Express Card - Best Option For External Hard Drive?

I plan to perform video capture using my relatively new E1505. I know that this a data transfer intensive process.

I have a single firewire port included which will be connected to the capture device (video cam or Canopus ADVC55). I have an internal 5400 rpm 80 GB drive. Everyone says you should have a faster drive for video capture, and obviously a bigger one!

Some external drives offer firewire and USB, but the firewire is taken by the video device. I have read that USB may not be fast enough to capture directly to the external drive. I have also read reviews indicating certain drives have very fast write speeds with firewire but not USB, which obviously doesn't help me.

I am only vaguely familiar with my Express Card options, I know I can get SATA, RAID, eSATA connections through a 54 mm card. What I don't know is which of these is the best choice.

So...

Which connection method will give me the best performance?

Would I be best off just getting an Express Card that gives me more firewire ports?

If I had an express card with two firewire ports would there be any bandwidth limitations with two devices connected? (in other words does the express card bridge handle all that traffic fine - like if I had the capture device AND the external hard drive all routed through the express card?)

Can I buy an external hard drive that makes use of these connections (SATA, eSATA, etc.) or is that strictly something I would have to build (all external HD's I've seen in stores are USB and/or Firewire)?

I know it is a lot of questions, I appreciate any help you guys can give!

-Tulsafan

 

Depending on what you are trying to do (timelines and such) I'd say try your internal drive first, my 5400 drive works just fine for capturing video, I believe it's a function of both the drive and your computer/os in general.

My old P4 with 7200 drive couldn't capture every frame, my new Core Duo (not Core 2 Duo) with 5400 drive captures every frame quite happily.

 

I would agree with Arla, try the internal first. I have run what used to be incredibly intensive things on an older laptop (P-M first generation) with better hard drives and more RAM than my current laptop, but due to the faster RAM, better processor, and things like that, this laptop can handle it. If you find it can't, I would wager that the firewire card would be OK, though I would also expect a USB 2.0 hard drive to be capable. I did some testing a while back, and the speeds are still pretty high, but not as high as an internal drive. If these speeds aren't sufficient, you will need one of the SATA or RIAD cards to support it. The other option (though limiting on size, and pretty expensive) is to get an ExpressCard hard drive, which is basically a really big, really fast flash drive. Again, this will be expensive and maybe 16 or 32GB. But you could do a decent file dump, then transfer the contents when the sped isn't as crucial. The other problem is that these aren't out yet, only announced.

 

That was post 666 for you! =-)

I know that the internal might work (I have Core 2 Duo) but I know that I'll need an external drive simply because of the space requirement (having only 80 GB internal won't be enough to work with multiple large files etc.).

Also as the internal hard drive becomes more used with other programs, etc., the performance will drop (now it is mostly empty). So I'd like a drive dedicated to the video stuff.

-Tulsafan

 

I've done some more research online and it seems that eSATA is the best connection. Found a website referencing a 2400 Mbit/s transfer speed for eSATA compared to 400 Mbit/s for Firewire400 (what I have) and 480 Mbit/s for USB 2.0.

Problem is I know that these speeds aren't alway achievable...for one we know firewire is faster than USB 2.0 yet these numbers say theoretically USB is faster.

I also know that the eSATA connection may be faster than the hard drive needs...maybe firewire makes more sense...I'm not sure.

I feel like I could use an extra firewire port...but I also think I want eSATA for an external HD. I've seen 54 mm express cards that provide one or the other...the perfect Express Card for me would seem to be one that provides BOTH an eSATA connection and an additional firewire port! I don't think that exists.

The only "name brand" eSATA HD I can find online is Seagate with a 300 GB and 500 GB model, 7200 rpm, 16 MB cache...but both include an eSATA PCI card for a desktop. Feels wrong to pay for that package when I don't have any use for the card at all.

-Tulsafan

 

Found an Iomega eSATA product as well, it also includes a PCI eSATA card for a desktop...it would be nice if someone made an eSATA external hard drive with an included eSATA expresscard!

Basically I am unsure about two primary things:

1) Are there any draw backs to connecting multiple firewire devices to single multi-port firewire (say Firewire 800) ExpressCard...like if my video capture device and HD are both connected to the same ExpressCard...any impact on performance?

