Posted by Ken Maltby on 07/13/06 00:15

"John" <cow@chicken.com> wrote in message
news:p3sab2tj8vbprtcar1rd7gfhpqp6357vm0@4ax.com...
>
> Thanks for the responses I appreciate it. Perhaps I will consider a
> new drive instead. I think maybe I should just use the DVD to burn
> home movies for distribution to family and friends etc.
>
> I don't think I will need quite that much space in storage though. I
> don't have that many DVDs. I have captured a lot of video though to
> MiniDV of family, friends, travels etc.
>
> I'll have to work out what I can afford for a hard drive because I
> wouldn't be comfortable without having a second to back up to incase
> the first crashed. I'm not sure if Data Recovery prices have come down
> much in the last few years? I'd probably guess that they haven't very
> much.
>

www.geeks.com had WD 250GB 7200RPM 8MB SATA drives
for $62.50 a piece, and you can maybe find a better deal with a
little effort.

A hard disk powered down in a drawer or on a shelf is not subject
to crashing, unless you drop it or throw it against the wall. The data
will not need "Data Recovery" unless something were to happen to it
during the limited time it is transferring files to or from your computer.
Again, short of mishandling, it is no more exposed to failure that the
drives permanently installed in your system, during the time it is
connected, and much less so when it is not connected.



> So are SATA drives generally considered the best (fastest) at the
> moment? Are external USB or FireWire Hard Drives any good or are they
> a lot slower than internal SATA and ATA drives?
>
The SATA drives are cheaper to make and are a glut on the market.
The speed of the drive is not a factor for the storage and playback of
video files. (The slowest hard drives are fast enough.)

> And the drive enclosures that are on the market in abundance... Do you
> just buy a regular internal SATA or ATA drive, put it inside the
> enclosure and then you can attach it via USB or Firewire? Would this
> method not slow it down or does it work quite well?
>
You need the enclosure to be able to handle the type of drive you
want to install, and the type of interface you want to use. You could
have an enclosure that can take an ata/ide drive and interface with
your PC via a External SATA interface or vicea versa. You can get
enclosures that can connect using any of several interfaces. The
enclosures are normally limited to one type of hard drive though.


> Sorry for the 101 questions and thanks for the help with this.
>
> John
>
>

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