Encoding Video File That Is Located On External Hard Drive Significantly Slower?

[dgeneratex19]

I've searched the net for answers to this question but can't find anything as of yet. Is it normal for a video to encode significantly slower because it is located on an external hard drive?
I just got the HD a few days ago and moved all of my movies, music and pictures over to it. Before having it, I was able to encode and burn a movie directly from my hard drive in anywhere from 1 - 2 hours, rarely taking longer than that. Now, encoding from my external hard drive is taking 4+ hours. Burning speed isn't an issue, I assume because the encoded version of the movie is placed on my internal hard drive.
So I assume that it's because it's on my external drive, but I was wondering if there could be another underlying reason?

 

[spinnerlys]

Maybe your CPU is faster than the writing speed of your external hard drive.

What connection (USB, Firewire, E-SATA) do you use for your external hard drive, and what CPU do you have?

To test your hard drive speed, copy a big file from the internal to the external disk, and look at the transfer rate via Activity Monitor.
And then copy a file on the internal drive, and look at the transfer speeds.

 

[patrick0brien]

-dgeneratex19

Likely it's how you r are conected.

USB2 and FW 400 are good for file transfers, but encoding drags.
FW800 is, well, twice as fast, but still noticeably slower than an internal drive.

If you want external performance on par with internal, you need what spinnerlys referred to: eSATA

AFAIK, only a Mac Pro can support full-bandswidth eSATA these days.

 

[dgeneratex19]

Thanks for the help guys. The connection is USB, so it seems that would be why it's so slow. I'll just drag it over to my internal before I encode and move it back to the external afterward, since that should be faster.
Thanks again for the help.

 

[patrick0brien]

-dgeneratex19

That'll work! You should notice an immediate improvement.

 

[misterredman]

Thanks for the help guys. The connection is USB, so it seems that would be why it's so slow. I'll just drag it over to my internal before I encode and move it back to the external afterward, since that should be faster.
Thanks again for the help.

Did you try encoding from the external to the internal directly? Encoding to the same drive is probably slower due to the read/write process but encoding it from one drive to another should be faster. Of course you will have to copy the encoded file after.