External Hard Drive ( HDD ) thread

if someone could help me with this it would be awesome.

im running a pc with vista, my friend gave me a hard drive (seagate free agent go flex) with alot of footage to edit. so i plug the hard drive into the usb port, my computer downloads the drivers, and then nothing, i cant access the hard drive and open the files, but my computer recognizes it. when i go into the control panel>hardware and sound>device manager, it shows up under disk drives. so can anyone help me out with opening the files? i have a WD mybook that when i plug it in via firewire, shows up under hard disc drives in Computer, then i can just open the files. any help is greatly appreciated.
 
No, if it was formatted with Apple's OS. There is a way to format a drive on the Mac with Windows based formatting. I would give the client back the drive and either tell them to give you a properly formatted drive or give them one yourself. Good luck!
 
I drop all my video files in a folder on my hd on my desktop on my iMac. Should I back up those over time machine?
And are there any alternatives for a LaCie d2 Quadra Hard Disk (around 250$).


I also wan't to use it for editing afterwards. Should I go for a Raid (2-big Quadra 2TB) directly?
 
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Hi

I am looking for some advice.

I recently setup a business for video production and am now looking at finding a good solution for edit drives/backup.

I currently have a 500Gb Maxtor drive for my time machine, and a 1Tb drive for the raw P2 data thats ready for import into FCP. I was just going to buy another 1 or 2 tb drive for my edit drive. However I dont think this setup would be the best, as it doesnt offer any backup of the data. Is there a good simple raid box that people here would recommend? I have never really looked into raid before, so am a little lost.

Any other solutions are welcome.

Thanks
 
Based on this thread, Western Digital seems to be the way to go.
I just received a 640GB Western Digital My Passport Studio Portable Hard Drive and I'm pretty happy with it! It's quiet, fast (firewire-800), sleek and affordable ($99.95 from B&H). I use it to hold my music and I'm going to edit off of the drive as well. I also ordered a Western Digital 2TB Elements Desktop External Hard Drive which will act as a back up drive for raw footage, completed projects, and etc.
 
I read through this forum but looks like everyone is talking about external drives for computers/editing so far.
Is anyone recording from an HPX170 direct to SSD via SDI?
If so, is there an appreciable difference in recorded image quality over and above recording to P2?,
i.e. is it worth it the effort?
In theory, there should be since you are bypassing the internal codec but I would like to hear from someone who has or is actually doing this. Also interested in what external drive are you using, Samurai, Pix240, Blackmagic or what?
Thanks,
g
 
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Since the topic has kind of meandered here and there, and there haven't been too many posts recently, I thought I'd ask (and so newcomers can find their answer quicker) :)

What options exist in 2012 to record directly from an HVX-200 to an external source, either HDD, or laptop (if you have answers for both, great!)

Thanks all!
Aza

--I actually have a shoot coming up in July where I'm trying to find the cheapest way to record on 3 cameras at 8 hours straight of footage for each!
 
Oops.. re "I prefer the 250gig. I have about 6 of them, and dont think you need any bigger."

My experience has been different - I have 3 external drives x 3 TB each which I bought for about $175 each, all full, and no more usb ports on my computer (I think hardware for PCs is less that for Macs)

I do archives for around 3 x 2-hour stage/music events per month, make training videos on an ongoing basis, and take on any corporate interviews/documentary work I can get.

I suppose I could have gone for something like http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/883809-REG/Drobo_15TB_5x3TB_Drobo_5D.html at $1,700 (much faster).

The specs say you can add any 3.5 drive so I am wondering if this means the enclosure comes with trays (i.e. remove the drives from their current mounts and put one in each tray?)

Surely in a year from now we will see 10Tb drives at lower prices and next we are likely to see SSDs at affordable prices? So, I have been holding out.

Suggestions?

While on the topic of storage, does it make sense to archive to blu-ray discs (25GB)?

I find the blu-ray blanks expensive and have yet to find a source that packages these in quantities of 100. I get blank 4.7 Gb ordinary DVDs for around 22 cents each which is sort of OK. but you need several of these to hold one project.

 
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I originally bought a Seagate GoFlex thunderbolt adapter to dump CF cards through.

But I then found a need to get some external storage. Now, since Thunderbolt is here, I'm not going to go out and waste money on USB 2 and FW800 drives, so I was a bit at a loss until Caldigit comes out with their Thunderbolt raids.

So what to do... well, at first I wanted a real enclosure. But then I thought... why bother? They are all so damn expensive and I never use any of the software that comes with them.
What I chose to do is buying cheap WD Green 2.5" internal drives. 2TB costs so little... and then you can just shelf them when not needed.
 
Yes, I have a WD MyBook 3Tb. It works fine. I have two other externals (Seagate, Verbatim), same size, can't say I have ever noticed any performance difference between the three. The B&H price is about right.
 
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