Best portable drive for video capture?

[Hoven]

Hi all,
I've been poking around the threads looking at the discussions around 5400RPM vs 7200RPM and price and size and brands and....

What I'm really wondering is, for a MacBook Pro user (new college student) who will be doing video capture, which is the best portable drive?

Overall, I've learned that the small, portable drives only go up to about 160Gig and that a desktop model with 500 Gig runs about the same price (which is a reason to get a desktop model). But if I really need portability, what specs should I look at (or avoid).

For example, should I choose FireWire over USB? 7200 RPM over 5400 RPM? Or does none of that really matter and I can pick price/Gig?

Thanks!!

 

[Hoven]

Hi all,
{...} which is the best portable drive?{...}
Thanks!!

Never mind. I think I've decided to go with a desktop model.

(No responses anyway.)

 

[Cromulent]

Well definitely go for Firewire, USB just does not cut it for video. I'd go for a FW 800 HDD running at 7200RPM if I were you, although a FW 400 drive would be fine as well.

 

[Jopling]

The only problem with a macbook pro is that it only has one firewire port. Ideally it is best to use all firewire when working with video because of fw's large bandwidth. I've found even if you have a fw800 and a fw cable plugged in on the mac laptops that one of the two will refuse to work. I don't know if they have changed this in recent revisions. I would say go with a LaCie drive that has fw, fw800 and usb2. IMOP they make the best drives and the enclosures make them pretty rock solid.

 

[Hoven]

Well definitely go for Firewire, USB just does not cut it for video. I'd go for a FW 800 HDD running at 7200RPM if I were you, although a FW 400 drive would be fine as well.

The only problem with a macbook pro is that it only has one firewire port. Ideally it is best to use all firewire when working with video because of fw's large bandwidth. I've found even if you have a fw800 and a fw cable plugged in on the mac laptops that one of the two will refuse to work. I don't know if they have changed this in recent revisions. I would say go with a LaCie drive that has fw, fw800 and usb2. IMOP they make the best drives and the enclosures make them pretty rock solid.

Thanks for the feedback. Firewire and 7200RPM it shall be. Most likely go with one with the triple interface (FW400, FW800, USB). I have a LaCie and it's worked fine for years, although there seems to be a definite percentage of posters who don't like the LaCie drives.

Thanks again!