IDE or SATA.. at DVinfo.net

Vince Curtis · February 8th, 2006, 07:23 PM

for my new EXTERNAL storage hard drive on my PC ? 200 or 250 G via firewire. . .

Ive heard reasons for both. .

Any opinions ? Thanks. . .

Glenn Chan · February 8th, 2006, 10:09 PM

Most of the firewire enclosures I've seen only accept IDE hard drives.

2- The IDE and SATA interfaces have no neglible speed difference, since both are overkill.

3- Firewire (400mbps/1394a, not the 800mbps/1394b version) is slower than both, and does bottleneck performance. There are also bus sharing issues sometimes, and some firewire chipsets (i.e. prolific) can give you grief. Firewire is portable however.

Alan Craven · February 9th, 2006, 06:25 AM

Make sure you have the Oxford chipset for any firewire drive, but they really are more suited to backup storage.

You can get SATA firewire enclosures, but I doubt there would be any gain over EIDE, see below.

http://www.span.com/catalog/spanstor..._3_1&x=48&y=10

Rob Lohman · February 9th, 2006, 01:13 PM

If you use it as an external drive for a Windows PC I would go with an USB2
drive, not firewire. Or at least make sure it has both connectors. In the
(limited) speed tests I've done the speed through both ports is more or less
the same. But I (and others) have had problems daisy chaining a firewire
camera through a firewire harddrive (especially when capturing to that).

Personally I own an external Maxtor drive that has both USB2 / firewire and
I only use the USB2 port on that. The firewire port is reserved for the camera.
(for me)

Alan Craven · February 9th, 2006, 01:45 PM

The enclosure I suggested has USB2 and Firewire 800 - the best of all possible worlds!

Eniola Akintoye · February 12th, 2006, 10:32 AM

guys, what's the best hard drive (WINDOWS/MAC).... SATA or IDE?

Dale Guthormsen · February 15th, 2006, 10:36 PM

just to toss this out. I have two maxtor hard drives and I have found that once they are over half full I start getting "delayed write errors!!! I run one on usb and the other on firewire so that does not make a difference.
I am still trying to resove these problems. In hind sight I rekcon I should have put in a second drive in the computer.

gus

Don Donatello · February 15th, 2006, 11:42 PM

go into disk management and enable the write cache on the 1394 & USB external drives ...

Robert M Wright · February 22nd, 2006, 05:11 PM

The performance difference between IDE (ATA) and SATA150, per se, is fairly small. SATA2 can give you a little boost, for some things (the difference is really only in speed talking to the hard drive's cache - for large transfers, the rotation speed of the physical disk itself is the basic bottleneck).

For working with video, in general, if you need better performance from hard drives, look at 10,000rpm drives (or RAID arrays with 7200rpm drives). A low cost way to go to 10,000rpm performance is with the Western Digital Raptor series of ATA150 drives. From there, you are looking at SCSI drives (more expensive).

Robert M Wright · February 22nd, 2006, 05:13 PM

Correction: The Raptors are SATA150 drives, not ATA150.

Robert M Wright · February 22nd, 2006, 09:16 PM

Another thing that can make a huge difference in performance, working with video on computers, is using different physical disk drives for source and output files (preferably on different channels also).

For example, when rendering and compressing a video, if the output file will be on the same physical disk as the source file(s), the heads can wind up almost continually be repositioned during the process, which can drastically slow things down (while the heads are repositioning, the drive isn't reading or writing). For the same reason (reducing the need for head repositioning), keeping disk drives defragged is important also.

Glenn Chan · February 22nd, 2006, 10:23 PM

I've done some tests, and it seems that hard drive speed doesn't really make much of a difference in render speeds. It only makes a difference when the render is like a file copy, where the CPU can process faster than the hard drive can write. Usually those things don't kill your productivity... it's the really long renders that do (where CPU is the bottleneck).

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...id=18784<br />

2- In my opinion, you should go for 7200rpm drives over 10k/15k rpm drives since the storage/$ ratio is so much better. Being able to store more footage / not waste time deleting things will boost your productivity.

Most high-end video editing storage solutions are moving over to 7200rpm drives... i.e. apple's XSERV RAID.

Robert M Wright · February 23rd, 2006, 06:24 AM

There are a number of factors that, in combination, will determine whether hard drive performance will be a bottle neck or CPU performance will be a bottle neck.

What is being done during render/compression has a direct impact on CPU load, and that can vary quite dramatically from one project to another.

If filters/effects are being applied throughout the entire timeline, that can increase the load on the CPU immensely (and push bottle necking towards CPU performance). Somtimes renders include much filtering/effects. Often, renders include little, if any, filtering/effects, in most of the timeline. The range of typical loads placed on the CPU is vast.

The load codecs put on the CPU varies greatly among different codecs. The bitrates of files being read and written, impacts the load on the hard drive(s) considerably.

Faster CPUs and efficient software push the bottle necking toward hard drive performance. Considerably faster processors are commonly being used than just 3 years ago and software packages (like Vegas) have become more efficient in the meantime, but 7200rpm hard drives are still generally mainstream.

February 8th, 2006, 07:23 PM	#1
Vince Curtis Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2006 Posts: 69	IDE or SATA.. for my new EXTERNAL storage hard drive on my PC ? 200 or 250 G via firewire. . . Ive heard reasons for both. . Any opinions ? Thanks. . .

