Dedicated hard drive for my video files

I am starting to enjoy using my miniDv camcorder and realize I am running
tight on disk space.

I have a laptop with 40 Gig HD.

I also have a Firewire PC Card with 2 ports - one to connect my camcorder.

As I am about to buy a second HD, an extermal model, for my camcorder
files - would it be a good idea to get a Firewire HD to connect to the 2nd
port on my card ?

Or should I get a USB 2.0 HD so that it uses a different IRQ to get better
performance ?

DS



---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
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Hi there,

USB 2 is significantly slower than Firewire. It does rather depend on
what you are going to use the second drive for...if its not for capturing,
then it probably does not matter either way.

Sharing an IRQ is not so bad if you carefully map out which IRQ is doing
what. You can then override XP and force each device to use/share a
particular IRQ. As a rough example, if your printer had an IRQ number you
could easily force the firewire card to share that number by overriding the
default settings...so long as you do not use your printer whilst capturing
or whatever, you will be fine.

Best Wishes.....John Kelly
www.the-kellys.org
www.the-kellys.co.uk

"Ride RT" <riderbmw@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:up9PxELKEHA.2784@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
> I am starting to enjoy using my miniDv camcorder and realize I am running
> tight on disk space.
>
> I have a laptop with 40 Gig HD.
>
> I also have a Firewire PC Card with 2 ports - one to connect my camcorder.
>
> As I am about to buy a second HD, an extermal model, for my camcorder
> files - would it be a good idea to get a Firewire HD to connect to the 2nd
> port on my card ?
>
> Or should I get a USB 2.0 HD so that it uses a different IRQ to get better
> performance ?
>
> DS
>
>
>
> ---
> Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
> Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
> Version: 6.0.659 / Virus Database: 423 - Release Date: 4/15/04
>
>

It is indeed for capturing my video files from my camcorder using WMM.

Am I to understand that I could hook up an external Firewre drive to the 2nd
port of my Firewire card in my notebook, while my camcorder is sending my
video thru the other port ? Performance would be good ???

You see my main HD has only 16 Gig free and it's too close for comfort when
I work on WMM projects.

Thanks.


"John Kelly" <nospam@no.spam> wrote in message
news:P0Xhc.1343$jU5.12332306@news-text.cableinet.net...
| Hi there,
|
| USB 2 is significantly slower than Firewire. It does rather depend on
| what you are going to use the second drive for...if its not for capturing,
| then it probably does not matter either way.
|
| Sharing an IRQ is not so bad if you carefully map out which IRQ is
doing
| what. You can then override XP and force each device to use/share a
| particular IRQ. As a rough example, if your printer had an IRQ number you
| could easily force the firewire card to share that number by overriding
the
| default settings...so long as you do not use your printer whilst capturing
| or whatever, you will be fine.
|



---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.665 / Virus Database: 428 - Release Date: 4/21/04

Hi there,

Well, as you already have a firewire card installed the issue of whether
or not it will take up an IRQ number is Mute. Its already there....the
options seem to me to be reduced to which external firewire capable drive
shall I buy.

I can't remember what the figures for data flow are, but I seem to
remember that a firewire card is an order of magnitude faster than USB2.
There is no contest really. But all the same I would go to my local store,
grab hold of a USB2 drive and a Firewire drive and check out the Specs for
yourself.

Best Wishes.....John Kelly
www.the-kellys.org
www.the-kellys.co.uk

"Ride RT" <riderbmw@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:OyS5qqMKEHA.1892@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
> It is indeed for capturing my video files from my camcorder using WMM.
>
> Am I to understand that I could hook up an external Firewre drive to the
2nd
> port of my Firewire card in my notebook, while my camcorder is sending my
> video thru the other port ? Performance would be good ???
>
> You see my main HD has only 16 Gig free and it's too close for comfort
when
> I work on WMM projects.
>
> Thanks.
>
>
> "John Kelly" <nospam@no.spam> wrote in message
> news:P0Xhc.1343$jU5.12332306@news-text.cableinet.net...
> | Hi there,
> |
> | USB 2 is significantly slower than Firewire. It does rather depend
on
> | what you are going to use the second drive for...if its not for
capturing,
> | then it probably does not matter either way.
> |
> | Sharing an IRQ is not so bad if you carefully map out which IRQ is
> doing
> | what. You can then override XP and force each device to use/share a
> | particular IRQ. As a rough example, if your printer had an IRQ number
you
> | could easily force the firewire card to share that number by overriding
> the
> | default settings...so long as you do not use your printer whilst
capturing
> | or whatever, you will be fine.
> |
>
>
>
> ---
> Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
> Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
> Version: 6.0.665 / Virus Database: 428 - Release Date: 4/21/04
>
>

Thank you John - much appreciated.

