Firewire 400 External HD fast enough?

[rdhmario3suit]

Alright, so for FCP 5.1 if I got an enclosure for an IDE drive 3.5" 7200rpm, that goes through Firewire 400, is that enough? Or do I need to find Firewire 800? I can't find a FW 800 solution for a reasonable price. If anyone knows of an FW enclosure at less than about $45 I'd love to hear about it.

Thanks

 

[hayduke]

Compare the write speed of the disk you have to the sustained write speed of FW 400. Many drives can't quite keep up with FW400 if I'm not mistaken. So there may be no reason to go for FW800.

 

[topgun072003]

If you're doing crazy uncompressed HD then no. But if you're not really doing insano stuff, then FW400 can handle the job. To get the full speed of the FW800 you'd have to be in a RAID array anyway. Which is how you do uncompressed HD.

 

[rdhmario3suit]

Nice. Yea I'm just doing Mini DV work so I should be ok I guess.