February 9th, 2006, 01:13 PM	#4
Rob Lohman RED Code Chef Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Holland Posts: 12,514	If you use it as an external drive for a Windows PC I would go with an USB2 drive, not firewire. Or at least make sure it has both connectors. In the (limited) speed tests I've done the speed through both ports is more or less the same. But I (and others) have had problems daisy chaining a firewire camera through a firewire harddrive (especially when capturing to that). Personally I own an external Maxtor drive that has both USB2 / firewire and I only use the USB2 port on that. The firewire port is reserved for the camera. (for me) __________________ Rob Lohman, visuar@iname.com DV Info Wrangler & RED Code Chef Join the DV Challenge \| Lady X Search DVinfo.net for quick answers \| Buy from the best: DVinfo.net sponsors

February 15th, 2006, 10:36 PM	#7
Dale Guthormsen Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Saskatchewan Posts: 3,048	Maxtor hard drives just to toss this out. I have two maxtor hard drives and I have found that once they are over half full I start getting "delayed write errors!!! I run one on usb and the other on firewire so that does not make a difference. I am still trying to resove these problems. In hind sight I rekcon I should have put in a second drive in the computer. gus

February 8th, 2006, 10:09 PM	#2
Glenn Chan Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 4,750	Most of the firewire enclosures I've seen only accept IDE hard drives. 2- The IDE and SATA interfaces have no neglible speed difference, since both are overkill. 3- Firewire (400mbps/1394a, not the 800mbps/1394b version) is slower than both, and does bottleneck performance. There are also bus sharing issues sometimes, and some firewire chipsets (i.e. prolific) can give you grief. Firewire is portable however.

February 9th, 2006, 06:25 AM	#3
Alan Craven Major Player Join Date: May 2003 Location: York, England Posts: 518	Make sure you have the Oxford chipset for any firewire drive, but they really are more suited to backup storage. You can get SATA firewire enclosures, but I doubt there would be any gain over EIDE, see below. http://www.span.com/catalog/spanstor..._3_1&x=48&y=10

February 9th, 2006, 01:45 PM	#5
Alan Craven Major Player Join Date: May 2003 Location: York, England Posts: 518	The enclosure I suggested has USB2 and Firewire 800 - the best of all possible worlds!

February 12th, 2006, 10:32 AM	#6
Eniola Akintoye Major Player Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Duluth GA Posts: 238	guys, what's the best hard drive (WINDOWS/MAC).... SATA or IDE?

February 15th, 2006, 11:42 PM	#8
Don Donatello Hawaiian Shirt Mogul Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: northern cailfornia Posts: 1,261	go into disk management and enable the write cache on the 1394 & USB external drives ...

February 22nd, 2006, 05:11 PM	#9
Robert M Wright Inner Circle Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Minnesota (USA) Posts: 2,171	The performance difference between IDE (ATA) and SATA150, per se, is fairly small. SATA2 can give you a little boost, for some things (the difference is really only in speed talking to the hard drive's cache - for large transfers, the rotation speed of the physical disk itself is the basic bottleneck). For working with video, in general, if you need better performance from hard drives, look at 10,000rpm drives (or RAID arrays with 7200rpm drives). A low cost way to go to 10,000rpm performance is with the Western Digital Raptor series of ATA150 drives. From there, you are looking at SCSI drives (more expensive).

February 22nd, 2006, 05:13 PM	#10
Robert M Wright Inner Circle Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Minnesota (USA) Posts: 2,171	Correction: The Raptors are SATA150 drives, not ATA150.

February 22nd, 2006, 09:16 PM	#11
Robert M Wright Inner Circle Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Minnesota (USA) Posts: 2,171	Another thing that can make a huge difference in performance, working with video on computers, is using different physical disk drives for source and output files (preferably on different channels also). For example, when rendering and compressing a video, if the output file will be on the same physical disk as the source file(s), the heads can wind up almost continually be repositioned during the process, which can drastically slow things down (while the heads are repositioning, the drive isn't reading or writing). For the same reason (reducing the need for head repositioning), keeping disk drives defragged is important also.

February 22nd, 2006, 10:23 PM	#12
Glenn Chan Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 4,750	I've done some tests, and it seems that hard drive speed doesn't really make much of a difference in render speeds. It only makes a difference when the render is like a file copy, where the CPU can process faster than the hard drive can write. Usually those things don't kill your productivity... it's the really long renders that do (where CPU is the bottleneck). http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...id=18784<br /> 2- In my opinion, you should go for 7200rpm drives over 10k/15k rpm drives since the storage/$ ratio is so much better. Being able to store more footage / not waste time deleting things will boost your productivity. Most high-end video editing storage solutions are moving over to 7200rpm drives... i.e. apple's XSERV RAID.

February 23rd, 2006, 06:24 AM	#13
Robert M Wright Inner Circle Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Minnesota (USA) Posts: 2,171	There are a number of factors that, in combination, will determine whether hard drive performance will be a bottle neck or CPU performance will be a bottle neck. What is being done during render/compression has a direct impact on CPU load, and that can vary quite dramatically from one project to another. If filters/effects are being applied throughout the entire timeline, that can increase the load on the CPU immensely (and push bottle necking towards CPU performance). Somtimes renders include much filtering/effects. Often, renders include little, if any, filtering/effects, in most of the timeline. The range of typical loads placed on the CPU is vast. The load codecs put on the CPU varies greatly among different codecs. The bitrates of files being read and written, impacts the load on the hard drive(s) considerably. Faster CPUs and efficient software push the bottle necking toward hard drive performance. Considerably faster processors are commonly being used than just 3 years ago and software packages (like Vegas) have become more efficient in the meantime, but 7200rpm hard drives are still generally mainstream.