Hey, I just bought a sweet new iMac - 27", 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel i7... 8GB RAM. Anyway, I bought it with a 1TB Hard Drive, rather than upgrading to 2TB for $250 extra. The guy on the phone from Apple said I wouldn't need to go that high. Anyway, I've been getting into video, filming in 1080p HD... and the video files are HUGE! If I continue with this... the 1TB Hard Drive will be filled up before I know it. Heck, even a 2TB Hard Drive may be. Anyway, I'm sure most people probably delete the junk they don't need... but how do most people go about storing their videos? Should I get a 2TB external and just move the files onto there? I'm sure people here that have been doing this for years have much more than 2TB of footage - what do you guys do? Thanks, I appreciate the help.
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Video Storage Advice Needed
- Thread starter SportSphere
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You should find tons of threads through searches but I'll save you some trouble. Everyone here will tell you that you should never store your media files in your boot drive. Check out the external drives at www.macsales.com. I have the Mercury Elite-AL Pro and it runs great for me, though I kinda wish I got the one that holds 2 drives. I keep one drive there and store my other drives in an anti-static plastic bag and swap as necessary.
Off the top of my head, I don't know what connections your iMac has but if it has FW800, use that to connect your external drive. FW400 is okay (not sure with 1080p footage, never edited that yet) but don't use USB2. So you'll want to get the quad-interface externals for sure.
Off the top of my head, I don't know what connections your iMac has but if it has FW800, use that to connect your external drive. FW400 is okay (not sure with 1080p footage, never edited that yet) but don't use USB2. So you'll want to get the quad-interface externals for sure.
If you are just looking for storage, the interface speed isn't as important (but firewire is still preferable to USB).
You should have two copies of everything so you could use two external drives (I prefer separate drives so they can be in two different locations to protect me from fire or theft) or something like a Drobo. The Drobo gives you very easily expandable storage at at relatively high cost and low speed (from what I've read, never used one personally). You could also setup a RAID box connected with GigE, but expanding the capacity is difficult once it is setup.
If you are editing off the external drive FW800 is the way to go.
You should have two copies of everything so you could use two external drives (I prefer separate drives so they can be in two different locations to protect me from fire or theft) or something like a Drobo. The Drobo gives you very easily expandable storage at at relatively high cost and low speed (from what I've read, never used one personally). You could also setup a RAID box connected with GigE, but expanding the capacity is difficult once it is setup.
If you are editing off the external drive FW800 is the way to go.
You never want to use your internal boot drive as a scratch/media disk. Performance won't be optimal and the drive would fill up rather quickly. Operating system and applications are the only things that should go on that drive.
Get a good external FW800 drive. You can either buy a prebuilt one (WD, Seagate, G-Tech, LaCie, Buffalo, etc.) or make one yourself using a bare SATA drive with an external FW800 enclosure (like those found on MacSales/OWC).
Get a good external FW800 drive. You can either buy a prebuilt one (WD, Seagate, G-Tech, LaCie, Buffalo, etc.) or make one yourself using a bare SATA drive with an external FW800 enclosure (like those found on MacSales/OWC).
" ...Anyway, I've been getting into video, filming in 1080p HD... and the video files are HUGE! If I continue with this... the 1TB Hard Drive will be filled up before I know it. Heck, even a 2TB Hard Drive may be..."
What format are you originating the 1080 media? All consumer camcorders compress media. So.....space should not be a problem....I use a 256gb flash drive at the moment using AVCHD media and haven't come close to filling it up. The only way I see space as a problem is if you shooting with a RED format camera beyond HD format, but obviously you aren't.
What format are you originating the 1080 media? All consumer camcorders compress media. So.....space should not be a problem....I use a 256gb flash drive at the moment using AVCHD media and haven't come close to filling it up. The only way I see space as a problem is if you shooting with a RED format camera beyond HD format, but obviously you aren't.
drobo's are great for backup (i have one)... but they aren't fast enough to be a legit scratch disk for video editing.
think the OP said he wanted video storage not video editing. i could be reading the title of "Video Storage Advice Needed" wrong though.
Also in need of video storage advice
My Imac 21.5" arrives tomorrow! I have a 1.5 TB WD My Book Elite with only a 2.0 USB connection. I want to store 80 hours of video from digital and video 8 tapes. Question, will the USB connection be sufficient for transferring the videos to storage? Then, will these videos play back on screen nicely through the USB connection? Also, is there a difference in performance in capturing video to the Imac hard drive and then copying to the external, vs capturing directly to the external via the USB connection? I'm very new and very green at this! From reading previous postings, I may have to purchase a hard drive with a fire wire connection?? Please advise.
My Imac 21.5" arrives tomorrow! I have a 1.5 TB WD My Book Elite with only a 2.0 USB connection. I want to store 80 hours of video from digital and video 8 tapes. Question, will the USB connection be sufficient for transferring the videos to storage? Then, will these videos play back on screen nicely through the USB connection? Also, is there a difference in performance in capturing video to the Imac hard drive and then copying to the external, vs capturing directly to the external via the USB connection? I'm very new and very green at this! From reading previous postings, I may have to purchase a hard drive with a fire wire connection?? Please advise.
USB is fine. Firewire is normally faster, but for transfering/playing video, USB 2.0 will work.
It will be slightly faster to capture to the external drive than to capture to internal and then move (the capture should be about the same speed but you won't have to wait while the file moves).
How are you capturing the video? This is where most of your questions should be. What device and settings you use will drastically affect the quality and size of your captured videos.