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Singapore Posts: 1,498	Wait Alan!! there is a get around to the problem. I always load the camcorder first and get it regonised before starting up the ext HDD. It works fine. Firewire will be better for editing. I have both options with USB and Firewire.. my advise is to go for the latter.

November 21st, 2007, 08:47 AM	#8
John Miller Major Player Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Hillsborough, NC, USA Posts: 968	One of the things that can happen when you daisy chain the drive and the camcorder/deck is that the IEEE-1394 bus will drop its speed to that of the lowest device on the bus. Typically, this is the DV device and can result in the drive running at 100Mbps instead of the expected 400Mbps. Whether this happens is very specific to the camcorder/deck. Either way, the bus can only support 400Mbps in total so if data are being transferred to/from the DV device, it will take away from the overall bandwidth available to the drive (though a drop of 25Mbps + overhead is relatively minor).

November 21st, 2007, 07:46 PM	#12
Harold Brown Regular Crew Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: North East Ohio Posts: 84	USB drives also consume a little CPU power.

November 22nd, 2007, 12:33 AM	#13
Duane Burleson Regular Crew Join Date: May 2006 Location: Sterling Heights, Michigan Posts: 105	My external drives have both USB2 and Firewire 400. When I capture from my camera it is plugged into the firewire and the drive into USB2. When I'm editing I switch the drive to firewire. Less use of CPU cycles and it works great. Duane

November 22nd, 2007, 09:37 AM	#14
Jeff Harper Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 8,425	Where are 1Tb hard drives for sale at $199, that is all I want to know! Never mind, I see now that they were external drives. A bit off subject, I personally have moved to all internal drives. I set up a server last week due to the slowness of externals. Externals are great for mobility, but I got tired of them otherwise, especially the firewire issues. I took an old tower that accomodates many drives, and hooked it up to my workstation via ethernet which is a 1GB per second connection. I run raid 0 on 2 sets of 500GB SATA drives and back up everything twice. Transfer rates are extremely fast. Since I run an ethernet connection for my broadband, I had to add an inexpensive NIC card, but otherwise it was an almost no cost solution to my storage issues.

November 22nd, 2007, 11:39 AM	#15
Alan Henderson Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Athens, GA Posts: 96	Tell me more about your setup. Does your ethernet connection between the two computers require that you be running server/networking software, as opposed to plain Windows XP? thanks..alan