Question – USB/Firewire HDD for Scratch Disk?

N
Posted By
noone
Jul 19, 2004
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604
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26
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PS CS WinXP Question: I want to add an external HDD to a laptop (most spec’ed have been either USB/Firewire connection). I realize that this is not the ideal HDD/controler option, but the laptop doen’t offer any other choice. In older versions of PS, JAZ and SyJet disks were frowned upon, by PS. Seems that mybe v3.x wouldn’t even let you do it. Does anybody have any experience with this arrangement?

I’ve got big SCSI RAIDs on my workstations, where most work (any critical work) is done, but it would be nice to expand the laptop’s abilities.

Thoughts? Caveats?

TIA
Hunt
Related Tags
disk firewire hard question scratch usb

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B
bhilton665
Jul 19, 2004
From: (Hunt)

PS CS WinXP Question: I want to add an external HDD to a laptop Does anybody have any experience with this arrangement?

I have two external HD’s on my system right now. I’ve tested them as possible scratch disks but it took longer using even the Firewire disk as scratch than just using the C drive. The USB 2 drive was even slower.

Thoughts? Caveats?

The extra storage space is great but they will slow you down if you try to use one as a scratch disk.

Bill
J
JJS
Jul 19, 2004
"Hunt" wrote in message
PS CS WinXP Question: I want to add an external HDD to a laptop (most
spec’ed
have been either USB/Firewire connection). I realize that this is not the ideal HDD/controler option, but the laptop doen’t offer any other choice.
In
older versions of PS, JAZ and SyJet disks were frowned upon, by PS. Seems
that
mybe v3.x wouldn’t even let you do it. Does anybody have any experience
with
this arrangement?

I hope you aren’t talking about PS Version 3 because I can’t help you with that, but with an XP Laptop and CS or PS7, when all the factors are considered for actual use, the usb2 is just as fast as Firewire. I use a large USB2 disc on a Gateway M275. It is adequate for field use. It’s not worth worrying about. If you don’t have firewire, you have no choice, do you?
J
JJS
Jul 19, 2004
"Bill Hilton" wrote in message
From: (Hunt)

PS CS WinXP Question: I want to add an external HDD to a laptop Does anybody have any experience with this arrangement?

I have two external HD’s on my system right now. I’ve tested them as
possible
scratch disks but it took longer using even the Firewire disk as scratch
than
just using the C drive. The USB 2 drive was even slower.
Thoughts? Caveats?

The extra storage space is great but they will slow you down if you try to
use
one as a scratch disk.

That’s not my experience. With only one drive in the laptop, even a 200gb usb2 as the first scratch file does help. Not a whole heck of a lot, but… But it’s just hoplessly infurating to try to edit files as large as 250mb on the laptop in any case. 🙂
B
bhilton665
Jul 19, 2004
"Bill Hilton" wrote in message

I have two external HD’s on my system right now. I’ve tested them as possible scratch disks but it took longer using even the Firewire disk as scratch than just using the C drive. The USB 2 drive was even slower.

From: "jjs"

That’s not my experience. With only one drive in the laptop, even a 200gb usb2 as the first scratch file does help.

Must be a pretty slow disk drive if writing off to USB 2 helps out.

I ran my tests on a desktop so maybe a laptop is really different with a much slower disk, but here are the actual times it took to run my long test action on a big file …

321 sec (100%) scratch disk on second hard drive
411 sec (128%) scratch disk on C drive
522 sec (163%) scratch disk on Firewire external drive
745 sec (232%) scratch disk on USB 2 external drive

Bill
J
JJS
Jul 19, 2004
"Bill Hilton" wrote in message

From: "jjs"

That’s not my experience. With only one drive in the laptop, even a 200gb usb2 as the first scratch file does help.

