# Which Thunderbolt external drive? 5400rpm? 7200rpm?



## dirtcastle (Mar 6, 2013)

I'm putting together a small video editing setup. Here's what I have:

Macbook Pro w/ 16GB RAM and 7200rpm drive (ports: Thunderbolt, FireWire 800, USB2)
Adobe Premiere CS6

What external drive (and speed) will give me the optimal speed/price ratio?

With prices coming down, Thunderbolt seems to be the way to go. But I don't know whether I will get a significant performance difference between a 5400rpm and a 7200rpm external Thunderbolt drive.


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## OnceUponaHoneyB (Mar 6, 2013)

For video editing I would probably go for a 7200rpm hard drive. If you don't need portability a 3.5" hard drive will give you better performance. I personally use and like the seagate goflex thunderbolt adapter so that way when I fill one drive I don't need go purchase a whole new thunderbolt enclosure with drive, I could just purchase another seagate goflex drive and use the thunderbolt adapter to connect it to my computer. With the 3tb goflex with the thunderbolt adapter I can get 150mb/s read speeds.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Mar 6, 2013)

You might consider just getting a USB III drive case and use a SSD. The price has really dropped on them, and you can get a fast 250GB Samsung 840 series for about $210, maybe less if on sale, and usb III drive enclosures are not all that expensive.

It will blow away any mechanical drive. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147186 

Of course, you can get a external thunderbolt SSD, but they are overpriced.


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## eml58 (Mar 6, 2013)

I have a Buffalo MiniStation 1 TB Thunderbolt/USB3 Hard Drive, cant fault it, interface speed 10Gbps, use it on location for video/photo editing, based of my 15" MacBook Pro Retina, whole package works flawlessly. Size is perfect for carrying around as well, I paid USD$200 for it, got through Amazon.


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## dirtcastle (Mar 6, 2013)

OnceUponaHoneyB said:


> For video editing I would probably go for a 7200rpm hard drive. If you don't need portability a 3.5" hard drive will give you better performance. I personally use and like the seagate goflex thunderbolt adapter so that way when I fill one drive I don't need go purchase a whole new thunderbolt enclosure with drive, I could just purchase another seagate goflex drive and use the thunderbolt adapter to connect it to my computer. With the 3tb goflex with the thunderbolt adapter I can get 150mb/s read speeds.



150mb/s through an adapter? Interesting. Looks like the adapter is about $100, so I'll need to factor that. But I do like your scaling method. Sounds like a viable option. Thanks!



Mt Spokane Photography said:


> You might consider just getting a USB III drive case and use a SSD.



Money aside, that would be my preference. But I want to get at least a 1TB drive. Some day. 



eml58 said:


> I have a Buffalo MiniStation 1 TB Thunderbolt/USB3 Hard Drive, cant fault it, interface speed 10Gbps, use it on location for video/photo editing, based of my 15" MacBook Pro Retina, whole package works flawlessly. Size is perfect for carrying around as well, I paid USD$200 for it, got through Amazon.



This drive looks like a great deal, especially for on-location stuff. But this drive will be for a home setup (I'll just get extra CF cards for on-location, if need be). And so I'm wondering whether I'll notice any speed differences between a Buffalo 5400rpm and a Lacie 7200rpm. I'm willing to pay extra if I will notice a difference. I just want to avoid paying more for the same performance. Because I have read comments suggesting little or no difference with some setups.

But with my setup (see OP), my concern is that the hard drive could be the bottleneck because my system is otherwise very fast.


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## Dick (Mar 6, 2013)

dirtcastle said:


> What external drive (and speed) will give me the *optimal speed/price ratio?*
> 
> With prices coming down, Thunderbolt seems to be the way to go. But I don't know whether I will get a significant performance difference between a 5400rpm and a 7200rpm external Thunderbolt drive.



I just bought a Lacie Thunderbolt drive and the prices were the same for either an 5400rpm drive or a lower capacity SSD version. If you want perfomance, then choose the SSD. If a SSD breaks though, you can't really recover much of the data. Therefore I'd suggest getting a traditional drive in addition to back up the SSD.

speed --> SSD
safe storage --> 5400rpm or 7200prm


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## dirtcastle (Mar 6, 2013)

Dick said:


> dirtcastle said:
> 
> 
> > What external drive (and speed) will give me the *optimal speed/price ratio?*
> ...



SSD is clearly the way of the future, but the price is still prohibitive for me. I need Terabytes. And to accomplish that with SSD is probably not worth it (unless I'm going to notice a BIG difference in performance).

So my question now is... 

*Will I notice a big difference between the speed of a non-Thunderbolt SSD and a Thunderbolt 7200rpm drive while I'm working in Premiere or AfterEffects?*

I don't mind if it takes a few extra minutes to transfer data from drive to drive. I'm less concerned about bulk transfer, and more concerned about editing performance. I just don't want any performance lag WHILE I'm editing (as opposed to just transferring).


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## OnceUponaHoneyB (Mar 6, 2013)

As far as the GoFlex goes sure it is thunder bolt through the adapter, but the adapter gets plugged directly into a SATA connection on the external case so you are not bottlenecked by another slower connection. 

If getting an SSD I think I would prefer to put it in the computer to run the OS and programs and a fast external for my files. That is how I work with lightroom and I cannot complain.


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