On Nov 1, 2005, at 6:36 PM, NPfield at aol.com asked:

> Which drive should I use for editing, or does it matter?  I suspect  
> that this is not a question of there being a wrong choice, but  
> simply of getting advice from those with experience, about which is  
> more convenient or makes more sense.

This can't really be answered without knowing about what computer  
you're using and what kind of drives we're discussing.

Here are two examples.

(1) If you have a Mac mini, the internal drive is a 4200 RPM notebook  
drive which is quite slow. In this case, practically any 7200 RPM  
external Firewire drive would be the choice.

(2) If you have one of the newer G5s with a 7200 RPM drive connected  
to the internal SATA controller versus an external 7200 RPM drive  
connected to the Firewire 800 port, it's probably a toss-up.

These are probably the extremes and your situation is likely  
somewhere in between.

My rule of thumb is given the choice between an internal IDE drive  
and an external Firewire drive, I'll usually try the Firewire. My  
reasoning is that the IDE controller isn't very smart and uses the  
the processor in the machine for a lot of its work. The Firewire  
controllers are generally smarter and take a load off the processor  
so it can do other stuff while the drives are being accessed.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: 
http://www.math.louisville.edu/pipermail/macgroup/attachments/20051101/9b940e11/attachment.html
 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: smime.p7s
Type: application/pkcs7-signature
Size: 2398 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : 
http://www.math.louisville.edu/pipermail/macgroup/attachments/20051101/9b940e11/attachment.bin
 

Reply via email to