I am new too but...

I have read around and found that there is a special type of hard disk that works better than the drives you and I are most familiar with. Try searching for Maxtor "Quickview" drives on Google or Pricewatch. These drives have limited ECC (error correction) configured on them which is BAD for computers and data but GOOD for video systems. A tiny missing pixel on a 2 hour movie means nothing. If that ecc glitch causes the drive to go into retries to recover the data the whole system gets upset if there are extended delays.

I stongly reccomend you look at a Quickview drive... or an equivelent. BTW using specialzed IDE tools you can cause most other drives to ignore extensive error correction... but you would have to locate and learn how to use these utilities. I am a computer tech, but a lazy one. I chose to just find and buy a drive that is already set up the best way for video viewing. I paid $159 for a brand new 300 gig Maxtor Quickview from Allstarshop.com.

Gee don't I learn fast? Blind leading the blind here maybe? (giggle) Hope this helps.:p

Dennis