Portable external hard drives?

[MinionZombie]

Starting a new editing project, and will be needing to transfer files from one location to another to different computers, so was wondering if anyone had any thoughts/recommendations about such things?

Just been looking around at places for a WD Passport Essential 320gb, like seen here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Digital-Passport-Essential-Portable/dp/B0012IAA8G/ref=sr_1_21?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1264763143&sr=8-21

Are there any betters ones, or ones you can personally recommend?

Essentially what I'm looking for is a 250gb or 320gb solid state portable external hard drive.

Cheers.

[DjfunkmasterG]

Stay away from anything Seagate.

The WD EHD are great drives and I have had good luck with them. :D

For faster transfers use Firewire, and for use of the drive during editing definitely use Firewire

[Danny]

its hard to go wrong with hard drives nowadays, just stick with a brand you know and if your on amazon judge it by the 3 star reviews it has. 1 star reviewers are trolls, 5 star reviewers are overzealous.

-and check how heavy it is, seriously this makes a lot of difference. first one i got in uni was a lacie 320gb hard drive. it was a large steel behemoth that weighed more than my macbook and had to have its own plug in the wall to use. -but, it was £50 and came with every kind of connection i would ever need, both plugs and computer connections that i could lug it to any place in the world and use it.
My prof used one similar to the one you linked but silver. same brand. only trouble with it was that, on an almost sentient whim, it would randomly go "fuck you, your not dragging that video file on here" or "im gonna randomly delete half your shit, cus im that kind of dick". though it fit in his pocket and only needed a usb cable. 'course it ONLY used the basic usb cable to connect.
different kinds for different jobs and all that. but i could bring in my monolith and use a firewire to get shit from one macpro to another fast. he had to go out to lunch whilst his did it and hoped it would have done it properly. but at least it didnt require its own plug socket.

[krakenslayer]

For faster transfers use Firewire, and for use of the drive during editing definitely use Firewire

This actually answered a question I was about to ask, thanks Deej! :D

Also, lets say I'm going to be editing a 90 minute movie, let's say I will have shoot about four times that amount of usable footage (alternate takes, etc.) in AVHD format, does one terabye sound like enough to store and edit all this on? Obviously this doesn't include a back up of the raw footage.

[C5NOTLD]

I've only used Seagates for yrs and never a problem

Seagate FreeAgent drives (come in various sizes) at BB are great. Transfers are always fast via firewire. I use a 2 TB ($150-180) for backup on each project that I then archive on (in additon to files on DVD) after the project is finished.





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[Ghost Of War]

Can't go wrong with WD. I've got 4 external HD's, all of them WD, and have never had a problem.

[MinionZombie]

How about one of these - Verbatim 500gb?

http://www.bigpockets.co.uk/product.php?product=VERBATI176&title=Verbatim+500GB+External+HDD+SATA+Hard+Disk+D rive+USB+2.0%2847510+3.5%29

If I was to go WD again (have two My Book Essential editions already), I'd stick with what I've had before, because the "Passport" editions (replacement for the My Books) aren't getting nearly as good write-ups.

[SymphonicX]

stay away from maxtor too

[MinionZombie]

stay away from maxtor too
Aye, that's on my avoid list - but what about Verbatim?

[SymphonicX]

Not had any complaints about them, but no personal experience unfortunately.

[bozak]

Imo, its better to stick to the brand which specializes in a particular thing. As far as i know WD makes only hard drives, so i would recommend it.

[DjfunkmasterG]

This actually answered a question I was about to ask, thanks Deej! :D

Also, lets say I'm going to be editing a 90 minute movie, let's say I will have shoot about four times that amount of usable footage (alternate takes, etc.) in AVHD format, does one terabye sound like enough to store and edit all this on? Obviously this doesn't include a back up of the raw footage.

1 TB for HD footage, will be a bit close, but should be ok.

[MinionZombie]

Ended up getting a WD portable drive (320gb) - it's been enough size wise for previous DVD projects I've worked on, and besides, it's only for backing up and transferring the data itself, as the actual editing is done exclusively on my computer itself.

Tested it out last night, seems fine. :)

[DjfunkmasterG]

You should always get one external drive for archiving your projects. Two is preferred, refer to them as the meat wagon and the morgue respectively.

Just cool industry names for both back-ups.

Deadlands 2 has a meat wagon and morgue.

Deadlands 1 is just the master tapes and would require a complete recapture to re-edit the movie.

[MinionZombie]

You should always get one external drive for archiving your projects. Two is preferred, refer to them as the meat wagon and the morgue respectively.

:lol:

I often make multiple back-ups of various things, I used to do it with essays, and I've been doing it with scripts for ages now. Two on the computer, one on floppy disk, one on a flash drive, and a print out hard copy of each first draft Act as-and-when they're completed ... and sometimes another copy on any data DVDs I happen to be burning at the time, and/or another on another computer entirely. :cool:


Deadlands 1 is just the master tapes and would require a complete recapture to re-edit the movie.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck that! :eek:

[Eyebiter]

Acronis True Image WD Edition is free for external Western Digital drive owners.

http://support.wdc.com/product/downloaddetail.asp

Staples had a 1TB HDD in their Sunday Ad for around $120.

[Dawg]

1 TB for HD footage, will be a bit close, but should be ok.

I have a 500GB WD and a bunch of other junk on it (which I shouldn't since it is suppose to be only for film editing), and it is enough for a two-hour flick.

Of course, I had to transfer or delete the other stuff a couple of times to make room, especially when Adobe Premiere Pro decides to encode the audio on clips and it needs more room.