partition your disc!!!.

V

Voytek_Stitko

Well-known member
is it true that i should make partition of my external hard drive?

how to do it and how you do it and how it works for editing?

thanks,

voytek
 
Re: partition your disc!!!.

I would have to dissagree with that. I use two external hard drives, one strictly for backup and one just for video editing. my external 200gig hard drive is easily just as fast as my additional 120gig internal video drive. I have used it with permiere pro and vegas and never had any problems. I have captured hours of video with narry the dropped frame. As far as partitioning your external drive, that can help when defragmenting and for giving you faster access time, however you will need a program like "partition magic" to do it correctly, and safely. You can even partition a drive that already has data on it without losing a thing, however it is always a good idea to back things up before you do any hard drive work.
 
Re: partition your disc!!!.

[quote author=Michael_Petro link=board=Vegas;num=1083205583;start=0#1 date=04/28/04 at 22:02:36]i woouldn't use an external drive they just to slow..[/quote]

They may be too slow if you're talking about an external drive with an USB 1.1 interface of two years ago!  ;)

Pair up pretty much any recent model 7200+RPM drive with an external enclosure having any combination of USB 2.0, Firewire 400, or Firewire 800 interfaces, and you've got a media disk that can handle DV without any problem :)

As far as partitioning your disk, AFAIK, the only reason you'd want to do that is if you're working on an operating system that doesn't support single partitions as large as your HD.  Otherwise, formatting the entire HD as a single partition is a good idea.
 
Re: partition your disc!!!.

you guys must have usb 2/FW. warp speed:) cuase its just to slow. 400/480 Mbps is sluggish when it comes to video(IMO).. that said I have 2 external drives. 1 7200rpm 120 gig for data storage only and 1 dvd burner(both in combo usb2(hispeed) and firewire cases. they are great I love them(aint giving them up) but they do not even come close to the speed of my 2 internal 120 sata drives. Maybe i am just impatiant ....

OK heres some hd specs i just ran real quick just for fun..

** Really if you like use it and if it works use it... i am just picky and i want light speed +2 if i could afford it:)

Using sandra(the program not my mothers sister) my external usb2(high speed 480Mbits wd 8MB cache 120 gig 7200rpm) is about 18 to 24 MB/s ( thats Capital MB) slower than my internal drives. On sequential reads and writes almost 46% slower than internals. When Comparing burst rates, good lawd batman usb wasnt in the ballpark. I did not test 800Mbits firewire mostly cuase i dont have it :) so imo use internal.. but if you like external use it.. I just dont like for me .... see i'm easy like that :)

I know my grammer is horrible but hey she's a nice old lady :)

http://www.petrovideo.com
http://www.jmptechnologies.com ( my other company )
 
Re: partition your disc!!!.

Couple info about HD speed.
Setup multiple partions on single physicle HD will slow down preformance.
Setup on same IDE bus DVD(CD) rom and HD will slow down transfer rate to slowest device.
External USB/FW device speed depend on PCI bus speed on your MB, Controler speed and Bus controler on your MB.
IDE HD/CD/DVD data process tru CPU, so speed of your processor also.
Fragmentation datat on storage device.
USB2 protocol preform better on small data brust, and FW best for big file trasfer.
RAID 0 (Striping) increase speed trasfer and data access.
IDE RAID cards some MB has them unload data from CPU transfer, it increase preformace a lot.
Internal or External location for Hard drive should't effect prefformance, except when it's using different controlers, or any other diffect with cabels, case, power supply.
If possible try to avoid create multiple partitions on same HD.
 
Re: partition your disc!!!.

its important to know, that if you have 2 firewire or USB2 devices on the same controller, the bandwidth is cut in half.

Me personally, I hate externals except for backup. They are slower without a question than internal drives, IDE or SATA. I cant give you numbers, but I have about a tetrabyte of storage in this system across 5 drives and every drive will outperform my external 120gb 7200 in a heartbeat.
 
Re: partition your disc!!!.

Externals are often much slower. However, they can be nice for portability/flexibility. You can plug a project in to your laptop and then plug it into your main computer and then take it somewhere else. And often the speed differences aren't that noticeable.

