• Hard-drive camcorders provide users with plenty of storage space.cam controls image by jimcox40 from Fotolia.com
  
  Theoretically speaking, camcorders should have been compatible with hard drives a long time ago, although write speeds and storage capacities of hard disks made disk-based camcorders impractical. With modern hard drives operating faster and allowing for storage on a smaller physical space, camcorders users can finally cut their connection to external storage media with hard-disk based video recorders.
  
  

Storage Capacity

• The most significant advantage hard disk camcorders bring to the market is their vast storage capacity. A 60GB hard drive has the space to record about 14 hours of video on normal settings, with another 14 available to videographers who opt for lower quality recordings. By contrast, a digital camcorder with an 8GB flash card can only store two and a half hours of footage before running out of storage. For videographers with a propensity toward editing, hard-drive based camcorders provide the storage space to shoot enough footage to sacrifice all but the best bits in editing.
  
  

Versatility

• Where some tape-based and minidisc camcorders offered users the ability to use their camcorder to take still pictures in addition to video, many required users to store photographs on a secondary memory card. Because hard drive based cameras are simply encoding files onto a hard drive, these cameras allow users to store video and stills on the same hard drive.
  
  

Accessibility

• Camcorders that digitally record to tape don't offer instant access to any point in the recording. Hard drives' nonlinear access makes locating the right spot on the video a snap, moving quickly and easily between sections, allowing users the ability to quickly edit or preview videos.
  
  

HD Capabilities

• Although high-definition flash based cameras are on the market, that medium's storage limitations may severely limit a videographer's ability to capture a lot of HD footage before running out of storage space. Many hard-drive camcorders are designed to be used in HD mode, allowing videographers to film the highest quality footage at all times.
  
  

Size

• Although a hard drive-based camcorder is usually larger than its flash-based counterparts, hard-drive camcorders are typically smaller than HD camcorders that recorded to digital tape, making them a compromise between size and performance.