2) Is Firewire 800 more than enough bandwidth that going further to eSATA only exceeds the throughput capacity of an external HD...thus not gaining any performance advantage?

-Tulsafan

 

There have been a few posts where eSATA express card is having problems with poor performance, not working etc. This is most likely driver issues though.

Firewire is faster than USB2 in practice. I have seen transfer rates ~30MB/s (200Mbits/s) from usb2 and ~35MB/s (240Mbits/s) from firewire. Both of which is about half there theorectical throghput .

Firewire 800 and eSATA is the way forward but suggest you find some good reviews/comments first as eSATA via express slot hasn't been smooth running for a lot of peorple.

1) Firewire 800 bandwidth is unlikely to be exceeded with just your video capture device and a HD. A few more devices and it may struggle. Daisy chaining is fine on firewire.

2) That is correct. A single desktop HD doesn't exceed about 70MB/s (560Mbits/s) last time I checked.

All this is true if there are no issues with firewire800/eSATA express cards.

 

I have the Seagate eSATA 500 gig external. It's fast! I bought it for my desktop and recently upgraded to a laptop. The only thing I dislike is that I have to have a pc card sticking out of the side of my ASUS to use it. I'm using the Vantec eSATA pcmcia card and I've had no issues with speed with it. I'm getting up to low 70s MB/sec. I got it for 300 bucks from Buy.com. It would have cost me as much to get an internal HD and enclosure at the time. Not sure about now. It's also very quiet. Quieter than the HD in my laptop. I never hear it running, only at startup and shutdown.

 

Something else worth considering with eSATA drives. While eSATA may not be appreciably faster than Firewire 800 (at least for single drives), it does so with noticably lower CPU overhead, which is important for realtime video capture.

As for a suitable external enclosure, I've heard good things about the Vantec Nexstar3 eSATA enclosure (model NST-360SU-BK). Should be cheaper than the other enclosures you mentioned since it only provides an eSATA bracket which utilises an onboard SATA port.

 

In my opinion...eSATA, USB 2.0, Firewire, PCIe, While they all have very high theoretical speeds, either of these will work fine, because you will more than likely be bottlenecked with the read/write speed of the drive vice either of these interfaces.
I would go with a 10000 RPM external drive on either of them.

 

usb2 and firewire 400/1394A doesn't have enough bandwidth.. In theory its okay but in practice it can only utilise about half of its bandwidth which is ~30MB/s or 240Mbits/s (usb2). Firewire400 does much better than half.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/2006/12/05/storage-with-style-uk/page6.html
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/2006/11/17/addonics_cardbus_adapter_uk/page5.html

Check these drives and see how the interface bottlenecks the performance. Look at the WD Mybook drive where it has 3 interfaces: usb2, firewire400 and firewire800 from the same physical drive. Look at the differences in performance.

Look at the charts and see how firewire800/1394b & eSATA drives are at the top, followed by firewire400/1394a in the middle and mostly at the bottom of the pile is usb2 drives.

 

Thanks for the links ez2remember. That Maxtor III looks fantastic. Wish I'd seen this earlier.

 

Well, for general desktop use I'd be tempted to agree with you, but drives for video capture tend to be more demanding. For guaranteed sustained throughput with low to minimal CPU overhead your only options are Firewire and eSATA, otherwise you risk dropped frames... which can ruin your whole day. For working with DV video (approx 36Mb/s) firewire 400 is fine.

 

Tulsafan,

How did this work out for you? Did you settle on a particular ext hard drive and express card? I plan to do the same (using Premiere Elements 2), and also have a 1505, and expect that I will probably capture to the internal and use the esata external for storing all of the avi files.

I have read enuf forums to see that this is new enuf that plenty of folks are having trouble with though put, and so anything you may have learned would be appreciated.

 

Check out these cards and check out the MacGurus external hard drive enclosure. I know of a couple of people already using the MacGurus external hard drive enclosure. One person is even booting to this external drive!

What is good about it is you can keep projects for clients (especially for Video Editing) on different drives and swapping in the drive you need in the unit. Plus it has fans to keep the drives cool and they promote that it has 3G/bs transfer rate.

The nice thing about it is that if you have different video editing software programs with different profiles you can install them to different drives depending on who is going to do the editing, etc and it is nice way to keep your C: drive in your laptop clean!

Here are the links...