Partitioning your drive may slow it down. However, you may need smaller partitions (under 120gig) to run scandisk and defrag on older systems (Windows 98) or for other compatibility issues. Most of the time, though, it's best to not partition when you are using a drive for video editing.
 
Re: partition your disc!!!.

I only have a single 120G drive in my PC now and i have been told that two should be used for video work. Whats an ideal setup of internal hard drives? What brand do you all prefer? And why is it so important to have more than one?
Thanks
 
Re: partition your disc!!!.

having more than one on a Raid configuration essentially doubles the bandwidth of the drives.. so in a stripe 0 you basically get 2 drives that act as 1, so more data can go through.
 
Re: partition your disc!!!.

If you mean that you only have one drive for everything (i.e. OS, programs, and media files), then the reason you would want more than one drive is so that you can have a separate drive solely for media files (video, audio, etc.).  Media files of these sorts are generally large in filesize, and thus, they will also take a lot of bandwidth to move around.  If a system only has a single drive, it is being accessed by the OS, the program(s) you're using (your NLE for instance), and the media files being used in the program.  That's a lot for one disk to do at the same time!  Most of the time what happens is that you experience dropped frames.  So, a separate drive for just media files can take the stress off having just one drive do it all, and assists with eliminating dropped frames.

Tho I have captured and worked on a single drive when I had to use a laptop for my video work for about a month awhile back, I did have issues with dropped frames, etc. (most laptop HDs are slower to begin with), but a separate HD for media is pretty much the only way to work IMHO :)
 
Re: partition your disc!!!.

Jive, that was exactly what i needed to know. Im not currently getting any dropped frames but i sure don't want any in the future. Do you have any brand sugestions. Im currently using a WD drive. How big should the drive be for all the program files?
 
Re: partition your disc!!!.

Your OS and programs can be installed on the same drive. A 20GB (small by today's standards) would be more than enough for most people. An OS such as Windows XP would take up ~7GB on a standard install, and the remaining space is quite a bit if all you're doing is installing programs on it.

As far as a proper size for a media drive, I always use the formula 13GB/Hour (a bit more than the filesize of an hour of DV25 footage) to determine how much a HD will hold. When using this formula, you also have to take into the account the disk space "lost" to the formatting of the disk. For instance, a 120GB will be ~115GB in capacity after formatting, so using the simple formula, you'll find that you could store nearly 9 hours of raw DV25 footage on it (a percentage of the storage space will also be taken up by render files and the like created by your NLE once you start adding effects, transitions, etc.).

As drives have reached a fairly fast speed these days, dropped frames is often not the utmost concern. I find that having separate disks for separate purposes (programs, media files, etc.) is very valuable for increased reliability. Just as an example, in your current configuration, what would happen if your single drive took a nose dive and crashed? You'd lose your OS, all your installed programs, AND all the video files, project files, etc. that you've been working on. While you can reinstall your OS and your programs, there's no way to recover all of your work unless you backup regularly (which is also highly recommended). Having a separate media drive just adds another layer of insurance for you. While drives can and do crash, separating your media from your system (which is more prone to errors due to possible system conflicts, etc.) simply gives you better odds that your work will be safe IMHO.
 
Re: partition your disc!!!.

Jive, thank you for such a detailed post. Since i don't have a lot of time, i think i will just go ahead and buy another 120G drive for my media files. My current drive my be excessive for just my programs but i found a good deal on a 120G.
 
Re: partition your disc!!!.

Regarding external drives, anyone have any opinions or advice on off-the-shelf vs roll-your-own?

I'm going to put a 200GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 Plus in a Granite Digital FireVue 400 enclosure. I read so many contradictory opinions about the performance, reliability and quietness of the different brands (e.g., these drives rock! -- I'll never buy that brand again – this drive makes a loud meowing sound every 10 minutes -- etc). Finally I decided to go the enclosure route because the drive I chose has a 3-year warranty, but only a 1-year warranty if I buy it in Seagate's off-the-shelf version.

Also looked at Granite's SATA enclosure, but I've read the SATA Working Group has not yet finalized the extensions for external SATAs, and I'm leery of buying something that may not comply with industry standards.

Intended use is with a VAIO notebook and Vegas.
 
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