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External HDD when editing?
Hey,
Im using Premier CS5.5 on a MBP 13″ i5 8gb Ram, I have two hard drives; one is a Lacie 500gb (firewire 800) and the other a Seagate (1Tb) Firewire.The problem I have is that when running speed test on either harddrives gives me 70mbps on the Lacie and 50mbps on the Seagate. However, in reality, when editing, the Seagate proves to work faster without as many needs for rendering. When I got the the Lacie and formatted through Disc Utility, what I options should I choose for best performance? What I had before was Mac OSX Journaled.
If you’re a pro, what do you do, do you use the footage of an external HDD? If so what brand?
Thanks,
Robin -
9 Replies
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I’ve had very good luck with G-Tech drives attached to a MBP via FireWire, however, the files I was editing with were ProRes 422 and their smaller file sizes (relative to their camera originals) contributed to my positive experience.
A little off-topic: I just spent a couple days working on a PC with an external USB 3.0 drive and that was a great experience. I was very impressed with the performance and found it comparable to my past experiments with Thunderbolt (on a 17′ MBP).
Hope this helps!
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You will basically need a better enclosure. Firewire 800 is pretty slow these days VS Esata/Thurderbolt/USB 3.
If you have either Thurderbolt, or an express card slot, you could look at Caldigit, they are coming out with pretty cool new drives that are MBP compatible.
You’ll also have to look at RAID enclosures for anything significantly faster than what you are getting now.
Vince Becquiot
Kaptis Studios
San Francisco – Bay Area -
Thanks for the reply. My MBP doesnt have thunderbolt port, If I get a USB3.0 external drive you think that’d be faster than firewire 800?
FYI, Im editing Log C Alexa footage.
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You think I can still pull off Esata or USB 3.0 based on these ports? Check out the image
https://www.anvika.com/prod_album/large/MAC12661A/MAC12661A-03.jpg
Based on the ports I have what would you suggest?thanks!
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Yes, there are eSata express cards available. USB 3 would also be a great option. I honestly don’t like Esata on a laptop because it’s so easy to knock out. In the end, USB 3 with a small RAID 5 enclosure would do you best.
Vince Becquiot
Kaptis Studios
San Francisco – Bay Area -
Perfect! Will it be portable as well?
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If you’re looking at USB 3 drives, check out Caldigit’s AV drive. I’ve always used Caldigit’s RAIDs (FW and esata), they’re rock solid.
Kannan Raghavan
The Big Toad Films Pte. Ltd. -
[Robin Changizi] “Thanks for the reply. My MBP doesnt have thunderbolt port, If I get a USB3.0 external drive you think that’d be faster than firewire 800?”
No. Your MBP don’t have USB 3.0.
It will run instead at downgraded USB 2.0 speed, so FW800 would be significantly faster.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
To return your original question:
I don’t know if there’s anything that would be able to speed up your Lacie. If disk tests say it’s faster, it likely is faster. Is there a difference in the type of content between the two drives?
FW800, while not the fastest thing anymore, should be able to be just fine for most flavors of video these days.
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