External HDD??

[DKlein]

I need to get a laptop for video editing, and am wondering what the deal is with an external HDD.

I hear it's eSATA <- FW-800 <- USB2

What speed should I be looking for? Is 7200 going to be too fast for the connection; 5400 okay?

Any help would be useful.

 

[Zepper]

7200 will work with any connection - most 7200 rpm ATA drives are backward compatible to PIO4/DMA2 (16MB/sec) at least. It should be eSATA > FW800 (for HDDs only) > FW400 > USB2 (for HDDs). The speed of the interface has little to do with the real-world transfer rate. Most 7200 drives will give you around 40MB/sec avg. continuous thruput with an optimum interface. Same with SATA. Some of the latest with perpendicular recording can do a bit better. 5400 rpm might be fast enough for USB2 or FW400.

.bh.