I'll get one of those combo enclosure - USB2/FW - and stick a fast IDE HD in
it - that'll do it.

I really was looking to know if a single FireWire PC card was up to the task
of both capturing and writing to a hard drive at the same time - whhich is
why I maybe thought writing to HD thru another I/O could improve
performance. I guess I'll be able to test it myself/

Best regards.

DS


"John Kelly" <nospam@no.spam> wrote in message
news:a85ic.1616$3w2.14170177@news-text.cableinet.net...
| Hi there,
|
| Well, as you already have a firewire card installed the issue of
whether
| or not it will take up an IRQ number is Mute. Its already there....the
| options seem to me to be reduced to which external firewire capable drive
| shall I buy.
|
| I can't remember what the figures for data flow are, but I seem to
| remember that a firewire card is an order of magnitude faster than USB2.
| There is no contest really. But all the same I would go to my local store,
| grab hold of a USB2 drive and a Firewire drive and check out the Specs for
| yourself.
|
| Best Wishes.....John Kelly
| www.the-kellys.org
| www.the-kellys.co.uk
|



---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.665 / Virus Database: 428 - Release Date: 4/21/04

I'm sure John is much more knowledgeable than I regarding
video editing, etc., but I will share my own experiences
for your information.
I have a firewire card in my desktop PC with two ports.
Like you, I was running low on disk space on my HD, so I
purchased an external, firewire connected harddrive
specifically for video downloading and editing.
First two or three attempts at download from camera to
external drive resulted in error messages and aborted
download. Messages talked about dropped frames, etc.
I went out and purchased an internal drive and have
successfully downloaded several videos from the camera
with it.
So, my experience says that firewire download from camera
to firewire connected HD does not work.
As always, results may vary. Just my personal experience.
For info, external drive is a Maxtor 3000DV, 7200 spin
rate. advertising on their site stated it was a great HD
for video. When I experienced problems and searched their
website knowledge base, the information found indicated
the drive was good for video storage and editing, but did
not recommend capture to it. Go figure.

Brian
>-----Original Message-----
>Thank you John - much appreciated.
>
>I'll get one of those combo enclosure - USB2/FW - and
stick a fast IDE HD in
>it - that'll do it.
>
>I really was looking to know if a single FireWire PC
card was up to the task
>of both capturing and writing to a hard drive at the
same time - whhich is
>why I maybe thought writing to HD thru another I/O could
improve
>performance. I guess I'll be able to test it myself/
>
>Best regards.
>
>DS
>
>
>"John Kelly" <nospam@no.spam> wrote in message
>news:a85ic.1616$3w2.14170177@news-text.cableinet.net...
>| Hi there,
>|
>| Well, as you already have a firewire card
installed the issue of
>whether
>| or not it will take up an IRQ number is Mute. Its
already there....the
>| options seem to me to be reduced to which external
firewire capable drive
>| shall I buy.
>|
>| I can't remember what the figures for data flow
are, but I seem to
>| remember that a firewire card is an order of magnitude
faster than USB2.
>| There is no contest really. But all the same I would
go to my local store,
>| grab hold of a USB2 drive and a Firewire drive and
check out the Specs for
>| yourself.
>|
>| Best Wishes.....John Kelly
>| www.the-kellys.org
>| www.the-kellys.co.uk
>|
>
>
>
>---
>Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
>Checked by AVG anti-virus system
(http://www.grisoft.com).
>Version: 6.0.665 / Virus Database: 428 - Release Date:
4/21/04
>
>
>.
>

Hi there,

Oh right, I see where you are coming from. The limiting factor as always
is the FSB (Front Side Bus Speed), The amount of times the CPU has been
stepped in order to run at the speed published and of course what type of
RAM and HardDrive and finally the speed of the firewire device.

The Camera will be the slowest !!! Next the Hard drive (Unless you are
talking about SCSI hard drives) and FSB and then the USB device.

The problem you will have is the speed through the Firewire device. I am
going to assume that they are similar to EIDE/ATA cards. If both ports are
in use at the same moment in time, and because of the circuitry the data
flow through the firewire card will run at the slowest speed for both
channels. Now that might just be a problem if my assumption is correct. And,
because I am now at the limit of my knowledge and because I can't now be
sure of what will happen on the motherboards BUS I really do think you
should ask a real technician. If it was my choice I would go with Firewire.

As you are going to buy a dual external case its almost
irrelevant....they are dammed expensive though (in the UK) I saw one in a
small computer store in Worcester last week, I forget the actual asking
price but I remember thinking there's no way I am going to pay that much (I
was actually looking for an additional internal cradle for the extra hard
drives in my machine)

If you ever get to the point of being able to do a comparison it would
be a really useful snippet of knowledge.

