Using RAID for video editing on USB 2.0 ~ pointless?

Hello,

I have a laptop with a 5,400rpm HD. I understand having a RAID setup (one which benefits video editing) makes working with video a lot quicker, however -I only have USB 2.0 ports on my laptop and I'm wondering whether having a caddy of 2x/3x/4x 7,200rpm 3.5" hard drives connected when working with After Effects will speed it up?

I checked if there was any PCMCIA slot but no luck, so, is it worth it?


Cheers.

couple notes - I'm using http://www.samsung.com/uk/consumer/pc-peripherals/notebook-computers/high-p... laptop and I'm looking to increase the speed of my video editing.

Here's another option:

Instead of RAID, use two separate drives over each USB port - one for reading and one for writing.

Also, if you have additional USB ports, or an SD/CF card slot, you can even add another thumb drive or card to it and use it as a temp/cache file.

Thirdly, partition the internal hard drive - the first for OS and Software, and the second for your temp/cache or write drive or backup.

That'll improve things a bit.

Want a fourth option? Open up your laptop and see if there are additional SATA ports on the motherboard. If there is, then you may have your RAID after all.

Hope this helps.

http://wolfcrow.com/blog/ - Workflow information and support for filmmakers, photographers, audiographers and videographers.

IMO, your most worthwhile upgrade is to swap the internal hd to a SSD. The read/write speeds of today's SSDs are faster than a 2-disk RAID 0. The only limitation is cost per GB, but prices are falling everyday.

Migration of your current OS and applications/data to the SSD is painless with something like Acronic True Image Home. If you choose an Intel SSD (which is a very good unit), Intel offers a free version of Acronis tailored to their SSDs. First connect up the SSD via USB as an external drive, then click and clone your current hd to the Intel SSD. Next, undo a couple of screws underneath your laptop, and swap the hd out. Quite easy. Google for instructions on the physical how-to...someone has taken the pictures to show you the how.

Ended up going for the samsung 830 ssd, will let you guys know how it performs.

My laptop has sata3 actually. Where did you get the sata2 from?

No problem! Just wanted to make sure you weren't 100% sure as I really liked the idea it was sata3.

Also I'll post some results just to make this thread useful an give back to the community. If anyone wants any particular tests run let me know.

For the standard test I'm just going to render out a quick time movie on both (hard drive vs ssd) and see how much faster it renders.