Must be a pretty slow disk drive if writing off to USB 2 helps out.
I ran my tests on a desktop so maybe a laptop is really different with a
much
slower disk, but here are the actual times it took to run my long test
action
on a big file …

Laptops typically have rather dreadfully slow drives.
N
noone
Jul 19, 2004
In article ,
comedy says…
"Bill Hilton" wrote in message

I have two external HD’s on my system right now. I’ve tested them as possible scratch disks but it took longer using even the Firewire disk as scratch than just using the C drive. The USB 2 drive was even slower.

From: "jjs"

That’s not my experience. With only one drive in the laptop, even a 200gb usb2 as the first scratch file does help.

Must be a pretty slow disk drive if writing off to USB 2 helps out.
I ran my tests on a desktop so maybe a laptop is really different with a much slower disk, but here are the actual times it took to run my long test action on a big file …

321 sec (100%) scratch disk on second hard drive
411 sec (128%) scratch disk on C drive
522 sec (163%) scratch disk on Firewire external drive
745 sec (232%) scratch disk on USB 2 external drive

Bill

Thanks for the data. It appears that the Firewire connection would be the better of lesser worlds. I had not had the opportunity to try different connections, as I have never had the need for an external drive before, so I greatly appreciate the info.

Thanks,
Hunt
N
noone
Jul 19, 2004
In article , says…
"Bill Hilton" wrote in message

From: "jjs"

That’s not my experience. With only one drive in the laptop, even a 200gb usb2 as the first scratch file does help.

Must be a pretty slow disk drive if writing off to USB 2 helps out.
I ran my tests on a desktop so maybe a laptop is really different with a
much
slower disk, but here are the actual times it took to run my long test
action
on a big file …

Laptops typically have rather dreadfully slow drives.

Yes, that has been the experience that I have had with this one, but then I’m comparing its performance to my workstations, so that isn’t at all fair. It seems that the US$300 investment might be worth it. If it slows the system down too much, I can always just use the external for storage, which is how it’s being marketed in the first place.

Thanks,
Hunt
N
noone
Jul 19, 2004
In article , says…
"Hunt" wrote in message
PS CS WinXP Question: I want to add an external HDD to a laptop (most
spec’ed
have been either USB/Firewire connection). I realize that this is not the ideal HDD/controler option, but the laptop doen’t offer any other choice.
In
older versions of PS, JAZ and SyJet disks were frowned upon, by PS. Seems
that
mybe v3.x wouldn’t even let you do it. Does anybody have any experience
with
this arrangement?

I hope you aren’t talking about PS Version 3 because I can’t help you with that, but with an XP Laptop and CS or PS7, when all the factors are considered for actual use, the usb2 is just as fast as Firewire. I use a large USB2 disc on a Gateway M275. It is adequate for field use. It’s not worth worrying about. If you don’t have firewire, you have no choice, do you?

In my case I have both, and the HDD’s I’ve been looking at are either/or. The times that Bill Hilton stated, while not vastly different, seem to point toward Firewire. I’ve got both sets of cables so I’ll give it a whirl, when I get the external HDD and report if I find that much difference in the connection.

Hunt
B
bhilton665
Jul 19, 2004
"Bill Hilton" wrote

I ran my tests on a desktop so maybe a laptop is really different with a much slower disk …

From: "jjs"

Laptops typically have rather dreadfully slow drives.

Yeah, that’s a good point … I have a 2.8 GHz laptop now which, I’m pretty sure, runs at two voltages and speeds, depending on whether or not it’s powered by the battery or A/C, and when I have time I’ll run the same tests on it with the USB 2 and 1394 external drives and see what happens. I wasn’t checking for this earlier because a) I typically don’t take an external drive when traveling and b) I don’t do heavy duty work with Photoshop on the laptop, but it would be an interesting data point.

Bill
J
jjs
Jul 20, 2004
"Hunt" wrote in message

In my case I have both, and the HDD’s I’ve been looking at are either/or.
The
times that Bill Hilton stated, while not vastly different, seem to point toward Firewire. I’ve got both sets of cables so I’ll give it a whirl,
when I
get the external HDD and report if I find that much difference in the connection.

