External Firewire Drives
I've been in the process of converting old VHS tapes to DVD by using an analog-DV converter
However, the hours and hours of video are taking up most of my 60gb HD along with all my other junk.
I'd like an external drive to backup these tapes to and to store my extra files.
Any suggestions?
(Mac OS Panther with Firewire)
teammatt3 posted this at 22:35 — 15th May 2004.
He has: 2,102 posts
Joined: Sep 2003
Why don't you put 1 gig worth of tape on your hard drive then burn it to a DVD, then delete the tape files, do it over and over, or get a maxtor external hard drive
mairving posted this at 12:59 — 16th May 2004.
They have: 2,256 posts
Joined: Feb 2001
My advice learned from a mistake I made once back when I archived a lot of files to a Zip disk then removed them from my hard drive. The zip drive developed the click of death and ruined every disk that was put in it. I lost a lot of files. So the advice is never have something valuable in just one place. If you put it on a DVD, then either have it on your hard drive also or burn 2 DVD's and keep one in a safe place. The external firewire drives are a little pricey but I would get the biggest one that I could like this Maxtor 250GB one. It looks like it will also work on your Mac. You could go with a cheaper USB one. I am not sure though if your Mac supports USB 2.0. I wouldn't go with the slower USB.
Mark Irving
I have a mind like a steel trap; it is rusty and illegal in 47 states
nike_guy_man posted this at 19:56 — 16th May 2004.
They have: 840 posts
Joined: Sep 2000
teammatt, I have been doing it that way, but I want a backup. I want to be able to have a HD full of movies, the VHS, and the DVD tapes.
I want it on the HD so I can easily go back and pick out the clips from 25 hours of video of 1 or 2 people.
Thanks for the suggestion mairving
Greg K posted this at 10:59 — 4th December 2004.
He has: 2,145 posts
Joined: Nov 2003
I know this is an old thread, but found it in searching for external hard drives, which I have a question about.
Does anyone have pro/cons for just getting a firewire enclosure and putting a drive in it (I know the pro of I have a few 20 and 40 gig hd's sitting around, so overall cost is lower). I was wondering more about if the premade external drives have better shock absorbsion in them? I am needing this for my laptop, as my 15 gig drive is about maxed out.
I did get a USB 2 5.25 enclosure to try out, however, my laptop isn't USB 2, and USB 2 is like 40x faster I think I read on the manual INSIDE the box, not outside. I didn't realize there was that much difference betweent the two. On my desktop with USB 2, it is pretty nice. However it went so slow on my laptop that copying a 185meg file casued the system to tell me windows explorere is "Not Responding" until the copy was done.
The good news, in doing some research, it looks like I do have a firewire on my laptop, just didn't know it. I have a sony, and when I got it, it listed the port as an "i.LINK (iEEE 1394) S400 Interface", and mainly listed it's features for connecting to camcorders for fast video x-fer. Well in looking up firewire, and seeing 1394, it rang a bell, so I went to sony's site and bingo, I have firewire! Well I found the adapter to convert from the sony 4 pin i.Link to 6 pin standard Firewire for about $5
Now just need to find a good enclosure.
I did like the idea of a 5.25 one at first as it would allow me to use optical drives to burn data, but then realized heck, if I need to transfer to someone else's computer I can just plug it in as a removeable drive now.
But anyhow, I'm sleepy and rambling on..... Mainly wanted to hear any goods/bads on firewire enclosures and/or prepackaged drives.
-Greg
Want to join the discussion? Create an account or log in if you already have one. Joining is fast, free and painless! We’ll even whisk you back here when you’ve finished.