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Slave drive or external HDD for recording footage using Dxtory

Tags:
  • Slave Drive
  • Video Capture
  • Storage
  • Hard Drives
  • External Hard Drive
Last response: in Storage
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September 3, 2014 6:10:35 AM

Hi, I was just wondering what your opinions were on my situation and whether what I believe to be possible is indeed possible, some of what I say may sound incredibly stupid, but please bear with me. I have checked other parts of the forum but I would like an answer specific to me ;) 

As the subject suggests I am after a second hard drive to record to, using the program Dxtory, I am wondering whether there are any external hard drives that are remotely quick enough to store the video without stuttering, ( I will likely be filming at 1280x720 using the Dxtory video codec at 30 to 60fps).

If the case is that there are no Ext. HDD that can do that, is installing a second HDD purely for storage as simple as plugging in and following the wizard for the correct drive letter once you log in?

Also, are all SATA III HDDs compatible, no matter the disk size, make, speed etc.?

Any suggestions of manufacturer and model are welcome, along with any advice on how to set it up or links to videos or forum posts that explain what I have said. If anyone could provide a step by step guide if an internal hard drive is required, I would be eternally grateful.

tl;dr
  • Are any external hard drives capable of recording footage without stutter, if so, which ones?
  • If not, what setup for an internal hard drive should I use and how should I go about setting it up?

    -Thanks in advance
  • More about : slave drive external hdd recording footage dxtory

    a b G Storage
    September 3, 2014 6:25:33 AM

    any external drive that have eSATA connection or usb 3 can record at 30-60fps to 1280x720, anything lower like usb 2, will likely stutter. all regular drive that say there SATA 3 compatible are just that. they can't actually keep up with the transfer rate of SATA 3 unless there SSD.

    and if your gonna record suggest use seagate baracuda or WD Purple.
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    September 3, 2014 7:10:49 AM

    qazzi said:
    any external drive that have eSATA connection or usb 3 can record at 30-60fps to 1280x720, anything lower like usb 2, will likely stutter. all regular drive that say there SATA 3 compatible are just that. they can't actually keep up with the transfer rate of SATA 3 unless there SSD.

    and if your gonna record suggest use seagate baracuda or WD Purple.


    Thanks for the reply, my current hard drive is a Seagate Barracuda ST2000DM001. So I could just buy a second one, possibly the 1TB version and just whack it in and load it up? Currently, during a 10min recording I had a couple of 30 second periods where there was massive stutter. But I presume that's because my single drive was having to do everything...
    As long as I don't use RAID the size of storage should not cause any issues at all?


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    a b G Storage
    September 3, 2014 7:14:16 AM

    Green, do you need to remove this drive for safekeeping or external storage? Would you be rotating in an additional drive, therefore?

    When I have to rotate drives in (physical safekeeping storage of one drive while another drive is being used), I usually install a "hot-swap" bay in the case (or find a case with one, built in - Thermaltake used to have some of those built into the top of some tower cases). This lets me remove one drive and insert its replacement with greater ease.

    These hot-swap bays are connected to an existing SATA connector on my motherboard so they operate as an Internal Secondary HDD.

    (By the way, I can't recommend true 'hot swapping' with power-on. I always power down these computers, remove the drive, insert the new one and power it back up. That's simply too easy to risk errant soldering, poor connectors, static-y damage, etc. It's just not worth the 60 seconds to perform this on a powered-down computer.)

    Oh yes - all of these SATA-III will be compatible as long as your computer has SATA connectors. Your use of the phrase "Slave Drive" brings up IDE HDD days so I wanted to mention that SATA drives no longer use "slave drive" settings.
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    September 3, 2014 7:47:44 AM

    christinebcw said:
    Green, do you need to remove this drive for safekeeping or external storage? Would you be rotating in an additional drive, therefore?

    When I have to rotate drives in (physical safekeeping storage of one drive while another drive is being used), I usually install a "hot-swap" bay in the case (or find a case with one, built in - Thermaltake used to have some of those built into the top of some tower cases). This lets me remove one drive and insert its replacement with greater ease.

    These hot-swap bays are connected to an existing SATA connector on my motherboard so they operate as an Internal Secondary HDD.