Why did you even friggin ask the question if you have both?
N
noone
Jul 20, 2004
In article ,
says…
"Hunt" wrote in message

In my case I have both, and the HDD’s I’ve been looking at are either/or.
The
times that Bill Hilton stated, while not vastly different, seem to point toward Firewire. I’ve got both sets of cables so I’ll give it a whirl,
when I
get the external HDD and report if I find that much difference in the connection.

Why did you even friggin ask the question if you have both?

Because I have not yet purchased an external HDD and I wanted to get input from those who might know the pluses and minuses of using one for the Scratch Disk in PS. Knowing that the Firewire connection is faster, in this application, than USB 2.0 is an important bit of info to me. As most of the units that I am considering offer either, I can now make a more intelligent selection, ruling out those that only offer USB. Knowledge is an important part my life, and I appreciate those who have shared theirs with me.

Hunt
H
Hecate
Jul 21, 2004
On 20 Jul 2004 15:33:12 GMT, (Hunt) wrote:

In article ,
says…
"Hunt" wrote in message

In my case I have both, and the HDD’s I’ve been looking at are either/or.
The
times that Bill Hilton stated, while not vastly different, seem to point toward Firewire. I’ve got both sets of cables so I’ll give it a whirl,
when I
get the external HDD and report if I find that much difference in the connection.

Why did you even friggin ask the question if you have both?

Because I have not yet purchased an external HDD and I wanted to get input from those who might know the pluses and minuses of using one for the Scratch Disk in PS. Knowing that the Firewire connection is faster, in this application, than USB 2.0 is an important bit of info to me. As most of the units that I am considering offer either, I can now make a more intelligent selection, ruling out those that only offer USB. Knowledge is an important part my life, and I appreciate those who have shared theirs with me.
We have 1394 drives attached to our computers. Never tried to use them as scratch, but they are pretty fast. The ones we use are from Maxtor and, in particular, the ones the call DV (for Digital Video) drives. If that’s any help 🙂

—

Hecate

veni, vidi, reliqui
N
noone
Jul 21, 2004
In article ,
says…
On 20 Jul 2004 15:33:12 GMT, (Hunt) wrote:

In article ,
says…
"Hunt" wrote in message

In my case I have both, and the HDD’s I’ve been looking at are either/or.
The
times that Bill Hilton stated, while not vastly different, seem to point toward Firewire. I’ve got both sets of cables so I’ll give it a whirl,
when I
get the external HDD and report if I find that much difference in the connection.

Why did you even friggin ask the question if you have both?

Because I have not yet purchased an external HDD and I wanted to get input from those who might know the pluses and minuses of using one for the
Scratch
Disk in PS. Knowing that the Firewire connection is faster, in this application, than USB 2.0 is an important bit of info to me. As most of the units that I am considering offer either, I can now make a more intelligent selection, ruling out those that only offer USB. Knowledge is an important part my life, and I appreciate those who have shared theirs with me.
We have 1394 drives attached to our computers. Never tried to use them as scratch, but they are pretty fast. The ones we use are from Maxtor and, in particular, the ones the call DV (for Digital Video) drives. If that’s any help 🙂

—

Hecate

veni, vidi, reliqui

Yes, it does help. The Maxtor unit is one of the ones I’m considering, along with the Lacie.

Thanks,
Hunt
N
nomail
Jul 21, 2004
Hecate wrote:

Because I have not yet purchased an external HDD and I wanted to get input from those who might know the pluses and minuses of using one for the Scratch Disk in PS. Knowing that the Firewire connection is faster, in this application, than USB 2.0 is an important bit of info to me. As most of the units that I am considering offer either, I can now make a more intelligent selection, ruling out those that only offer USB. Knowledge is an important part my life, and I appreciate those who have shared theirs with me.
We have 1394 drives attached to our computers.

