Laptop to Desktop file transfer.

[Dave Osbun]

So are you saying that the laptop ONLY has a 64gb SSD drive? After the OS install and antivirus software, you aren’t going to have much room for anything else. Most hardware ‘experts’ recommend a minimum of 120gb. I’ve never ran programs off an external drive, only used it for storage. It’s probably only going to cost you around $50 (if that!) to bump up to 120 or 128gb SSD drive, which is lower than the price of any external eSATA drive.

If the system you are buying doesn’t have a secondary internal hard drive, I think you’re making a big mistake.

Dave

Intel i5 3570K Ivy Bridge 3.40GHz quad core
Asus P8Z77V-LK
16gb RAM
ATI Radeon HD7850 2gb
Crucial M4 SSD + Seagate Barricuda 7200rpm
Windows 7 Pro 64

[Clive Mclaughlin]

Thanks Dave, I’m reading now someone saying that the SSD in the laptop is a card, and that there is an empty bay inside for a HDD.

Seems strange. But if true, it could be useful.

I guess file transfer would have to be done over a wired network then. Probably the quickest method?

[Mark Barton]

I think the esata route would be the best solution for you to move back and forth between the laptop and desktop. I would use the Windows 7 Disk Management to assign the same drive letter to that drive whether it is connected to your laptop or desktop. If you do that and keep all media and project files on the external disk, then your projects should open seamlessly on either system.

[Clive Mclaughlin]

Thanks Mark,
What about installing software on the external drive. By all accounts it shouldnt be any different to installing on an internal drive in terms of performance.

I could have a drive specifically for the Vegas install (and 3rd party stuff), and Current project raw files and project files. And work on whichever machine I wished.

[Mark Barton]

There are a few problems you will run into with that approach.

When you install or update Sony Vegas, you will need to do it on both the laptop and desktop. So even though the files are on the external drive the Windows registry is on the OS drive (drive C). You would have to install over the external drive twice for ever update and that is not an installation vendors test well. Some applications make some bad assumptions that they are on drive C, again this is the standard config the vendors will test in QA. Between the voodoo of codec installation (registering in Windows) and various copy protection enforcement with plugins, I would stay away from installing it on an external drive for the purpose of moving it back and forth between systems.

If you need to install it on an external drive, then use one that stays with the laptop and don’t install the desktop Sony Vegas on that drive. If it were me, I just justified I would buy a bigger SSD drive to avoid the cost when it all breaks down when I need it most.

Good luck,

Mark

[Clive Mclaughlin]

Yea, by the time I upgrade the OS and SSD and add a HDD etc… this is going to be pricey.

As for the eSata, I’m thinking I don’t need things to be super fast really. The idea would be that once I do a one off mirror of my raw video files on both desktop and laptop (keeping the folder structure the same), Then only thing I’ll need to copy back and forth is the Vegas project file right?

Also, i’m now looking at this one –
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Asus-K55VD-SX494H-Notebook-Graphics-Metallic/dp/B009YUF56Q/ref=sr_1_3?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1359068401&sr=1-3

Its a step down from i7 to an i5, but 8GB ram, 2GB Nvidia graphics and a 1TB HDD. Its £30 over my budget, but i don’t think I’ll do much better for the price. It’s £513 ($810)

I also really like the Ideapad though and here’s one at the same spec with a 1GB less GPU for £532 ($840)

Any advice?

[Mark Barton]

I would stick with the i7. Don’t compromise on that part.

[John Rofrano]

I agree with Mark. You really can’t install applications on an external drive with Windows like you can on a Mac. The Windows registry prevents this from working. Mac OS X has no problem with this becasue it has no notion of a silly registry and you can drag and drop applications onto any drive you want and they continue to work (even after installing them).

I do a lot of editing on an external eSATA and have no problems at all. As you pointed out, that laptop has room for an internal HDD so you could definitely pop in a 500GB HDD.

One note is that the GeForce GT 555M is kind of weak. You really should get a laptop with a GTX series card if you are planning on any GPU assistance.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Clive Mclaughlin]

Cheers John,

You say the GPU is weak. I’ll have to take your word for it. My knowledge of this is poor. When building my PC last year I figured having ANY graphics card was way better than none. I imagine now that what I ended up buying was probably the cheapest I could find and probably not much good in your opinion.

BUT, despite that likelihood, I’ve been editing perfectly fine on my desktop. Yea, maybe my preview quality is around the middle, but that’s all I need for my resolution.

If the laptop I get is similar performance to my current desktop, I’ll be happy.

[John Rofrano]

[Clive McLaughlin] “When building my PC last year I figured having ANY graphics card was way better than none.”

That’s no longer true with Vegas Pro 11 & 12. If your GPU is slower than your CPU it will slow the system down and you’ll need to disable GPU acceleration in the preferences. You can see how it performs once you get it and decide what to do.

[Clive McLaughlin] “If the laptop I get is similar performance to my current desktop, I’ll be happy.”

Then that’s all that counts. 😉

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com