How many people use external Hard Drives...

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texlop
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How many people use external Hard Drives...

Post by texlop » Sun Jan 30, 2005 11:33 pm

How many people use external Hard Drives to record audio. I've heard that when recording on a computer you should have the program running on your main hard drive and use either an external or some other hard drive just for your audio flies. Why is it that people reccommend this? Does it put less stress on the CPU? I'm curious because I was thinking of getting an external Hard Drive just for that reason.
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Re: How many people use external Hard Drives...

Post by Al_Huero » Mon Jan 31, 2005 9:01 am

I've got two running off a mac (firewire connections) and they worked fine. I had a bit of trouble intially as they were sharing a bus with my Digi 002R. I installed a second PCI firewire bus and that fixed the problem. As a recent thread clarified, if it's a new computer there's no reason the extra drives need to be external--just get a box with two drives. It was also pointed out that not using your system drive for audio isn't sacrosanct. People do it all the time. The deal is that most manufacturers (Digidesign for sure) don't recommend it; so I don't just to insure I don't have problems down the line. When adding drives you just need to insure that the specs (chip set, speed, etc.) match the audio manufacturer's specs.

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Re: How many people use external Hard Drives...

Post by maz » Mon Jan 31, 2005 11:35 am

recording to the system drive, while it will work, is playing with fire... you want your system drive to remain as clean and unfragmented as possible, and recording audio is about the quickest way to fragment a drive.

A second internal drive is actually usually better than an external Firewire (400) drive... a little better performance. The tradeoff is portability. If that isn't an issue, it's also cheaper. Most macs have 2 internal IDE busses, so you can keep the drive off the same bus and squeeze a little more performance out of it. 200GB internal drives can be had for around $100 if you look hard enough.

I use 2 external FW drives and they both work great. I wipe them clean and start over every so often but that's just good drive maintenance.

I used to recommend OWC's mercury elite, and I still do, but it seems that ALMOST any old FW drive that's made today works well.

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texlop
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Re: How many people use external Hard Drives...

Post by texlop » Mon Jan 31, 2005 12:43 pm

The thing is I can't use an extra internal drive. I just bought the iMac G5 and there is no room for an internal drive only external firewire. So, I have no choice. Anyone know where there is a good deal on an external. Everywhere I've checked is pretty pricey.
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Re: How many people use external Hard Drives...

Post by maz » Mon Jan 31, 2005 1:08 pm

texlop wrote:The thing is I can't use an extra internal drive. I just bought the iMac G5 and there is no room for an internal drive only external firewire. So, I have no choice. Anyone know where there is a good deal on an external. Everywhere I've checked is pretty pricey.
well, the cheapest deals I have found come up on
http://www.dealmac.com but you have to watch for them.

External FW drives aren't cheap really in any way. You could find a cheap internal IDE drive and then a cheap Firewire enclosure on eBay and build one but it's all about the enclosure, since that's where the control chip is. So I don't know if that would be a good idea. CompUSA usually has decently priced FW drives. But if you watch dealmac every day you'll find something good.

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Re: How many people use external Hard Drives...

Post by megajoe » Mon Jan 31, 2005 10:40 pm

This looks pretty cool, I might have to get one for myself

http://eshop.macsales.com/Catalog_Item. ... OWCUSB2ATA

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texlop
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Re: How many people use external Hard Drives...

Post by texlop » Tue Feb 01, 2005 1:02 am

That's actually not bad 25 bucks, I saw 80GB hard drives at bestbuy for 40 bucks. 65 dollars for an external hard drive is a steal.
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Re: How many people use external Hard Drives...

Post by Zoltar » Tue Feb 01, 2005 9:08 am

One of the reasons I went with an external was to make it easier to move between computers. has anybody had any success going between pc and mac? I have a maxtor, i can't find a format os9 and xp agree on.

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Re: How many people use external Hard Drives...

Post by phill2796 » Tue Feb 01, 2005 1:25 pm

I use a 80gb USB 2.0 to move projects from our studio to my home studio.
I was going to get a enclosure it was 49.00 but for 59.00 got the 80 gb USB 2.0 setup. It was on sale at Comp USA.
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Re: How many people use external Hard Drives...

Post by mungojeff » Wed Feb 02, 2005 12:58 pm

Mostly when people are talking about external drives they mention firewire, but are external USB drives usable at all for recording?

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Re: How many people use external Hard Drives...

Post by SFTapeOpBoy » Fri Feb 04, 2005 9:27 am

I use an external FireWire drive with my laptop for mobile recording. No problems recording for 45min-1hr straight with 16 tracks @44.1/16bit. FireWire drives/cases from Granite Digital were recommended to me, and I'm using their "FIREVue FW 400-1394a 120GB" version. Very well built. http://www.granitedigital.com/catalog/p ... rewirecase.

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Re: How many people use external Hard Drives...

Post by kittonian » Fri Feb 04, 2005 2:58 pm

I use the Glyph GT-103 and it rocks. Plus it's specifically designed for pro audio purposes. A bit on the pricey side but well worth it for the piece of mind and support you get with Glyph.
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Re: How many people use external Hard Drives...

Post by Everybody's X » Fri Feb 04, 2005 9:27 pm

the general consensus seems to be the the USB bus is too slow for tracking.

as far as moving files between computers I guess it would be fine
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Re: How many people use external Hard Drives...

Post by kayagum » Mon Feb 07, 2005 11:21 am

mungojeff wrote:Mostly when people are talking about external drives they mention firewire, but are external USB drives usable at all for recording?
USB2 should be fine (it's theoretically in the same ballpark as firewire) but USB (1.0 or 1.1) is 1/10th the bandwidth.

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Re: How many people use external Hard Drives...

Post by DH » Mon Feb 07, 2005 8:24 pm

with only one firewire port on my g4 powerbook, i'm relegated to using the internal drive for my 002. i installed a 7200 rpm 60 gig drive which works well, but kills the battery faster.

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