Fast External Hard Drive?

[Deepa DvD]

Hello everyone,
I want to know if a external 7200 rpm Hard Drive (USB 2.0) is fast enough to playback AVI files or use the AVI files in Premiere for editing and *realtime playback? It has to be External because I already have a internal one preinstalled with aprox. 100 GB, but still need more.

I'm asking this question because I bought a 5400 rpm USB 2.0 External Hard Drive? (And I returned It) And I captured a video with my Internal Hard Drive.Exported that to a AVI (SLOW) and I took the AVI file into premiere and it wouldn't even play the movie in realtime. The movie was hecka slow. Also I tried playing back the AVI file in windows media player and that also would not play it back in realtime. I moved the AVI file into my internal Hard Drive. After 35 mins. And it perfectly playd back in realtime from my Internal Hard Drive.
So my question is if i buy a 7200 rpm external hard drive, will it be playback AVI files realtime, like my internal hard drive?
... or is this impossible using external USB 2.0 connections?
Thanks In Advance! :)

[auenf]

USB 1.1 gives 12mbit
1394 gives 400mbit
USB 2.0 gives 480mbit

calculating it gives this:

USB 1.1 == ~1mbytes/sec
1394 == 50mbytes/sec
USB 2.0 == 60mbytes/sec

of course the other limits are the pci bus (133mbytes/sec) and the quality/latency of the controller at either end.

best bet would be to upgrade your case so you can put more hdds in, with a removable rack if you want portability.

Enf...

[Deepa DvD]

Thanks for the reply man!!! :)
The thing is I can't upgrade it.It's a Sony Vaio. There best one yet. Is there anyway I can make a internal HD External with a case or sometin with SCSI Connnectons. I'm not that of a expert with computers though. Also, do you think the 7200 rpm drive won't suite my needs.
Thanks!!! :)

[-h]

Are you sure your drivers are USB 2.0 capable? It sounds like the drive downgraded itself to 1.1 speeds.

A USB 2.0 capable drive could easily serve an AVI realtime, regardless of its RPM rating.

-h

[Deepa DvD]

Thanks for replying!
4 reals? I didn't know it could downgrade itsef.I think that is the situation because I didn't install any drivers (since we're using XP here). So I'm thinking about repurchasing the drive (the one with 7200 rpm, to make transfering & things faster), Do you think that would be the best way and install the drivers from the cd?
Thanks!!! I appreciate the help! :)
deepa

[-h]

XP might not support your USB 2.0 controller, so yes I would install the one from the driver CD.

Before and after you install the drivers though, test how long it takes to copy a large file back and forth between the USB drive and your internal one. If it's running at USB 2.0 speeds (i.e. anything more than 1 MB per second), you don't need the new driver. However if it isn't as fast as you'd like it to be, try putting the new driver in and see how that affects it.

If neither are fast enough to play the AVI, take the thing back.

-h

[buba king]

www.usb.org
Q1: How fast is USB?
A1: High speed USB products have a design data rate of 480 Mb/s. Full speed USB devices signal at 12Mb/s, while low speed devices use a 1.5Mb/s subchannel.


You will never get better speeds over usb than IDE :)