I decide to buy ATA-100 HDD, but I heard that is 5400 rpm better than faster HDDs. Is that true and is IBM 20 GB 5400 rpm 2Mb, ATA100 good choice? Thanks for advices!
I would always go for a 7200rpm drive over a 5400 drive. There is almost no difference between the performace of current drives set on ATA66 or ATA100.
The best price/performance for IDE 7200 drives is the IBM GXP75 30MB at just under £4 per GB. It is also on of the fastest.
If a drive is being used for capture/editing standard DV, I ALWAYS go for 5,400rpm.
They are cheaper, quieter, and cooler-running than 7200 (as a general rule).
I'd also expect 5400 to last longer, because they are doing less work!
Bob C
I use the Maxtor 40Gb 5400, I am so impressed theres another one on it's way today. (£80 cheaper than the first one)
johnpr98
http://www.johnpr98.com
Faster drives achieve 2 things:
1 - they reduce the average access time for random access
2 - they provide faster data rates, other things being equal
For video purposes you need fast continuous data transfer, random access is irrelevant. It might seem that point 2 suggests faster is better, except for my caveat "other things being equal".
What makes other things not equal is the ever increasing storage density of drives. This is achieved by cramming the bits closer together on the disk surface, consequently more bits/second travel under the disk heads without any increase in spindle speed.
So the newest, biggest, 5400 RPM drives are also nearly always the fastest, as well as being cheaper/GB and - as Bob said - quieter and cooler.
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Richard Jones, http://www.activeservice.co.uk
Home of the MediaStudio Pro Tutorial
Bob,
Do you know someone that goes by the name of Terry James. He solves technical problems in this magazine called
Camcorder User.
On page 70 of the December issue he is asked if SCSI drives are needed for video editing.
His reply:
"..an IDE drive is perfectly adequate, though a 7200 rpm type is recommended: 5400 rpm jobs are borderline for video use."
What can we do to raise the standard of advice given by these technical experts in magazines?
[This message has been edited by Bill S (edited 28 November 2000).]
Bill,
Write to the editor?
I have given up trying to do anything else apart from maintain/improve the standards of Computer Video - that's hard enough.
Not actually true, of course, as you'll see from this posting I have just made about a non-sister publication (PCW):
http://www.dvdoctor.net/cgi-bin/ubb/Forum10/HTML/002562.html
Bob C
I doubt if the editor would understand any better than his technical "expert"- you know what some of these magazine editors are like
I emailed a link to this topic with a suggestion he might publish it next month.
I just feel sorry for their readers
Bill