Adding an external hard drive adds massive amounts of disk space, portability, safety, and provides an easy way to backup your valuable data. Surprisingly affordable, and easy to do. Here's how . . .

No matter how much hard drive space came with your computer, chances you have already used a good chunk of that space.

And if you produce or are considering producing videos and DVDs on your computer, you will quickly discover that you need massive amounts of hard drive space to get the job done.

Fortunately, adding an external hard drive to your computer has never been easier or more affordable. In most cases, you can add an external hard drive in less than one minute - without having to install any software or opening the case of your computer.

Adding an external hard drive

While working on several recent video projects, I discovered that a completed hour long video project consumed about 35 GIG in space on my hard drive. Most of this space was used by the raw video footage I imported from my camcorder into the computer, while another 4 GIG was consumed by the DVD master.

With 5 video projects underway, I quickly consumed 150 GIG of hard drive space. Leaving very little for the other projects on my computer.

Because I didn't want to delete those video projects after completion (because I might need to go back and edit them some time in the future), I needed a way to store those files so that I could re-use them at any time, yet free up the 150 GIG of file spaces these videos consumed.

The solution - add an external hard drive to the computer.

I actually purchased two external hard drives - both 120 GIG, and after my experience with these drives, I undoubtedly will purchase more.

The reason?

I've discovered that using an external hard drive is a great way to create a re-usable, plug and play archive of the videos I edit. I can move the video projects to the external hard drive, disconnect the drive and store in a safe place (like my safety deposit box at the bank), and should I ever need to re-edit the video, all I need to do is re-connect the drive.

And since the drives are portable and external, I can connect these drives to any computer - and the data is instantly available. So I can quickly move a project from my desktop computer to my laptop. Or I can see the project to an associate who can review or enhance it. (I could even sell these drives as a product - by including a completed video, along with the raw unedited video, and the edit master - that way the customer could re-edit the video themselves, and learn from the process.)

My future strategy is to purchase and dedicate an external hard drive for each video project I work on. And then when the project is completed, I'll remove the drive and store it for safety.

With 40 GIG hard drives now below $80, this is a very economical way to have portable permanent backups of all the projects I work on.

External Hard Drives

Here's a basic run down of why you want to add an external hard drive to your computer:

Advantages:

• Easy to add to almost any computer. Takes less than one minute to connect.
• Instantly adds 100 GIG or more of hard disk space.
• Affordable - available for $80 and up (depending on the size of the drive).
• Portable - move from computer to computer - no problem.
• Fast & Reliable - as fast as your internal drives, great for storing video files, doing computer backups.

What to look for:

1. Connection - Look for either a USB or fire-wire connection (1394). I tested both, and by a wide margin I prefer the fire-wire connection.

   With the fire-wire connection you can daisy-chain up to 56 drives, each connected to the previous drive in the chain. This means the entire chain only takes up one fire-wire port on your computer - and each drive adds a second fire-wire port.

   The USB drives have a very slight speed advantage - but only if your computer has a USB 2.0 port.
   
   

2. Size - The larger the drive, the more you can store, but also the more you have to pay. The most common sizes currently available are 60, 80, 120, 160, and 200 GIG. For storing single video/DVD projects, anything bigger than a 40 will work.
   
   
3. Speed - Look for drives that run at 7200rpm with 8 meg cache. These are perfect for video.
   
   
4. On/Off Switch - Some external drives do not have an on/off switch. Without an off switch, your drives stays on all the time, even after you power the computer down. Choose one with the switch.
   
   
5. Price - Expect to pay about $1 to $2 per GIG of storage in an external drive - maybe a little more if the drive is both USB and Fire-wire enabled. Watch for specials at the major retailers (Best Buy, Circuit City, Office Depot, Office Max, Staples). I paid $150 for a 120 GIG fire-wire drive.
   
   
6. Case - Since the external drives sit outside of your computer, you will want to choose a model with a case that fits where you plan to store it. On my computer, I stack my external drives on top of my computer case, or my desktop. The cases are just a little larger than a paperback book so not much room is needed - but you will need a power outlet for each drive (I connect mine through a surge protector).
   
   
7. Brands - In most instances, the external case will not have a brand, but the drive inside will. The most popular brands of drives used in external drives are Western Digital and Maxtor. Both the drives I purchased were Western Digital.

Connection

If you are running any recent version of Windows, connecting an external hard drive is as simple as plugging the supplied cable that came with the drive to the appropriate port on your computer (either USB or Fire-wire depending on the drive you purchased), and then powering the drive up.

If the drive has been pre-formatted (which most are) Windows will immediately recognize the drive and assign it a drive letter. From that point on, you use the drive like a normal internal hard drive.

If the drive hasn't been pre-formatted, you can do a quick format from the Windows Control panel.

Formatting choices

If you are running Windows XP, and you plan to edit video, you will want to format the external drives to NTFS format. This will allow you to create files in excess of 4 GIG. You can do a quick format from the Windows Control Panel - it took me less than 2 minutes to format my 120 external drive.

If the drive came preformatted, it will most likely be in the Fat32 format to be compatible with older computers. I recommend formatting to NTFS format to avoid the 4 GIG file size limit of Fat32 formatting.

Sources

I bought two drives - virtually identical. I bought one at Circuit City - a 120 GIG external Western Digital 7200 8meg cache USB/Fire-wire combo - it cost me $219. The following day I purchased a 120 GIG external Western Digital 7200 8meg cache Fire-wire drive from the internet for $149 - a $70 savings.

Both drives performed flawlessly. In the future, I will be buying external drives from the internet - except in cases when local stores have sales. (Last weekend my local Staples store had a 60 GIG external drive for $80. That size is perfect for storing video projects).

I purchased my drives on the internet from eWaggle.

Overall

Having a large external hard drive breathes new life and usefulness into almost any computer. And for video editing, it opens the door to many possibilities.

For example, I have one external drive I dedicate to just buy-out music and royalty free video clips, animations and graphics I use in all my video productions. When I start editing a video, I connect that drive to the system. When I'm not editing, the drive is kept in a file cabinet.

And from this point on, each video or DVD project I'm working on will be stored on its own external drive. That way I can remove and store the project when it is completed, without it taking up valuable space on the internal drives on my computer. Should I ever need to re-edit the project, I just connect the stored drive, and the project is ready for editing.

As an added bonus, when I upgrade to another computer (and that happens about every 12 months), I can move the external drives with no pain - just plug and play.

And of course, I can use the drives to quickly create mirror image backups of the main drives on all the computers we have.

For me, these external drives are 'must have' additions to my computer. For a small price they add a great deal of increased usefulness and versatility to my computer.

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