HD type for video editing

Question

Hello, experts...

I have a 2+ year old Dim 4600 (see specs below) with 80GB HDD. I have acquired all the necessary hardware and software needed (I hope) to begin to transfer my home video (Mini DV) to DVD. I have around 30GB free on the existing HD, but from what I'm reading that may not be enough, so I've begun to think about an additional hard drive. An external drive would, of course, be easier to install and set up, and would bypass any power issues, but I'm concerned that, even at USB 2.0 speeds, a 7200 rpm external might not be fast enough to keep up w/o dropping frames.

Anyone want to weigh in on this?

Thanks,

~Ed

shesagordie · Answer

Shrimpo   An internal hard drive would be faster than using USB 2.0 drive.   The D-4600 has a 3.5' tray for a second hard drive.   http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/dim4600/en/4600/sm/drives.htm   Bev.

Shrimpo · Answer

Thanks, Bev; I appreciate the help. From what I've been told, XP makes the formatting/partitioning pretty simple, so guess that's the way I'll go. I've been concerned that I might be overtaxing my "250w" PSU, but have not had a hiccup, despite the upgrades I've made to the original configuration. Do you know, by the way, of a good step by step reference for the formatting/partitioning procedure? I may have bookmarked one some time back, but can't locate it.

Thanks much.

~Ed

shesagordie · Answer

Shrimpo

The 250w power supply will fine for two hard drives.
Remember that Dell uses "Cable Select" settings for IDE drives and after installing the second hard drive, to check the setup, that the drive is set to auto [on].

In order for windows XP to recognize the second hard drive, it must be partitioned and formatted. These are generic
instructions for installing an additional hard drive using Windows XP Disk Management, they are by Seagate, but apply to
all brands.

http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/howto/install_xp_disk_mgmt.html

Bev.

Shrimpo · Answer

Bev,   I presume that 'checking the setup' is in the BIIOS...?   ~Ed

shesagordie · Answer

Shrimpo     Ed.   Yes, the BIOS and the Setup, are the same thing.   Bev.

patchsassy · Answer

Shrimpo,   To give you some perspective, I've recorded a three hour sports event and it used approximately 10GB of drive space on my 4600. I've just added a second SATA hard drive, a Western Digital 320GB 16MB cache and my system is responding bette,r as I switched the new drive as a boot drive (with the O/S on it).   Mike

Shrimpo · Answer

Thanks, Patch...

All I really want to be able to do is to transfer one hour MiniDV tapes to my HDD, then edit slightly (mainly to add "markers" to break the recording into "chapters") and then burn to DVD. I have Pinnacle 9, which was bundled with my Optura 30 camcorder. I've read about a third of the way thru the pdf manual, and it would appear that Pinnacle is capable of *way* more than I need to do, and will do exactly what I need it to. After burning the result to DVD, I will delete the "recording" from the HD, and start on the next tape.

I have transferred all my old LP recordings to CD, via a Magix software product called Audio Cleaning Lab, and the process seems very similar, except of course, that the files are *much* larger on video, than audio only. In this process, I did the digitize-edit-burn-delete routine. I have somwhere around 35GB "free" space on my existing 80GB HD. Given the intention to erase each recording as it is burned to DVD, does 35GB sound sufficient, or do I need to start shopping for a second one?

Thanks.

~Ed

patchsassy · Answer

You have enough room for your purposes, but I would recommend cleaning up the existing hard drive by deleting temp flies, cookies, Internet Explorer stored files, etc. Also you should run an error check on the drive afterwards and then defrag it. Don't forget that you can reclaim lots of space by adjusting the amount of drive space that system restore uses. It certainly doesn't need the default amounts to still give you restore capability. If you do this, wait to defrag after changing the settings and rebooting. A little maintenance can go along way for error free transfers and encoding.

Another thing you can check, go in to add/remove programs and see if there are programs that you never use that you can get rid of.

Mike

Message Edited by patchsassy on 04-02-2006 12:17 AM

not a genius · Answer

35GB Should be enough, like stated before you may just want to clean up your disk and see if you can get some more room out of it.

DV takes up about 3.6 Mb/sec, I use 90 minute tapes that consume about 19Gb when captured.

Pinnacle should also allow you to capture to mpeg II rather than DV so that would save you considerable space as weel, this would be fine if you are not going to do much editing and just transfer to DVD.

Storage, Drives & Media

HD type for video editing

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