Thanks Ervin for the prompt reply. Now you said that you can connect the external hard drive via USB or FireWire. Which one is better to use?

Stelios

Personally, I prefer USB2.0. In practical terms there is little difference. However, when a camcorder is connected, the speed of the FireWire bus can drop to 100Mbps.

I leave all my FireWire ports free for my DV devices. I have two FireWire interfaces giving a total of six ports.

I typically have three USB2.0 drives (which also have FireWire) connected at the same time. I can reliably capture DV from three devices at the same time to two of the drives (i.e., two capture files on one and one on the other). I tried it a couple of times with four and it still worked flawlessly.

USB2.0 interfaces on external drives also seem to behave better with the computer. I have found that sometimes connecting via FireWire doesn't work at first. I have to turn the drive off and back on a number of times. Naturally, I don't like having to do that.

John.

I've got 24 LaCie drives (the triple or quadruple interface ones in aluminum enclosures), and they're used for capture and editing. When one's almost full, its retired and a new one takes its place - only one hard disk attached to the system.

I use FireWire 800 to connect them to the laptop. Works fine for DV, HDV, DCPro-HD and AIC. I've been capturing from DV to an external drive using a laptop since 2001. Even before then with a FireWire PCMCIA card in a laptop, but it was a little more hit and miss then.

Every 3 months, I connect each drive, so it's spun up and re-indexed to keep things moving.

I've had no problems with drives of 500 GB and below. I have a litany of woes with larger drives (some of which were really expensive - G-Raid, Glyph and so on). So I don't bother now.

A client once provided Western Digital drives, which - using USB - didn't quite make the grade for capture and editing. I'm sticking to FireWire, though USB can be used for editing DV.

I've even resorted to using an iPod to edit from whilst finishing a job in a hotel in Morrocco. There were frequent power cuts, but the laptop and the iPod just kept on going on batteries thanks to the UPS-like power chain.

My setup is Final Cut Pro on a PowerBook or MacBook Pro. I did try a similar setup with Avid Express Pro (hence the need for Glyph drives as LaCie's weren't deemed good enough by Avid) but it never worked, even using the wierd striping software that was recommended at extra expense. The Glyph drive failed a while later, and I left Avid for ever. But the nurse says I must rest now...

Thanks for all of the input all! This is great!

someone mentioned the drives getting hot. I was thinking one could set them on a laptop chill pad if they get too hot. Chill pads are cheap and they work really well.

just my $.02


Lowell

Stelios, as you can see from the replies to your question, there is no final answer to this question. I have studied this myself and came to the conclusion that USB is a much more mature technology, and it is implemented in absolutely all PCs, while firewire, although it may have a higher transfer rate, it is more of a manufacturer-dependent connection method. On top of it, firewire-equipped external hard drives are significantly more expensive (about 50%).

So while in certain situations, on certain computers firewire may perform better, in most situations USB is better overall. As mentioned above, my point is arguable, so you're better off reading some more and deciding for yourself based on all the info you can put your hands on.

2 x 36.7 10,000rpm Raptors in Raid 0 for OS/Programs
2 x 250 7,200rpm Seagates for Storage
2 x 500 7,200rpm Seagates for Storage

All internal, I'm very cheap... I managed to get the 500's for $85 each back 3-4 months ago... 250's I probably paid $80 a piece for a year or so ago... and the raptors I paid $75 each for 2 used ones...

I also bought 50 mini-DV sony premium tapes for $100... I am very budgety... especially since I'm not making money filming anything yet :)

I capture to the raptors, then dump the files to the 500's, once those fill up I'll start using the 250's or get more drives...

http://www.lousyheros.com/pics/tapes.jpg - 6 months of filming on weekends... Wooo