Simple Pro Tools question (external hard drive related)

[jgrif08]

So I'm just trying to get an answer for a buddy of mine.

I know PT 'prefers' if you record to an external hard drive. If you've got a macbook you're only given one FW port. If you're recording with a DIGI 002 that takes up your firewire.

So will recording to an external USB hard drive suffice? Latency issues at all by doing this?

[Detuned6]

Originally Posted by jgrif08

So I'm just trying to get an answer for a buddy of mine.

I know PT 'prefers' if you record to an external hard drive. If you've got a macbook you're only given one FW port. If you're recording with a DIGI 002 that takes up your firewire.

So will recording to an external USB hard drive suffice? Latency issues at all by doing this?

USB drives will not cut it, FW 400 or 800 is the way to go. Which ever HD you use, latency has nothing to do with it. Make sure your external FW drive has either a OXxord 911,912 or 924 chipset.
Can you add a Express card to your mac? (for PC's they are called a pcmcia card) If so, get a FW400/800 one and make sure it has TI chipset.

[LoopQuantum]

Originally Posted by jgrif08

So I'm just trying to get an answer for a buddy of mine.

I know PT 'prefers' if you record to an external hard drive. If you've got a macbook you're only given one FW port. If you're recording with a DIGI 002 that takes up your firewire.

So will recording to an external USB hard drive suffice? Latency issues at all by doing this?

Almost all FW devices have a FW through port. Digi002 does, as do most FW drives. You can safely daisy chain devices on one FW port, just put the drive closest to the computer.

Computer-----FWCable-----FWDrive----FWCable----Digi002.

Will work fine. On a Macbook, no prob. On PCs it seems to be necessary to have the drive and interface on discrete FW Busses, so a PCMCIA FWire card would solve this were you using a PC, though I've seen similar daisy chaining on PCs with no issue.

Cheers.

[PhilE]

Digi 002 has a link through for FW 400.
I think the macbook has a single FW 400 and a FW 800 port- just stick the drive on the 800.

[BIGT-1]

Unless I'm missing something obvious in your question...

Just chain the FW devices = mac to drive to 002.

[Detuned6]

Originally Posted by PhilE

Digi 002 has a link through for FW 400.
I think the macbook has a single FW 400 and a FW 800 port- just stick the drive on the 800.

I plan on putting together a FW800 drive soon, why not, its faster and basically the same price as a fw400 case. I got my eye on a case that has FW400/800/esata output, and can run on a SATAII HD.

[jgrif08]

Originally Posted by BIGT-1

Unless I'm missing something obvious in your question...

Just chain the FW devices = mac to drive to 002.

nope, the only obvious thing was that I've never worked with an external HD before and didn't think about FW thru.

Thanks guys

[jgrif08]

Originally Posted by PhilE

Digi 002 has a link through for FW 400.
I think the macbook has a single FW 400 and a FW 800 port- just stick the drive on the 800.

I thought the macbook only had FW400? (mine's brand new and sitting at home so I'm not looking at it, but I'm pretty sure it was only FW800 on the macbook pro

[sardi]

Originally Posted by jgrif08

I thought the macbook only had FW400? (mine's brand new and sitting at home so I'm not looking at it, but I'm pretty sure it was only FW800 on the macbook pro

You are correct. Only ONE FW400 port.

MBP has FW800.

Do the daisy chain option with the HD first in the chain.

[transfiguration]

Originally Posted by Detuned6

I plan on putting together a FW800 drive soon, why not, its faster and basically the same price as a fw400 case. I got my eye on a case that has FW400/800/esata output, and can run on a SATAII HD.

Have you heard any reports from LE users on a PC laptop using an external SATA II drive with success?

I was thinking about a Seagate 320GB 7200 16MB SATA-300 HD for $80.

Got a link to that case you've been peaking at?

Best, trans

[iluvatar]

Originally Posted by jgrif08

So I'm just trying to get an answer for a buddy of mine.

I know PT 'prefers' if you record to an external hard drive. If you've got a macbook you're only given one FW port. If you're recording with a DIGI 002 that takes up your firewire.

So will recording to an external USB hard drive suffice? Latency issues at all by doing this?

Why does PT prefer that you record to an external drive?

-Dan.

[chrisp2u]

Originally Posted by iluvatar

Why does PT prefer that you record to an external drive?

-Dan.

This should more specifically be a NON-SYSTEM drive... not necessarily an external drive. A secondary non-system internal drive will outperform any external connected via FW or USB. But of course, you can't have secondary internals, especially with laptops.
---
c

[LoopQuantum]

Originally Posted by chrisp2u

This should more specifically be a NON-SYSTEM drive... not necessarily an external drive. A secondary non-system internal drive will outperform any external connected via FW or USB. But of course, you can't have secondary internals, especially with laptops.
---
c

Beyond this, specific to laptops, Most internal laptop drives spin at around 5400 RPMS, which can cause all sorts of problems, buffer underrun, etc. so working on an External FW drive is beneficial, in that they're usually 7200 RPM drives, which is what's needed.

[Detuned6]

Originally Posted by transfiguration

Have you heard any reports from LE users on a PC laptop using an external SATA II drive with success?

I was thinking about a Seagate 320GB 7200 16MB SATA-300 HD for $80.

Got a link to that case you've been peaking at?

Best, trans

I started a thread on the DUC, and bumped a few that had to do with external FW drives and laptops,but not many people seemed to chime in.
Heres the HD case I was thinking about using.
http://www.cooldrives.com/esata-fire...-external.html
OWC has a FW400/800 drive case that takes a SATAII drive also.
The most important thing is that the case has a oxford chipset 911/912/924. After that its all a cosmetic choice left.

This one looks nice also.
http://www.cooldrives.com/dusahadrfi80.html

[sardi]

I believe I mentioned this in the other thread you are reffering to:

http://www.sarotech.com/english/cgi/...md=view&rno=10

These cases really are THE BOMB!!

Check em out.

[Iscralatchtical]

I think you'll find that only the MBP 17 has the FW800 too...funny how they stopped using that and put it back on their latest release. Probably because the express slot is looking pretty useless as of yet so they needed some faster interim port that's not going to be 400 mbps.

I am shopping around for a notebook, and i think the powerbook g4 17" is looking better than these new macbooks.

[Detuned6]

Originally Posted by sardi

I believe I mentioned this in the other thread you are reffering to:

http://www.sarotech.com/english/cgi/...md=view&rno=10

These cases really are THE BOMB!!

Check em out.

Those look nice, but they dont mention the chipset they use.