Ripping to Internal vs. External hard drives

[ferret]

Would it be smarter to rip to the internal hard drive and then move it to the external hard drive. Or does it even matter.

[Wombler]

It depends on whether your hardware is up to it or not.

If it is then you're removing one step so that's more convenient.

It's one of those sorts of things though where ultimately the best answer is to try it and see.


Wombler

[Sharc]

Would it be smarter to rip to the internal hard drive and then move it to the external hard drive. Or does it even matter.
External drives are often pre-formatted as FAT32. For movie backups they should be re-formatted to NTFS file system for accommodating large video files (>4GB).

[ferret]

My external drive has over 100 movies on it. All original copies. I use to rip them straight to my hard drive, but here lately I've just been using my internal drive first. And yes, the external drive is formatted to FAT32.

[burfadel]

You can convert the drive to NTFS by typing in convert (drive): where you replace (drive) with the drive letter. This does not destroy data on the drive. This is best done from the command prompt and not directly from the start menu :)

Ripping to the external straight away shouldn't really matter over ripping to the internal drive first. The only thing to keep in mind is if you never (or hardly ever) unplug the external drive from the computer, under the device manager and drive properties it would be better to set it to 'optimise for performance' rather than quick removal. That should help with any speed related issues.

[ferret]

I only plug it in to copy movies. It doesn't stay plugged in. Drives die quicker when you leave them plugged in all of the time.

[Ghitulescu]

For newer hardware the speed should be the same (they converge to the common minimum speed, which is the ripping speed).

If your BD/DVD/CD is on the same controller as your internal HDD use the USB2.0 as target. This is particularly important (or relevant) for P-ATA (ATAPI, IDE) drives or for laptops (which are notoriusly slower as the desktops).

A good point is a separate HDD (or a partition) for movies only.

I always prefer, for data security reasons an external drive.

I don't think that NTFS vs. FAT32 debate is important for CD or DVD (VOB size limited by standard to max 1GB), only for BD where a single file (M2TS) can be bigger than 4GB.

Optimised for performance shouldn't play any significant role in transferring huge files, it's more useful for repeated access to relatively small files (office work) which are maintained in cache. I deactivate the write cache - thus forcing Windows to write the data as soon as possible on HDD. This way power outtages or other incidents do not affect the data. Also NTFS seems to me more robust than FAT32 in handling such disconnections.

What are "original copies"? :p Joke, it's a contradictions in terms, and it reminds me another one: Military Intelligence (G. Marx, early 1930s).

[St Devious]

I don't think speed should be an issue with any of the drives. USB 2.0 should be fast enough to transfer the data being encoded.

[olyteddy]

I rip from a USB DVD Drive to a USB Hard Drive all the time. It goes fast enough for me.

[Ghitulescu]

I rip from a USB DVD Drive to a USB Hard Drive all the time. It goes fast enough for me.

Thats what I do, however I keep them on different controllers.

[ferret]

WDH1U3200N

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=350

It's an older external hard drive, but ripping straight to the USB 2.0 should not be a problem.