7200rpm HD is a must for vid. capture. But what about vid. storage?

I decided not to post this in the pros cons of 7200rpm HD because it's not really a pro/con thing. I'm just asking if I'm correct in my assumptions.

So, I just bought a Dell E1505 and it has an 80GB 7200RPM HD. I've been looking at all the files I'll be putting on it, and whoa, that's just not enough space with all the video editing I'll be doing. So, I'm going to go to the route of an external hard drive.

Now, I know that 7200rpm hard drives are a must for video capture because the extra spindle speed is better at keeping up with capturing the frames in real time. But, what about after the video is captured?

My idea is to capture directly onto my 80GB Hard Drive and to transfer the footage to a 5400rpm external HD. I want a 5400rpm external HD because I can get it in the 2.5" form factor which allows me to use it with a Y shaped USB cable to power it up with no need for an AC adaptor.

Finally, here comes the Q. Will editing footage directly from a 5400rpm HD be significantly slower than the 7200rpm HD?

I guess I could also get a 7200rpm 2.5" HD, but, an 80GB 7200rpm 2.5" HD is even more expensive than a comparable 120GB 5400rpm 2.5" HD. If it doesn't make a difference, why pay the price for it?

 

First of all, you can capture video onto a current-generation 5400rpm drive without issue.

The biggest problem with your plan is the slower transfer speed of the USB 2.0 bus. You fill find editing off an external drive very slow.

 

You certainly can edit from the drive, but as above, saves will take quite a while. While you are editing if it happens to eat all your memory it would be using your 7200rpm as swap space, so in all honestly opening and closing times should be longer. That however should be the only change.

 

I don't do any video capture/editing myself, so can't say for sure, but I'd assume it to be something that requires *a lot* of memory, and *a lot* of disk access. In that case, 7200RPM would make a huge difference. If the data can be held in memory, you should be ok, but if it's something that's stored mainly on disk, transfering small parts to memory to work with, then the faster disk is a must. But as was said, using an external disk isn't much better due to the USB bus' restrictions. (USB2.0 can theoretically handle 60MB/s, which is ok'ish, a bit less than a 7200RPM disk can deliver in the ideal case. But thats a theoretical peak figure, and I doubt you'll be able to get that speed over USB.

So I'd probably get an internal 7200RPM disk for this. If nothing else, store your footage on the external disk, then copy over to the faster internal one for editing.

 

That's true. I forgot to factor in the speed of USB...

Hmm, I guess I gotta rethink this plan!

 

I have no issues with my 5400rpm drive, I edit 2 hours (24Gb) avi movies (homevideo) without any problems at all. I would like a little more space, but then again I have enough for what I do.