Best Wishes.....John Kelly
www.the-kellys.org
www.the-kellys.co.uk

"Ride RT" <riderbmw@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:e8iMX3RKEHA.2576@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
> Thank you John - much appreciated.
>
> I'll get one of those combo enclosure - USB2/FW - and stick a fast IDE HD
in
> it - that'll do it.
>
> I really was looking to know if a single FireWire PC card was up to the
task
> of both capturing and writing to a hard drive at the same time - whhich is
> why I maybe thought writing to HD thru another I/O could improve
> performance. I guess I'll be able to test it myself/
>
> Best regards.
>
> DS
>
>
> "John Kelly" <nospam@no.spam> wrote in message
> news:a85ic.1616$3w2.14170177@news-text.cableinet.net...
> | Hi there,
> |
> | Well, as you already have a firewire card installed the issue of
> whether
> | or not it will take up an IRQ number is Mute. Its already there....the
> | options seem to me to be reduced to which external firewire capable
drive
> | shall I buy.
> |
> | I can't remember what the figures for data flow are, but I seem to
> | remember that a firewire card is an order of magnitude faster than USB2.
> | There is no contest really. But all the same I would go to my local
store,
> | grab hold of a USB2 drive and a Firewire drive and check out the Specs
for
> | yourself.
> |
> | Best Wishes.....John Kelly
> | www.the-kellys.org
> | www.the-kellys.co.uk
> |
>
>
>
> ---
> Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
> Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
> Version: 6.0.665 / Virus Database: 428 - Release Date: 4/21/04
>
>

Hi Brian,

Yes, it looks as though what I suspected is in fact true.....the
firewire is being restricted by the slower device...that would mean that the
data in from the camera is not being read, hence the dropped frames. That's
a useful piece of information. Thank You.

Best Wishes.....John Kelly
www.the-kellys.org
www.the-kellys.co.uk

"Brian" <merkley@sentex.net> wrote in message
news:328501c42926$8f5d9ef0$a601280a@phx.gbl...
> I'm sure John is much more knowledgeable than I regarding
> video editing, etc., but I will share my own experiences
> for your information.
> I have a firewire card in my desktop PC with two ports.
> Like you, I was running low on disk space on my HD, so I
> purchased an external, firewire connected harddrive
> specifically for video downloading and editing.
> First two or three attempts at download from camera to
> external drive resulted in error messages and aborted
> download. Messages talked about dropped frames, etc.
> I went out and purchased an internal drive and have
> successfully downloaded several videos from the camera
> with it.
> So, my experience says that firewire download from camera
> to firewire connected HD does not work.
> As always, results may vary. Just my personal experience.
> For info, external drive is a Maxtor 3000DV, 7200 spin
> rate. advertising on their site stated it was a great HD
> for video. When I experienced problems and searched their
> website knowledge base, the information found indicated
> the drive was good for video storage and editing, but did
> not recommend capture to it. Go figure.
>
> Brian
> >-----Original Message-----
> >Thank you John - much appreciated.
> >
> >I'll get one of those combo enclosure - USB2/FW - and
> stick a fast IDE HD in
> >it - that'll do it.
> >
> >I really was looking to know if a single FireWire PC
> card was up to the task
> >of both capturing and writing to a hard drive at the
> same time - whhich is
> >why I maybe thought writing to HD thru another I/O could
> improve
> >performance. I guess I'll be able to test it myself/
> >
> >Best regards.
> >
> >DS
> >
> >
> >"John Kelly" <nospam@no.spam> wrote in message
> >news:a85ic.1616$3w2.14170177@news-text.cableinet.net...
> >| Hi there,
> >|
> >| Well, as you already have a firewire card
> installed the issue of
> >whether
> >| or not it will take up an IRQ number is Mute. Its
> already there....the
> >| options seem to me to be reduced to which external
> firewire capable drive
> >| shall I buy.
> >|
> >| I can't remember what the figures for data flow
> are, but I seem to
> >| remember that a firewire card is an order of magnitude
> faster than USB2.
> >| There is no contest really. But all the same I would
> go to my local store,
> >| grab hold of a USB2 drive and a Firewire drive and
> check out the Specs for
> >| yourself.
> >|
> >| Best Wishes.....John Kelly
> >| www.the-kellys.org
> >| www.the-kellys.co.uk
> >|
> >
> >
> >
> >---
> >Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
> >Checked by AVG anti-virus system
> (http://www.grisoft.com).
> >Version: 6.0.665 / Virus Database: 428 - Release Date:
> 4/21/04
> >
> >
> >.
> >

John,

Firewire is 400 mbps, USB2 is 480 mbps. USB2 should be faster, but in
practice it has more overhead so it is a little slower. There is no way it
can be characterized as "an order of magnitude", implying 10 times faster.
Essentially they are equivalent speedwise for use in a hard drive
application. USB2 appears in more PCs though.


