Recommendations for external HD?

[RickN]

I desperately need additional HD space on my 4-yr old desktop computer (only 120 GB, 50 GB available). Obviously, there are many choices for internal drives (only PATA drives work with my MB). An external drive has several advantages. In particular, I could save recordings from Hauppauge 1600 directly to the external drive and then process them with VRD + burn to DVD on my new laptop without having to transfer between PC HD and laptop. The new laptop has USB and firewire ports. Any suggestions on a good plug and play external HD for this purpose?

Thanks!

Rick

[bits]

I desperately need additional HD space on my 4-yr old desktop computer (only 120 GB, 50 GB available). Obviously, there are many choices for internal drives (only PATA drives work with my MB). An external drive has several advantages. In particular, I could save recordings from Hauppauge 1600 directly to the external drive and then process them with VRD + burn to DVD on my new laptop without having to transfer between PC HD and laptop. The new laptop has USB and firewire ports. Any suggestions on a good plug and play external HD for this purpose?

Thanks!

Rick
Lots of options...my suggestion is to browse sites like newegg.com for external hard drive enclosures, they have lots of customer reviews on most items and newegg is solid in terms of customer service.

I personally have had great luck with the Samsung 500GB Spinpoint SATA HDD. I have a number of USB external HDD enclosures and I like the ones that are fanless and are made of Aluminum. I have two that have been running continuously for months.

A more expensive alternative would be something like this: http://www.drobo.com/products_demo.aspx

Happy hunting!

[phd]

I personally have cooked a couple of hard drive in fanless 3.5" cases. 7200 RPM drives when left on for an extended period of time. (Even aluminum cases.)

I personally recommend putting 3.5" drives in 5 1/4 external cases with fans.

Also, I have noticed a 50% increase in time when using USB 2 as opposed to FW when saving with VRD.

[RickN]

Thanks for the recommendations Pat! VRD will play a huge role in future video transfers to and from my future external HDD. Your data points are most helpful! Are you using 400 or 800 Firewire? I had been leaning towards a WD Mybook Essential from Newegg. Looks like I need to do more surfing... :-)

Best,

Rick

[phd]

You're welcome.

I assemble my own.

External 5 1/4 FW case.
Removable hard drive trays
Hard drive

This way I can have only the one case hooked up and swap hard drives. The only extra cost is extra trays and hard drives. It's a lot cheaper and much less storage.

1 fan in the external case and 2 in the removable tray for a total of 3. I don't plan to deep-fry any more hard drives.

[bits]

I personally have cooked a couple of hard drive in fanless 3.5" cases. 7200 RPM drives when left on for an extended period of time. (Even aluminum cases.)

I personally recommend putting 3.5" drives in 5 1/4 external cases with fans.

Also, I have noticed a 50% increase in time when using USB 2 as opposed to FW when saving with VRD.
I have had three different 5.25" external enclosures with fans and ended up either replacing fans or stopped using them because of excessive fan noise.

Also, the drive can have a lot to do with over heating, some models simply run hotter than others. That is why I recommended the Samsung Spinpoint, it has a wide spread reputation for running cool.

Naturally the environment can have a huge effect on how cool a drive runs in any enclosure. No air flow + a room at elevated temperature = a drive that will run hot.

As I said earlier, I have two drives in Aluminum cases that have run continuously and silently for over 3 months and are only slightly warm to the touch but they are in a air conditioned room and have good air flow around them.

[RickN]

Pat,

Good info but I can't seem to find what you are using on Newegg. Could you provide example product names and models? If not allowed on the forum, could you send examples by PM? I would like to fully benefit from your experience and expertise! :-)

Are you using the 400 or 800 Firewire?

All the best,

Rick

[RickN]

Bits,

Thanks for the info! I'll check out the Samsung as well! :-)

All the best,

Rick

[phd]

I use mainly Maxtor hard drives.

Removable drive tray.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817119502

External case.
I mainly use a generic case with no name that I acquired at a computer show. In the past I have also used the ByteCC ME-320 which I believe is a discontinued model. The cases have both FW 400 and USB 2.0 ports.

When installed, the removable tray sits forward about 1" from the front of the external case. They don't mount flush to front due to the size of the tray housing. This doesn't bother me.

Remember, this is my personal usage and preference and not an official endorsement by VideoReDo.

[Anole]

Well, as long as we are reviving this old thread, I'll add something new to it, too.

I got some external Western Digital "Passport" USB 2 drives a while back.
Then contain 2.5" drives, and I actually got them to steal the bare drives to refurbish some old laptops I located.
Turned out, the laptops had big enough drives, so I sold off the 40gb units, and kept the 60gb and 80gb models.
Recently, I tried using then as external storage for VideoReDo.

They are just dog's $%^& slow !
As soon as I bring my disk usage under control, they're going back into their boxes!
On a plus note, they run quiet and cool, days at a time.
I'm thinking they must time-out and spin down to conserve power, but even under heavy use, they don't get above ambient.

Moral of the story?
No 2.5" laptop drives!


Was talking to a buddy the other day, and he recounted some experiences he'd recently had with a SATA drive in an external USB 2 case.
Said his performance was maybe 10% below having the SATA drive hooked directly to the motherboard.

Moral of the story?
If you want to build your own, look for and test out some SATA cases or USB converters.
Let us know what you find.

Take a look at Geeks.com and use the following search string:
"USB IDE Adapters"
I haven't tried the SATA unit, but the basic IDE version is fine.