SATAII ExpressCard adapters:
Lycom Express34 SATA Host Card - Port Multiplier Capable
Sonnet Tempo E34-2P Express34 SATA Host Card - Port Multiplier Capable
http://www.macgurus.com/productpages/sata/Exp34-Cardbus_Index.php
eSATA II 2-Port ExpressCard http://www.siig.com/product.asp?catid=128&pid=1099
ExpressCard/54 with 2 external Serial ATA (eSATA) ports http://www.siig.com/product.asp?catid=128&pid=1036
SABRENT SATA-EXC2 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16839123003

eSATA 2 ½” Notebook Size HDD Enclosure (examples):
http://www.bigbruin.com/2007/kingwinjet_1
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817121021
VANTEC NST-260SU-BK Aluminum 2.5" eSATA&USB2.0 External Enclosure
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817392009
eSATA 3 ½” Desktop Size HDD Enclosure (example):
VANTEC NST-360SU-BK 3.5" eSATA + USB2.0 Aluminum External Enclosure
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817145167


Here is an Addonics enclosure that I know some people are using...

> Which adapter and enclosure did you purchase? Do they both claim to
> do 3gbs?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817198003
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822152052


This one looks to be the Cadillac in external hard drive enclosures:
http://www.macgurus.com/productpages/sata/BurlyHotswap.php
Notes:
Trays are interchangable with Burly Multidrive Hotswap SATA Kits and Port Multiplier Enclosures. Select standard trays or LCD trays depending on your needs.
LCD Bays indicate temperature and fan operation with audible alarm for both functions.
LCD trays will not work in standard hotswap bays.

 

For external enclosures, I'd recommend an Icy Dock enclosure, available on Newegg. It was rated 5 stars there, which i why I got it. I have the eSATA version with a Samsung 500GB SATA-II drive. Works great. Fast. Virtually no noise, and virtually no heat.

 

Firewire is very reliable for video capture and a proven technology.

eSata is fast on paper but lately I've been hearing about people having poor performance via an ExpressCard--->eSata--->ext. HDD connection. The ExpressCards with eSata connectors are first or second generation tech, so I'm not surprised at all.

Just some food for thought.

 

Thanks for the advice. I agree with you Gator, which is why I plan to still capture using firewire, but keep my extensive libraries of avi files that I will then work with on these esata connected external hard drive(s). Its also why I asked the question about which express cards and ext hd combinations might work well with my E1505 Dell. How many times have we read about somebody giving a new technology a go only to find out from the computer maker or vendor that "oh, that won't work on this machine".

I've got a relatively decent laptop, which is about a year old, and a very fast ext hd, or a combo of them, is the one thing that can delay my need to buy a new desktop pc just for video editing. Space is my missing element. When I bought the laptop, the 7200 speed hd was not available, and jumping higher than 120 Gig was a major increase in price. WHile I have not experienced dropped frames, 120 Gig is far too little. And I have yet to recover the 6 Gig lost to Dell's recovery partition that I will never use.

 

I'm running a "noname" cardbus sata card (sata I) with an Icybox sata/USB 2.0 enclosure - on my desktop with esata on the motherboard HD-tach measure it with 79 MB/s transfer rate (Burst 160 MB/s), on my old desktop with a SATA-card in the pci-bus it measures 62 MB/s (max 70 MB/s), on the cardbus SATA on my hp evo 620c it measures only 40 MB/s but steady all over the HD (the bus/card) is limiting on the USB 2.0 on the laptop i measures 20 MB/s. The drive is a WD 500 GB AAKS. Any one who has tested af cardbus-card that can deliver more than 40 MB/s on SATA?? Only few HP buisness laptops has Expresscard, but I need to use HP on my job :-(

 

Personally here is what I'd do.

Use an Internal drive for the capture (partition off 20GB or something just for that) and then copy it over to an external to play around with. I have used both USB and Firewire without issues (for 7200rpm drives) unless you are going to HD video, in which case, you might need faster stuff.

 

Thanks for asking Stage 4! It seems my post from a while back has lived on. We seem to have a very similar set up. (e1505, etc.) I'll use Premiere Elements 3. The update is that I haven't bought anything yet. Busy with little people at my house (good reason for having video to work with). My big step of progress is that I have decided to push ahead with the eSATA approach. I haven't decided on a specific eSATA card yet. Now that there are several comments on here about problems...I'll have to research THAT!

