USB verses IDE

[neilwitr]

Could someone please tell me if a USB or IDE hard drive is fastest at data transfer, I need a bigger hard drive for video editing.

[j2buttonsw]

The fastest IDE is UDMA 133 which is 133 MBs per second. USB 2.0 is 480 Mb/s. So get a USB 2.0 drive and a USB 2.0 controller card.

[booksworth]

I'm not convinced that's right. UDMA 133 transfers 133 MegaBytes per second, which is 1064 Megabits per second. USB 2 HiSpeed is 480 Megabits per second.-.-.-. by the way, if you buy a USB drive, make sure it says "HiSpeed". Some people market devices labelled "USB2 FullSpeed", which will only run at 40 Mbits/second.

[OBonio]

The fastest of them all though is SCSI (scuzzy).  You'd need a SCSI I/O card and a SCSI drive.  Have a look here : http://www.attotech.com/pdfs/Ultra320Brief.pdf

[j2buttonsw]

booksworth, I agree, I thought that IDE was faster but the net was very confusing using Mbps and MBps interchangably. UDMA 133 is probably 1064 Mbps cf Firewire/USB2 at around 480 Mbps. OBonio is correct, at 2560 Mbps, SCSI 320 is the quickest.

[booksworth]

BUT, before we all persuade neilwitr to go out and spend, spend, spend, perhaps we ought to establish what his motherboard is capable of. - - - If it's ATA 66, then slapping in another IDE drive will be a cheap way to get results (8x66=528 Mbits/sec, still faster than HiSpeed USB).-.-.-.- I don't know what data rate video editing demands - any offers?

[neilwitr]

Thank you all for your answers, things are a little clearer now and I just have to pay my money and take my choice.