[Alexander Lee] " if I'm using external firewire Hard drives 1 and 2 to create a new video file with compressor, will saving the file on Hard drive 3 increase performance speed?"
Alexander
that is a correct assumption if we are discussing different physical drives.
However - if we are talking partitions of a single physical drive- reading and writing from
multiple partitions on that single unit are actually as much as 20% slower than if you just wrote to 1 physical drive.
The reason for this is that you would need to be reading and writing the directory as well as the media to multiple places at the same time, not something that is possible with a partitioned drive since there is only one read /write head - no matter how many partitions.
Whereas multiple physical drive enclosures have multiple read write heads, allowing for better performance overall since it is not possible for low cost FW drives to be able to read and write at the same time.
gary adcock
Studio37
HD & Film Consultation
Post and Production Workflows
Inside look at the IoHD
