Member Avatar for Ragnarok

I have bought some video capture hardware and software (Dazzle Digital Video Creator 80 with Studio 8). The box did not say however that I needed a hard disk that would read and write at 4MBs minimum. My hard disk can only support about 3.5MBs. My main problem is that I can't afford to have my hard disk in my computer upgraded because it is a laptop.

The best 2 things I can think of is ether upgrading my old PC and run it over my network or to get an external hard disk (I have been looking into getting an external hard disk for a while). What I would like to know is can you get external hard disks that can read at 4MBs or greater. Or would it be better to upgrade another computer and do it over a network? (If you have any other ideas that I could look into I would like to hear them).

Thanx, Ragnarok

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Real-time capture usually fails because of sustained-write bottlenecks and system contention, not a single peak number. A drive can report fast bursts (cache or bus bursts) yet still be unable to maintain the steady sequential write rate a video stream needs. That explains why an older external FireWire box behaved better for even when newer drives had larger caches.

Quick diagnostic checklist (apply in order):

  1. Measure real sustained writes — copy one large file (>= 500 MB) to the target drive and time it; MB/s = file size ÷ seconds. Repeat with different source/target drives to compare.
  2. Eliminate software interference — capture with antivirus, indexing and backup schedulers paused; set the OS power plan to High Performance and keep the laptop on AC.
  3. Verify disk controller mode — confirm DMA/UDMA is enabled (not PIO) for IDE/ATA systems and update chipset/USB/FireWire drivers.
  4. Test capture settings — try a lower bitrate or a realtime-compressed capture (hardware or software encoder) to reduce required disk throughput.
  5. Try a different target — a powered external enclosure with a 7200 RPM desktop drive or a fast internal desktop drive will show whether the laptop drive is the problem. Prefer an externally powered enclosure or eSATA/FireWire when available; avoid cheap bus-powered enclosures and shared USB hubs.
  6. Check drive health — run SMART/CHKDSK; a drive slowing over time can be failing or suffering from bad sectors.
  7. If extra throughput is needed, consider RAID 0 for capture only (backup afterwards) — it raises speed but raises failure risk.

As hinted, the bus/enclosure matters; as noted, laptop upgrades are constrained — an externally powered enclosure or routing capture to a desktop with a proven sustained write rate is often the simplest practical fix.

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Member Avatar for alc6379

If you've got a firewire or a USB 2.0 port, then you'll be in good shape, transfer rate- wise. From there, you can get whatever kind of hard drive you want, and you can really look into a fast hard drive to do your video capture on.

Since most external cases have a plain-old desktop hard drive in them, you could even go so far as to buy an empty external case, and then put whatever hard drive you'd like in there. As a matter of fact, there are even Serial ATA external cases, so you could even connect an SATA drive to your laptop via USB 2.0 or firewire.

Member Avatar for Ragnarok

Ye I have USB2, considering the device Im using needs it its a good job

can anyone give me an idea of how much one would cost?

Thanx

Member Avatar for 13thclue

Hello! I recently purchased a new internal Seagate Hard drive (250GB, 8MB, 7200) as a slave for my windows XP PRO system.

When trying to capture video, it was very jerky and would often stop. On playback it was very slow.

So I thought, perhaps, it was too slow at 8m. So I purchased a Maxtor (250GB, 16MB, 7200) And am having the same problems with video capture.

This prompted me to check out my other devices for which I have no trouble capturing and editing video with.

My OLD Maxtor external firewire drive is only 2mb!!! and does great!
My Seagate 160gb and my Seagate GB C:\\ drive is fine too (I don't know the speed on these, but they have to be less than 16MB)

Any ideas? Thank you!

Member Avatar for jairam ganti

hello everyone,
i have a seagate 500 gb external harddisk which i am using for the past 2 years.it was working well all these days but since last week, transferring data into it or transferring data from it into my system has become very very slow.. and its not happening...
can anyone suggest a solution.

Member Avatar for Katemickey

I was also facing same kind of problem last month. But I got resolved these issue through a forum.

commented: This is a completely useless post. Don't post garbage just to spam your signature links. -2
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