Wow! You must have a very big computer room to store 1394 drives! 😉

—
Johan W. Elzenga johan<<at>>johanfoto.nl Editor / Photographer http://www.johanfoto.nl/
JD
John Doe
Jul 21, 2004
Whatever you do make sure the external drives case has a fan in it. My Maxtor 200GB didn’t and it overheated killing the drive and melting the case. A $3 fan is very important, make sure whoever it is that makes it isn’t so cheap they don’t put one in. This is even more important with 7200 RPM drives which run quite hot.

BTW I would not recommend the Maxtor. When I called them about the melt down they got very rude and hung up on me. They can go to hell, their hard drive sure did.

John
N
noone
Jul 21, 2004
In article <AMxLc.3458$ says
….
Whatever you do make sure the external drives case has a fan in it. My Maxtor 200GB didn’t and it overheated killing the drive and melting the case. A $3 fan is very important, make sure whoever it is that makes it isn’t so cheap they don’t put one in. This is even more important with 7200 RPM drives which run quite hot.

BTW I would not recommend the Maxtor. When I called them about the melt down they got very rude and hung up on me. They can go to hell, their hard drive sure did.

John

Thanks for the heads-up, and the info on fan – I had not considered that issue, though I have a ton of them in all of my workstations.

Any thoughts on the LaCie line? Their Big Disk Extreme series looks nice, but I don’t have any experience with that company’s products. I’ll do a spec sheet search to check out the case cooling though now.

Thanks,
Hunt
FB
Frederic Banaszak
Jul 21, 2004
On Wed, 21 Jul 2004 11:31:45 +0200, (Johan W.
Elzenga) wrote:

Hecate wrote:

Because I have not yet purchased an external HDD and I wanted to get input from those who might know the pluses and minuses of using one for the Scratch Disk in PS. Knowing that the Firewire connection is faster, in this application, than USB 2.0 is an important bit of info to me. As most of the units that I am considering offer either, I can now make a more intelligent selection, ruling out those that only offer USB. Knowledge is an important part my life, and I appreciate those who have shared theirs with me.
We have 1394 drives attached to our computers.

Wow! You must have a very big computer room to store 1394 drives! 😉

Not necessarily. They could be those new Toshiba 0.85 inch drives.

🙂
J
JJS
Jul 21, 2004
"John Doe" wrote in message
Whatever you do make sure the external drives case has a fan in it. My Maxtor 200GB didn’t and it overheated killing the drive and melting the case. A $3 fan is very important, make sure whoever it is that makes it isn’t so cheap they don’t put one in. This is even more important with
7200
RPM drives which run quite hot.

I have, and use, three of those drives and they do not get that hot. Besides, I am largely skeptical of anyone who uses the name John Doe. It sure doesn’t seem authoritative to me.
H
Hecate
Jul 22, 2004
On Wed, 21 Jul 2004 11:31:45 +0200, (Johan W.
Elzenga) wrote:

Hecate wrote:

Because I have not yet purchased an external HDD and I wanted to get input from those who might know the pluses and minuses of using one for the Scratch Disk in PS. Knowing that the Firewire connection is faster, in this application, than USB 2.0 is an important bit of info to me. As most of the units that I am considering offer either, I can now make a more intelligent selection, ruling out those that only offer USB. Knowledge is an important part my life, and I appreciate those who have shared theirs with me.
We have 1394 drives attached to our computers.

Wow! You must have a very big computer room to store 1394 drives! 😉

LOL! Oops, sorry for dropping into compuspeak 😉

—

Hecate

veni, vidi, reliqui
H
Hecate
Jul 22, 2004
On Wed, 21 Jul 2004 17:32:16 GMT, "John Doe"
wrote:

Whatever you do make sure the external drives case has a fan in it. My Maxtor 200GB didn’t and it overheated killing the drive and melting the case. A $3 fan is very important, make sure whoever it is that makes it isn’t so cheap they don’t put one in. This is even more important with 7200 RPM drives which run quite hot.

