Short Drive Rant...sorry...

[Howie J]

So, earlier this year I had one of the best hard drives I've ever used for my live recordings. G-Drive, 500GB two FW400 6 pins between my Mac Book Pro and my 002. I teach tech theater/sound/etc. at a high school as part of my job as the tech director and over-estimated the knowledge of one of my students. He put a 6 pin cable in upside down and stripped the pins, rendering my drive useless for my recording purposes. Wonderful!! It's a F-ing miracle he didn't fail my class, but my teacher side came out and just firmly pointed out the wrong he'd done. He's very enthusiastic (yet clueless) about the field so I pointed out how he would be fired or docked money or both in the "real world". Such is the HS eviron... He was a freshman. I digress.


I was going to hit up a new Glyph hot swap rack and TB drive but everyone I called (Sweetwater, Full Compass, etc, etc) was back ordered for a month and I needed a drive in two weeks. I bought a LaCie TB external with two FW 400 and an eSATA. Worked decently for my last three concerts. However, it seems to be getting more and more ornery each time. Did two 3 1/2 hour recordings last weekend and I had to do some crazy morse code of swapping FW ports, plugging in at the right time, etc.

Did a audio/video EPK recording tonight and damn near tossed the thing against a brick wall. I would almost be worth the $120 I paid to see it explode against the wall. I've had bar tabs bigger than that...and had more enjoyment.

My MBP wouldn't start with the drive plugged in. Unplug...fine. MBP would see it after boot up, but the drive wouldn't be recognized once I plugged the FW cable to the 002. This dance goes on for about 35 minutes till it's happy with something. I'm done with it and going to order a Glyph single hot-swap chassis with a TB drive unless someone has a better option for the amazing, unstable world of live Hard Drives.

Here ends the rant.

Howie J

[Thomas W. Bethe]

I hear you.

I have four interns working here and they are all great people.

However they sometimes get themselves into some "interesting" situations. Like the time one of them tried to hook up the mini USB connector to the drive and it would not work. I took one look at it and found that they had put the USB connector into the security locking port. No wonder it would not work. Or the time one of them said they could not get the drive to be recognized on the computer. The drive was turned off so that is why the computer would not find it.

Most of the time they know a lot more than I do but sometimes.....they forget the most basic things.

As for drives, today it is a BIG CRAP SHOOT, One drive manufacture I would really stay away from is IOMEGA their drives fail and fail big time. I am also less enamored of LaCie drives since one of their drives bit the dust and it still has not been fixed, although they did send me another power supply which fixed some of the problems. The company seems to know they have problems it is just getting them to fix the problems.

We are a mixed media operation and have PCs and MACs and trade things back and forth. I really need some reliable drives. So far SEAGATEs have been very good but I see on the internet that they too are having problems. I think since a majority of the drives are now made in China that they are all having problems. It is too bad that brands you could count on in the past have gone bad.

Best of luck!

[Baithak]

Hi Howie:

First, go for the Glyphs. They are pretty good given the average quality of current drives. I have their 1TB in a Raid config and a 250GB just in case and they are both trouble free since the day they are in use.

As to the "portable" drives, the less said the better. All sorts of failing to load, self destruction after multiple rude noises, dismounting when the computer goes to sleep, on and on and on. I haven't yet found a reliable drive in the 200GB category that can be used with USB (using a Macbook and Macbook pro). I have tried docks, hubs, direct connects, the short cable, long cable you name it.

So yeah. Go for the Glyph and THEN slam that LaCie puppy against the wall.

Baithak

[Don S]

Rocpro (850) or OWC mercury elite if you don't mind the external wart.
1.5TB (1500GB) OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Q... (MEAQ7S15TB32) at OWC
Rocpro 850 Desktop and mobile 3.5inch, eSATA, FireWire 800/400 (1394b IEEE) and USB Hard Drives

[Howie J]

Glyph GT single chassis and 500 GB drive on the way. I'll add more drives as needed.

Howie J