By saying that I'm pushing ahead with the eSATA, I've decided to purchase one of the newer FreeAgent Pro eSATA capable external drives from Seagate. Specifically the 500 GB model with USB 2.0/eSATA is currently available on sale at Best Buy this week (and online) for $159 which is $60 off list and is actually below the price of the 320 GB from the same line ($169). I've looked at the prices online and the next closest are the Buy.com / Tigerdirect types at $180. So I am thinking this is a pretty good deal on a great HD that I don't want to pass up.

EDIT - I've now seen Amazon.com offering the 500 GB USB/eSATA drive for $144, seems like a GREAT deal.

 

To clarify my post back, my eSATA is built into my computer (ASUS Z84JP). That might be a reason why my performance would be better than someone who gets an ExpressCard connection.

 

Well I have this beautiful Seagate FreeAgent Pro sitting on my desk next to my laptop now. I'm still waiting for my eSATA ExpressCard in the mail from Tigerdirect. Based on a Seagate rep's recommendation I went with a Belkin card (he said to go with a name brand and then listed Belkin first in a list). The SIIG card was a bit cheaper but since he didn't mention them I went with Belkin...hoping that I'll have a smooth set up...we'll see once it arrives in a few days.

I also ordered a cable, unfortunately the Seagate drive box only includes a USB cable. The cable has been more troublesome as I apparently ordered the wrong kind right off the bat. Ordered a Serial ATA II cable without realizing that there is an internal and an external cable with different connectors. So I have a cable that needs to be returned/exchanged.

Once I get everything I'll let you guys know how it runs.

 

Hi Tulsafan

Did you get your belkin esata expresscard? If yes, what speed can you get from it....

 

Tulsafan, hi. It's half a year later now and I'm wondering how that Belkin eSATA ExpressCard coupled with the Seagate Freeagent Pro external drive worked out for you. Any words to the wise as I set out on the path of purchasing an eSATA card and external drive combo?

Would love to know what you know about this . . . (Thanks.)

 

So if I just check in every 6 months or so I'm doing a good job on staying up to date, right?

Well if anyone still cares, I do have the esata expresscard setup going with the 500 GB Seagate Free Agent drive. I don't have any write/read rates to pass along, I did some comparisons months ago...what I recall is that read/writing to the 7200 rpm external drive connected via e-sata was clearly faster than read/write to my internal 5400 rpm drive. There was a signfigant difference but I can't remember any actual numbers.

In my opinion the external drive in this configuration functions just as if it is inside your laptop, only the rpms and buffer of the external drive are better.

One complaint. As I said above I have a Belkin express card. Everything was completely smooth getting the card recognized, etc. I plugged in the external drive and the PC immediately recognized it and allowed me to copy files to and from it at impressive speeds. The part that didn't work was the included Seagate software. They included a bunch of stuff to help you manage your files, backup certain things automatically, etc. I installed the Seagate software but it refuses to recognize the connected Seagate external drive. It might have something to do with the drive being connected via another device (express card) instead of in an actual esata port. I'm not sure, I just ended up uninstalling that software and don't really miss it. I have no problem doing the back ups myself and copying anything I need when I need to.

Probably too late to help any of you but maybe someone new needs help...=-)

 

For anyone looking for something similar to my original post (video editing), I must say I love having the esata external hard drive. Some of the early replies suggested I try my internal drive. I can't say that didn't work. I didn't try it. My internal drive is only 80GB and typically has only about 10 GB available. It just isn't practical for me to use that drive for video capture. I want the highest video quality I can get in standard definition. High definition is not camcorder friendly yet. To get the highest video quality you need a MiniDV camcorder. Here's why you need the big hard drive and fast transfer rates. The uncompressed AVI video stream off the MiniDV camcorder clocks in at 1.5 Gigabytes per minute. So a one hour tape amounts to roughly 90 GB! So, yes, I am very happy with my external drive and the esata connection.

SIDENOTE: I am using a Sony HC-96, if you can still find one I would suggest you snap it up. It's $399 on Amazon and is no longer made by Sony. The Panasonic GS320 was the only other affordable minidv cam I considered, it's a good one too at $339 on Amazon. Also not made anymore.