BTW I would not recommend the Maxtor. When I called them about the melt down they got very rude and hung up on me. They can go to hell, their hard drive sure did.
None of our drives has had any problem whatsoever. What did you do, sit it on a radiator?

—

Hecate

veni, vidi, reliqui
H
Hecate
Jul 22, 2004
On 21 Jul 2004 18:50:46 GMT, (Hunt) wrote:

In article <AMxLc.3458$ says
…
Whatever you do make sure the external drives case has a fan in it. My Maxtor 200GB didn’t and it overheated killing the drive and melting the case. A $3 fan is very important, make sure whoever it is that makes it isn’t so cheap they don’t put one in. This is even more important with 7200 RPM drives which run quite hot.

BTW I would not recommend the Maxtor. When I called them about the melt down they got very rude and hung up on me. They can go to hell, their hard drive sure did.

John

Thanks for the heads-up, and the info on fan – I had not considered that issue, though I have a ton of them in all of my workstations.
Any thoughts on the LaCie line? Their Big Disk Extreme series looks nice, but I don’t have any experience with that company’s products. I’ll do a spec sheet search to check out the case cooling though now.
I just put my hand on one of our drives. It’s slightly hotter than warm.

—

Hecate

veni, vidi, reliqui
N
noone
Jul 22, 2004
In article ,
says…
On 21 Jul 2004 18:50:46 GMT, (Hunt) wrote:

In article <AMxLc.3458$ says
…
Whatever you do make sure the external drives case has a fan in it. My Maxtor 200GB didn’t and it overheated killing the drive and melting the case. A $3 fan is very important, make sure whoever it is that makes it isn’t so cheap they don’t put one in. This is even more important with 7200 RPM drives which run quite hot.

BTW I would not recommend the Maxtor. When I called them about the melt
down
they got very rude and hung up on me. They can go to hell, their hard drive sure did.

John

Thanks for the heads-up, and the info on fan – I had not considered that issue, though I have a ton of them in all of my workstations.
Any thoughts on the LaCie line? Their Big Disk Extreme series looks nice,
but
I don’t have any experience with that company’s products. I’ll do a spec
sheet
search to check out the case cooling though now.
I just put my hand on one of our drives. It’s slightly hotter than warm.

—

Hecate

veni, vidi, reliqui

Yes, that’s what I’ve been hearing. It seems that both Matrox and LaCie have had some issues with the heat. Some users note, as you, that you can just barely put your hand on it, but have not had problems. Others have had suspected heat related failures.

One possibility that I might explore is a USB/Firewire case with fan, then equip it with whatever HDD will fit.

It would be great to power it from the Toshiba, but maybe a few cords to mains wouldn’t kill me after all.

Thanks for the feedback,
Hunt
JD
John Doe
Jul 22, 2004
Sorry you don’t like my name. But, that is my name. John Hugo (hate that) Doe. I guess my parents had a sense of humor. That coming from Edna and Wordsworth Doe. <shrug>

John
JD
John Doe
Jul 22, 2004
No Hecate. I plugged it and used. It lasted less than a year.

John
H
Hecate
Jul 23, 2004
On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 03:26:09 GMT, "John Doe"
wrote:

No Hecate. I plugged it and used. It lasted less than a year.
John
OK, well, I’ve had several drives all last longer than that.

—

Hecate

veni, vidi, reliqui
L
lkrz
Jul 23, 2004
Yes, that’s what I’ve been hearing. It seems that both Matrox and LaCie have had some issues with the heat. Some users note, as you, that you can just barely put your hand on it, but have not had problems. Others have had suspected heat related failures.

One possibility that I might explore is a USB/Firewire case with fan, then equip it with whatever HDD will fit.

I’ve used Buslinks without fans and they have a heat problem. The best choice is a USB2/Firewire case with a fan and then put whatever drive you want in it. Something like this is a good choice:
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=17 -146-022&depa=0

http://www.madmousergraphics.com
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