new hard drive for large video files

ringo747

ringo747

ringo747

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Joined
1 Feb 2006
Posts
8,188
Hi,

I am looking for a reliable hard drive to store large video files (13Gb approx for each hour of footage).

I have used maxtors before and have had one failure already.

Anyone have any recommendations?

I was looking at the two 300Gb Maxtors with 16Mb cache. Not sure which one is best for video files though.

Reliability is my main MUST!

Any information appreciated,
Jonny
 
yeah unfortunately i cant afford that kind of setup johnnyb! are the maxtors good in your opinion?

Just when you mention RAID, what different configurations are there?

Thanks
 
been through these forums for around the past hour.. it seems very much a case of maxtor v WD. I like the sound of the WD 250Gb with 16Mb cache..

It is either this or the 300Gb MAxtors.. anyone willing to recommend either one of the Maxtors? there are 2 300gb maxtors and id appreciate some help on which one to go for for video filles storage purposes..

I have read some dodgy reviews on maxtors but the new ones seem ok.

I am curious to know about this NCQ business.. Im a total newbie on this. Does this work on all motherboards? I dont know what motherboard I have. All i know is something about nForce 3?

Any help appreciated.
 
well yes reliablility is important but also the fact that I will be working with video files on this disk at around 13Gb in size!

Anyone else got helpful advice?
 
yeah i read in some places that the 16mb cache doesnt make too big an impact.. another problem is that i dont know if these disks will work with my motherboard.. all i know is that its runs with nforce 3 drivers i think??? The disks I have right now are SATA-1 Maxtor 250Gb
 
cheers smids, just found it after i posted!

ok so now that i know any disks on ocUK will work on my machine its just down to my choice!

i hate making decisions like this! so many differing opinions!
 
thanks for info guys,

at the minute I have 2x250Gb Maxtors, I want an extra disk to put video on. I always keep my backup video tapes so if a drive fails i can always recapture but it isnt ideal. Therefore a drive that is going to be reliable will be a better option.

For my disk to run the operating system I would considering running two disks in parallel - one imaging to the other - is this RAID 0 ? Sorry but I am a RAID newbie!

I just hate having drive failure and having to reinstall windows again and all my programs.. would running RAID on my windows drives be a good option and then keep two separate drives for video?

Thanks guys
 
ok smids, I think RAID 1 is what I want to go for then.

I was thinking up a plan just now.

I can buy two new disks and run them on RAID 1 as my windows drive.

Then I can use my 2 existing 250gb disks to store all my video stuff.. Having to reinstall windows and all my apps is more painful that recapturing all my video!

In RAID 1 you are almost guaranteed that your windows disks will be safe i.e. if one messes up the other should still be ok?
 
2Gb Windows (this is fairly typical)

5Gb Documents / files

100-180Gb Video files

30-40Gb Music

20Gb Games

That sounds about right div0:

My music is all sync'd with my 20Gb mp3 player anyways so its not a major thing.

Basically windows installations are more important than video files but we need space for backing up photo originals too. If we had around a 150Gb disk it would be ample for a windows disk.

I think we are making progress now!
 
yeah its basically a solution that guards me against loosing everything that i am after.. viruses you can 'hopefully' cope with. drive failure you cant!

thanks for info
 
thanks so much for your help.. i like the idea of option 1, it sounds like a good plan. I will be getting a laptop soon hopefully so maybe I should wait until I get it sorted out and then I can plan what will be stored on each machine!

I would be more keen to RAID 1 the windows disks as I hate having to reinstall everything! It is a really painful process to have to reinstall and configure hundreds of apps!

Dont know how I would get around the problem of having to empty my disks first though before setting up RAID 1. Do you need RAID controllers for this or do most PCs have these anyways?

thanks again guys
 
i do not have a clue what m'board it is.. i tried using the aida32 tool to find out but it comes up as being unknown.. I think it might be gigabyte technologies??
 
Under storage it lists:

SCSI/RAID Controller Silicon Image SiI 3512 SATALink Controller
SCSI/RAID Controller VAX347S SCSI Controller

Does this mean that i wont be using the onboard nForce3 RAID capabilities?

Also it mentions below:
Extra Features DualBIOS, Ultra-ATA/133, SATA, RAID

This mean anything important??
 
thanks smids, your help is greatly appreciated!

will keep you posted with my progress. Am not going to rush into anything just yet.

Cheers
Jonny
 
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