Which type of hard drive should I buy?

El_Mayo · Oct 18, 2012

I've started a Filmmaking course and I need a hard drive to store all my videos. I'm thinking an external HDD would be ideal, but could I edit and render videos stored on the HDD at a reasonable speed? Or would I have to copy from external to internal HDD before editing?

Or would a USB3 external be fast enough to edit from? I'll be using the HDD with both Windows (Premiere) and Mac (Avid)

Fourstaff · Oct 18, 2012

Depends on your needs, I find internal ones much better, and if money is no objection SSD is super wonderful. However, at the end of the day unless you are good with compression and prioritising space I think the bigger the better, regardless of medium (internal, external, etc).

erixx · Oct 18, 2012

Do not go external. USB 3 / Thunderbird external is fast for casual use, but working on movie projects? No.

Maybe E-Sata if your case has that slit.

Big SSD are becoming cheaper... I would get one at least for your working projects, and a 2T HDD SATA for storing (plus another 2TB for backups, int or ext)

largon · Oct 18, 2012

Buy 3+ drives and put them in RAID5. You get speed and safety.

El_Mayo · Oct 21, 2012

Would a green drive be okay for storage of clips? Or would it be too slow to edit from

Fourstaff · Oct 21, 2012

El_Mayo said:
Would a green drive be okay for storage of clips? Or would it be too slow to edit from

Too slow is subjective. However, I personally think the difference between Green and Black drives are not that significant. Others might find Black drives much better.

drdeathx · Oct 21, 2012

With the price of SSD's being low that would be my call but they cost more than platter drives. You could go a Solid Stae drive for your OS and proograms and get a 1.5T(HDD) drive for the movies and move them back and forth between the 2.

Aquinus · Oct 22, 2012

Since video editing does a lot of saving and can have huge file sizes, I don't recommend an SSD.

Kreij · Oct 22, 2012

When you are video editing, RAM is your best friend. I would start by loading all the RAM you can in your mobo. If 8GB is the max for you mobo, you may want to consider one that will hold more.
If that is not doable, I would get the biggest SSD you can afford. Keep your current (working) projects on that and when you are finished with them off-load them to whatever kind of HDD you like.

Just my 2 cents.

Delta6326 · Oct 22, 2012

I would get this, 2x Western Digital Red WD20EFRX 2TB IntelliPower 64MB... and or SAMSUNG 830 Series MZ-7PC256B/WW 2.5" 256GB SATA I.... Fast ram is important my cousin does video editing for a online sports show he has said that sense he got a SSD it has made things much faster also.

micropage7 · Oct 22, 2012

search the drives that have bigger cache
it would help when you are running in heavy task

Wrigleyvillain · Oct 22, 2012

Yeah if you do go external definitely eSATA or USB3 if possible.

redeye · Oct 22, 2012

speed is king in videoeditting.... thus all the 1337 suggestions do not mean anything... so i would find out what video-editor you are going to use and use the suggestions that the software gives you....

or because speed is king in editting, external drives are out... (but using a thunderwire on a mac might be good)

thou, in editting you probably are going to use cut-lists, and prerendered video for speed in editting (the original video is reduced in size to speed up the editting searches etc.. so the speed of the hard drive is really important...

TL;DR. the wd red drive 3TB is a good one ... silentpcreview.com or storagereview.com have good reviews of it.

if you are going to be using a laptop for editting... (GASP) go with the mac and a thunderbolt drive (expensive YES) but, before the iPhone craze, Apple was known for editting on a laptop.

if using premiere... just get what the prog/teacher suggests and learn the Techniques of editting... skill/talent/ability is more important than the equipment.

Wrigleyvillain · Oct 22, 2012

I'm presently looking at drives too, something I am not usually in the market for, but have different needs than you. I want to test various storage solutions and RAID levels with an emphasis on server-based workload so I moreso need lots of drives as opposed to lots of space. So, for me, the best deals I am finding right now seem to be 1TBs for around $70. I'd rather buy a bunch of good 500Gbs but hard to go that route when I can't find them cheaper than $50.

Yeah that WD red 3TB seems to be a good option for you. Dunno about UK prices either, though...

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Which type of hard drive should I buy?

El_Mayo

Fourstaff

Moderator

erixx

largon

El_Mayo

Fourstaff

Moderator

drdeathx

Aquinus

Resident Wat-man

Kreij

Senior Monkey Moderator

Delta6326

micropage7

Wrigleyvillain

PTFO or GTFO

redeye

Wrigleyvillain

PTFO or GTFO

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