"John Kelly" <nospam@no.spam> wrote in message
news:a85ic.1616$3w2.14170177@news-text.cableinet.net...
> Hi there,
>
> Well, as you already have a firewire card installed the issue of
whether
> or not it will take up an IRQ number is Mute. Its already there....the
> options seem to me to be reduced to which external firewire capable drive
> shall I buy.
>
> I can't remember what the figures for data flow are, but I seem to
> remember that a firewire card is an order of magnitude faster than USB2.
> There is no contest really. But all the same I would go to my local store,
> grab hold of a USB2 drive and a Firewire drive and check out the Specs for
> yourself.
>
> Best Wishes.....John Kelly
> www.the-kellys.org
> www.the-kellys.co.uk
>
> "Ride RT" <riderbmw@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:OyS5qqMKEHA.1892@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
> > It is indeed for capturing my video files from my camcorder using WMM.
> >
> > Am I to understand that I could hook up an external Firewre drive to the
> 2nd
> > port of my Firewire card in my notebook, while my camcorder is sending
my
> > video thru the other port ? Performance would be good ???
> >
> > You see my main HD has only 16 Gig free and it's too close for comfort
> when
> > I work on WMM projects.
> >
> > Thanks.
> >
> >
> > "John Kelly" <nospam@no.spam> wrote in message
> > news:P0Xhc.1343$jU5.12332306@news-text.cableinet.net...
> > | Hi there,
> > |
> > | USB 2 is significantly slower than Firewire. It does rather depend
> on
> > | what you are going to use the second drive for...if its not for
> capturing,
> > | then it probably does not matter either way.
> > |
> > | Sharing an IRQ is not so bad if you carefully map out which IRQ is
> > doing
> > | what. You can then override XP and force each device to use/share a
> > | particular IRQ. As a rough example, if your printer had an IRQ number
> you
> > | could easily force the firewire card to share that number by
overriding
> > the
> > | default settings...so long as you do not use your printer whilst
> capturing
> > | or whatever, you will be fine.
> > |
> >
> >
> >
> > ---
> > Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
> > Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
> > Version: 6.0.665 / Virus Database: 428 - Release Date: 4/21/04
> >
> >
>
>

For a good comparison of various drive connections see this article:
http://www6.tomshardware.com/storag...0915/index.html

For the bottom line see this graphic:
http://www6.tomshardware.com/storag...storage-17.html


"John Kelly" <nospam@no.spam> wrote in message
news:a85ic.1616$3w2.14170177@news-text.cableinet.net...
> Hi there,
>
> Well, as you already have a firewire card installed the issue of
whether
> or not it will take up an IRQ number is Mute. Its already there....the
> options seem to me to be reduced to which external firewire capable drive
> shall I buy.
>
> I can't remember what the figures for data flow are, but I seem to
> remember that a firewire card is an order of magnitude faster than USB2.
> There is no contest really. But all the same I would go to my local store,
> grab hold of a USB2 drive and a Firewire drive and check out the Specs for
> yourself.
>
> Best Wishes.....John Kelly
> www.the-kellys.org
> www.the-kellys.co.uk
>
> "Ride RT" <riderbmw@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:OyS5qqMKEHA.1892@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
> > It is indeed for capturing my video files from my camcorder using WMM.
> >
> > Am I to understand that I could hook up an external Firewre drive to the
> 2nd
> > port of my Firewire card in my notebook, while my camcorder is sending
my
> > video thru the other port ? Performance would be good ???
> >
> > You see my main HD has only 16 Gig free and it's too close for comfort
> when
> > I work on WMM projects.
> >
> > Thanks.
> >
> >
> > "John Kelly" <nospam@no.spam> wrote in message
> > news:P0Xhc.1343$jU5.12332306@news-text.cableinet.net...
> > | Hi there,
> > |
> > | USB 2 is significantly slower than Firewire. It does rather depend
> on
> > | what you are going to use the second drive for...if its not for
> capturing,
> > | then it probably does not matter either way.
> > |
> > | Sharing an IRQ is not so bad if you carefully map out which IRQ is
> > doing
> > | what. You can then override XP and force each device to use/share a
> > | particular IRQ. As a rough example, if your printer had an IRQ number
> you
> > | could easily force the firewire card to share that number by
overriding
> > the
> > | default settings...so long as you do not use your printer whilst
> capturing
> > | or whatever, you will be fine.
> > |
> >
> >
> >
> > ---
> > Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
> > Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
> > Version: 6.0.665 / Virus Database: 428 - Release Date: 4/21/04
> >
> >
>
>