    (By the way, I can't recommend true 'hot swapping' with power-on. I always power down these computers, remove the drive, insert the new one and power it back up. That's simply too easy to risk errant soldering, poor connectors, static-y damage, etc. It's just not worth the 60 seconds to perform this on a powered-down computer.)

    Oh yes - all of these SATA-III will be compatible as long as your computer has SATA connectors. Your use of the phrase "Slave Drive" brings up IDE HDD days so I wanted to mention that SATA drives no longer use "slave drive" settings.


    Sorry for any misuse of terminology, the main reason for an extra hard drive is for storage of files only, not for running programs off of it. The only time it will likely be taken out is when it is full and I have no other place to store the files, it may only be raw footage stored on there, I will likely store the finished articles on my primary hard drive or if after I've installed a second hard drive (hopefully successfully) install a third for storing the finished pieces.
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    a b G Storage
    September 3, 2014 7:57:32 AM

    and i thought you will recording directly to the hard drive. well if you'll only storing data then WD green will be fine. but for directly recording on the external drive, eSATA with purple WD drive would be much better.

    oh yeah keep in mind that external drive that uses eSATA has their own power adaptor. you can just use safely unplug then turn the power off.
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    September 3, 2014 8:00:10 AM

    qazzi said:
    and i thought you will recording directly to the hard drive. well if you'll only storing data then WD green will be fine. but for directly recording on the external drive, eSATA with purple WD drive would be much better.


    Sorry, I've added to confusion, I'll be recording to it and storing on it :/ 
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    a b G Storage
    September 3, 2014 8:02:11 AM

    do you mean recording directly to the external drive?
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    September 3, 2014 8:05:15 AM

    qazzi said:
    do you mean recording directly to the external drive?


    External drive/secondary internal drive, yes, depends which one I ultimately go for, which ever it is, it will be used to film onto, and store filmed footage.
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    Best solution

    a b G Storage
    September 3, 2014 8:09:59 AM

    ok then a WD purple drive that is built for directly recording on them(esp on HD, HD+ and Full HD). whether external or internal will be your choice.
    just make sure everytime you record you optimized your system to it...some people makes an error by recording video while an anti virus is on or there's unnecessary software running in the background.
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    September 3, 2014 8:32:49 AM

    qazzi said:
    ok then a WD purple drive that is built for directly recording on them(esp on HD, HD+ and Full HD). whether external or internal will be your choice.
    just make sure everytime you record you optimized your system to it...some people makes an error by recording video while an anti virus is on or there's unnecessary software running in the background.


    I know the purple is for recording onto, but would a black stand up to the task? I know they're pretty expensive, but if my primary HDD begins to fail I could use acronis to transfer across to the black and have a good all rounder, also, as long as my set up is limited by money, a jack of all trades HDD would possibly be better, because it would be able to undertake all tasks, just not as efficiently as having many task specific drives.
    ^Would that be a reasonable assumption to make? You're the one advising so your word is worth more than mine.
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    a b G Storage
    September 3, 2014 8:40:02 AM

    well the reason im telling you to use purple is to eliminate the stutter you said. well a good well round drive would be seagate baracuda arouns 7200rpm or faster...and just make sure the 'cache' is around 32mb...and yes WD black would be good too.
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    September 3, 2014 9:14:57 AM

    qazzi said:
    well the reason im telling you to use purple is to eliminate the stutter you said. well a good well round drive would be seagate baracuda arouns 7200rpm or faster...and just make sure the 'cache' is around 32mb...and yes WD black would be good too.


    At the moment I will stick to buying a second barracuda, as a sort of 'jack of all trades, master in none', but if the time arises where it fails due to being overworked, I will definitely buy a purple, I may even buy a purple as a third drive and use that as you suggested.

    But onto installation of the drive I buy, is it just plug in, log on, then use the wizard?
    Or is there some specific way using BIOS to install it correctly?
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    a b G Storage
    September 3, 2014 10:36:03 AM

    don't use wizard. and the BIOS should the the drive right away. make sure your MODE in SATA is "AHCI" then plug in the drive (securely), turn on the pc, goto control panel-administrative tools-computer management-disk management you probably see your drive as unallocated. just create a partition then format it. that's it.
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