Storage solutions

[likeavaliant]

I happily purchased a Canon HV20 recently, and have been researching external hard drives for my footage and as a scratch. From what I've been told and read, it would be best to use a firewire HD, but the problem is that I'm on a Macbook Pro with only one firewire port, and it's hooked to the HV20 for import. Would it be a good solution to just import to the MBP HD and then transfer the files to the external when completed? Or should I look into some other set up?

How do you deal with storage and Import?

[bigbossbmb]

get a FW or eSATA expresscard and attach your hard drive to that... do not capture footage to your internal drive, ever.

[SnowLeopard2008]

I'd also recommend what the above post said. Capturing to the internal drive can sometimes be slow and it's much better than have a separate drive for the camcorder.

[islandman]

I happily purchased a Canon HV20 recently, and have been researching external hard drives for my footage and as a scratch. From what I've been told and read, it would be best to use a firewire HD, but the problem is that I'm on a Macbook Pro with only one firewire port, and it's hooked to the HV20 for import. Would it be a good solution to just import to the MBP HD and then transfer the files to the external when completed? Or should I look into some other set up?

How do you deal with storage and Import?

I agree that an ExpressCard with Firewire or eSATA is the way to go. For now, I capture my HV20 using Firewire to a Seagate FreeAgent connected via USB. I haven't had problems with it so far, but I am leaning towards an eSATA solution for the external drive. I'm even willing to take suggestions on what to get.

[likeavaliant]

I agree that an ExpressCard with Firewire or eSATA is the way to go. For now, I capture my HV20 using Firewire to a Seagate FreeAgent connected via USB. I haven't had problems with it so far, but I am leaning towards an eSATA solution for the external drive. I'm even willing to take suggestions on what to get.

i'd be willing to hear some suggestions as well.
thanks to all for the info. i didnt even know I could do this stuff!

[superwoman]

Here's my setup, and it's something you can try: Remember that you can daisy chain FW devices. So consider a FW external HDD with extra ports at the back. Most of them do. Then:

Mac <--> FW HDD <--> HV20

The caveat is that your HV20 will almost certainly be operating at FW400 speed. So that will drop the whole chain down to HV20 while it is connected. But that's okay. FW400 is plenty.

The FW HDD I'm using is the OWC Guardian Maximus. OWC has an excellent line-up of FW drives.