What HDD for video caputre/editing ?

[kevind224]

oops, forgot to answer the other question, the drive I bought as 2mb cache. It states this on the box and it also states it's Diamond Max Plus 40, which I think all have 2 mb, but I may be wrong. The drive does benchmark pretty well, 12,800 in Sandra 2000.
Over 18 mb/sec in the Matrox utility.

Kevin

[CrispuloV]

Hello
MikkoJ mentioned that if your capture drive is almost full, you may run into problems. I suppose this is because you will be capturing onto the inner (slowest) part of the drive because the outer (faster) portion will have been filled up already.
May I suggest a work around this problem. Use Symantec's speedisk program and go to "Properties" then "Options" then "Customize" then at the "Files at End" tab, enter *.*. This will bring all your files to the end of the drive leaving the front of your drive free for faster captures.
Regards

[CrispuloV]

Hello
MikkoJ mentioned that if your capture drive is almost full, you may run into problems. I suppose this is because you will be capturing onto the inner (slowest) part of the drive because the outer (faster) portion will have been filled up already.
May I suggest a work around this problem. Use Symantec's speedisk program and go to "Properties" then "Options" then "Customize" then at the "Files at End" tab, enter *.*. This will bring all your files to the end of the drive leaving the front of your drive free for faster captures.
Regards

[BajIvan]

KevinD224 .. mm .. the benchmark results of that drive are pretty impresive!

CrispuloV - that is a good idea! And it may well come to use sometime. However I think I have to solve the problem by buying another HDD .. People here are right to say that a single HDD is affected by I/O interrupts, and one need to have a HDD on a different channel.

[CrispuloV]

Hello Ivan,
Well, right now, I have only one Hard disk. It is a 20.4 Gb 6800+ Maxtor. It is partitioned into 4, with c: being 2gb, and my capture partition d:\ which is 13gb. I have had no problems with dropped frames whether capturing CIF MPEG4 at 30 frames/sec or MJPEG CIF at good MJPEG quality. I am using Win98/Marvel400. My processor is only a Celeron 400 running at 450Mhz. It's not a cutting edge system. but I am very happy with the quality I get. Of course I am hoping to buy a 10Gb hard disk sometime to use as a boot disk.
If you like to email me direct I'll be glad to give you more info on my system and my experiences. I am new to video capture/editing, too.
Regards

[ckj]

You always speak about diamond hd.
I think that IBM drives (7200 2Mb u66) are pretty good too.
What do you think?

[BajIvan]

Ckj,

At the moment I have 10.1 GB IBM 7200 rpm, 2MB cache .. and am very happy with its performance .. only that it is a little small .. Maxtor, as I investigated, is generally 5-10% cheaper than a IBM with the same specs. .. So may be that's why people are talking about it more ..

I am considering both manufacturers .. and will buy the one which is in stock at the moment I decide to really go for it.

CrispuloV,

Thank you for sharing your experiences .. Everything that is said here is of great help to me. I may drop you few lines on the e-mail sometime as well.

Cheers

Ivan

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PIII500, 64MB, 10.1 GB IBM 7200rpm,
G400DH, 32MB + RR-G

[Tinnes]

Hey I'm currently using a 8.4GB Western Digital drive (2 Partitions) and I was thinking about getting another WD probably either 27GB or 30GB. Has anyone heard anything about them good or bad? My current one may not be that fastest thing ever but it's as solid as a rock and I can capture full res MJPEG best quality with only the occational dropped frame.