best firewire drive?

[Echos Myron]

I am running protools mBox on an iBook. What external firewire drive brand would work the best with this setup? Would LaCie be okay?

[JGriffin]

I have two 60GB Maxtors that seem to work fine with my emac/002 setup (about a year now with no problems --knock on wood). Don't know about the LaCie.

[NewAndImprov]

I am running protools mBox on an iBook. What external firewire drive brand would work the best with this setup? Would LaCie be okay?

I have 2 LaCies here, and both seem fine, one is about 2 years old, the other pretty new. I read that LaCies are good because they have metal cases, for better cooling. Also read that you want to run them standing vertically, again for cooling. The main reason I got them is that they are what my local dealer carries, and they have been fine by me.

[sendr]

I bought a firewire case from otherworldcomputing and it has a cool blue light. I stuck a barracuda V drive in there and its wickedly quiet: fluid-bearing hd, and no fan in the case. rocsk-und-roll

[wendy f]

yeah, a la cie would be great for your set up. that's what i use. no problems.

[skaught]

Otherworldcomputing(OWC) has great firewire drives. I suggest the 80 gig 7200 rpm Murcury firewire drive. ive heard the 120's have problems. We got one for a current project, it was $179. And it looks cool. (not like that really matters)

[jayrope]

i just lost a 120 gb ibm - one year old - to the ghost of the data nirvana. heads don't move, though teh hd spins still.
this just fyi as an example of sthg one shouldn't buy. i asked around a lil bit and it seems ibm drives have a pretty bad name at the moment. mine was made in hungary, but i guess ibm should be able to establish a proper quality control... (???)

oh and: yeah look for a low noise drive. mine was very silent in the beginning - no fan in the case - later it got a lil louder but not much.

plus: all and any firewire case should utilize at least an oxford 911 bridge.

dunno about firewire 800 though

[daveaux]

Beware the "super deals" - if you look at a bunch of drives, you'll notice that many use the same box with a different sticker on top but crap drives inside. They say you should use Oxford 911 chipset drives for best performance in editing.

I use a LaCie (the small metal one with rounded corners), it's quiet and robust, and I've had no probs.

A lot of people just get the firewire box and put their own quality IDE drive in it for about 2/3 the cost. Of course, there's no warranty that way, and you could conceivable screw it up ? but it's worth looking into it.

g'luck!

[andrewstadium]

I purchased a Lacie 60gig. drive in Febuary 2002. To this day I have had zero problems with it. It has proven to be quite rugged considering how many trips between home and studio I have taken. It has its own mac os 9.2 system with all my audio apps, plug ins etc. Have never had a problem booting or running applications off of it. Who knew?

[UXB]

Just a heads up on La cie, there are no fans in those cases, and depending on the model, use WD drives with 2 meg buffers. You may be best served getting, say, a WD1200J (Western Digital), 120 gig with 8 meg buffer, or the comparable seagate drive and throwing it into an ADS case. They are using the newer Oxford chipset as well.
I own all of the above BTW.

Best Wishes,
H

[SONICLAB]

If you are looking for fairly cheap dual hotswapable hard drives, there is a company called Granite Digital (www.granitedigital.com). I have been running Maxtors and Western Digital and haven't had any problems with them.

[coolbreezes]

I know this is an old post but, I bought a Western Digital external 120 GB Firewire drive and it f@#$ing sucks! It can't run Pro Tools 96khz sessions off my Digi002 rack. I have a Mac G4 1.5ghz and am running OSX 10.3.4 w/ Pro Tools LE 6.4. Beware of the Western Digital! I just bought a La Cie and this apparently has the Oxford 911 Bridge Chip which Digidesign suggests. Hope this thing doesn't blow. Happy recording.

[Audio-Host]

not sure many have tried these out but the new Bigger Drives from Lacie are wickedly nice.

we've been using the 500TB since it came out. Very sleek, quiet and smooth.

[coolbreezes]

I have just purchased a La Cie 160 GB FireWire drive and have been having some problems. I was hoping some of you may be able to help me. I am running a digi002r w/ a Dual 1.25 GHZ G4 and I keep getting error code 6085 when running from the LaCie drive. I have changed the buffer but I can't get anything to play or record. I am recording my band's next CD and I really would like to resolve this. Any thoughts?

[kcrusher]

This may be your problem:

Known Incompatibilities

* Recording with the Digi 002 to a FireWire drive connected to any of the 3 built-in Firewire ports on the 2003 PowerMac G4 "FW800" models can result in -6085 errors. On these computers, Digidesign recommends using a dedicated internal ATA/IDE drive for recording. If using FireWire drives with Digi 002 & 2003 G4 FW800 computers, a FireWire PCI adapter card must be used.


From the Digi website:

http://www.digidesign.com/compato/osx/002/