Hard Drive Management

B

b-mac

Member
I'm in the process of setting up a few editing suites and I want to be able to have several different HDD's which all the computers will be able to access. What is the best way to achieve this?

At the moment I have four external portable USB 2.0 HDD's set up in a space in the office. Then I have a USB hub connected to a USB extension cable connected to each of the editing systems. That way I can keep the hubs next to the HDD's and just plug in whichever HDD I need to access into the appropriate hub.

Problem with this is the multitude of cords (power cords, usb cords etc.) and the space all the HDD's take up. And I'm not sure whether USB is the best way thing to use for video editing??

The editing systems are PCs' running Windows XP, but we're looking to add a Mac to the equation sometime soon...

ANY help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
 
Aren't there network drives? Ethernet-type? Not sure if that's as fast as USB2, but I think it would work for simultaneous connection.
 
You don't want to be using USB and you def don't want to be using ethernet. Firewire or SATA is the way to go.

Check out hot-swappable drives like the one's at Granite Digital. I have a dual bay enclosure set up at each of my systems and they work great if we need to swap a project around to a different editor, or take it home to work on it. We use the firewire drive bays.
 
What's wrong with ethernet? My research tells me that an ethernet connection can go up to 1000mbit/s whereas firewire is either 800 or 400mbit/s and usb 2.0 is only 480mbit/s...

A SATA hotswappable system looks to be the best with up to 3gbit/s.

Thanks for the help guys!
 
B-Mac,

I should have been more specific. Ethernet is fine, but only if it is Gigabit ethernet. The problem with most hard drive systems that are sold with ethernet is that they come with 100Base-T, which is 10 times slower. Also, people don't realize that if you have Gigabit ethernet, then you can't put that drive through a router and then to your computer unless the router supports GigEthernet. Most routers, switches and hubs are all 100 or 10Base-T. You need to specifically purchase everything that has Gig Ethernet to make this work properly, and then make sure your computer supports it (Most Pro Macs do).

The easy way for me to answer the original question is just tell you to work on Firewire, which is less expensive, fast, and everyone has it. I don't recommend USB because USB2 is fast, yes, but it works on burst speeds, meaning the high bandwith it can produce goes in waves and is not constant like Firewire.

For more info, you can look at this link:
http://lyberty.com/tech/terms/usb.html
 
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