Digital Video - July 2008 - (Page 32) STORAGE NetGear ReadyNAS DOLLARS & DRIVES WITH STORAGE A CONSTANT CONUNDRUM, THIS BUYER’S GUIDE UPDATE OFFERS KEY PURCHASING STRATEGIES. BY J.R. BOOKWALTER H ard-drive storage has come a long way in a relatively short span of time. My first drive purchase, in 1989, was a costly, then-whopping 40MB SupraDrive external for my Commodore Amiga 500. Six years later, I was on an Apple PowerMac and investing $1,200 in a mere 2GB SCSI external unit — which was a bargain at the time at $60 per 100MB, compared with today’s pennies-per-100MB prices. The advent of FireWire and USB technology coupled with the insatiable demand for more storage as digital video hit its zenith — not to mention ever-larger applications, multi-megapixel photos, high-bitrate DRM-free music and more — has thankfully driven prices down (and speed up) since those fledgling days. But it’s also created an ocean of choices to overwhelm potential buyers, with new models introduced every year. So where does one begin his or her search? MAKING THE CONNECTION The cheapest solution remains an internal drive (or two) for tower computers, most of which are made to be expandable. However, with laptop use increasingly on the rise thanks to ever32 dv july 2008 lowering prices, internal storage is not always the most practical. External storage offers better portability and ease of use, so I’ll be sticking with those for this buyer’s guide, save for one interesting internal option for MacBook Pro-toting power users (more on that below). Thankfully, the modern external hard drive tends to offer choices well suited to all systems. The cheapest prices come from drives which are USB-only, with a scaling premium being paid for the addition of FireWire 400 and/or 800, eSATA or NAS (network-attached storage). Current and recent Mac and PC systems include USB 2.0, so almost all of the drives featured will work with those. USB 2.0 is plug and play, fast and reliable — although in my heavy Mac experience, it’s sadly a bit slower than FireWire when it comes to copying large media. But it’s perfectly suited for capturing and editing DV and even HDV media, just for backup or even for archival storage (think tapeless masters). The price per megabyte for USB 2.0-only drives is dirt-cheap and they’re plentiful, with brick-and-mortar outlets such as Best Buy, Circuit City and even Wal-Mart stocking familiar brands such as Western Digital, Seagate and Maxtor. www.dv.com http://www.dv.com
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