Which one faster > Ext. drive via USB2 or Gigabit Etherne

JamieG · Post by **JamieG** » Fri Oct 13, 2006 3:46 pm

Krugger wrote:Thanks for the tip

I just got back with a Western Digital My Book Pro 250GB with USB2/Firewire400/Firewire800 at 7200rpm and 16MB Cache

I thought next year hopefully there will be a Macbook version with F 800 and it's worth getting Firewire 800 on the drive in one go.

I already use the firewire port on my Macbook with my MAudio FW 410.
Can I daisy chain??
Reliable?

Or should I just stick to USB2 for now?

HDD sounds nice. FireWire 400 is usually sufficient, the transfer speeds of a disk are rarely as fast as this anyway.

There are no reliability issues with daisy chaining FireWire devices (thats why theres only one port on your macBook). FireWire is a very advanced, self-managing technology, it basically has seperate channels for data to travel down, so daisy-chaining works as well as having your devices pluged into seperate ports.

You can daisy-chain your devices as long as there are 2 FireWire ports on one of the devices (probably 2 on your soundcard). I would have your SoundCard attached to your computer, then your HDD attatched to the soundcard (so the HDD is at the end of the chain), this allows you to remove your HDD without remove your soundcard.

I'm not very good at explaining things so Hope this helps!

Jamie

Krugger · Post by **Krugger** » Fri Oct 13, 2006 3:50 pm

dude, no offense to other people, but you've been the most helpful of all since my day began!!

I'm gonna set it up on firewire then as a test and do some sessions, see how things go.

My 1GB extra RAM arrives next week, completing the upgrade. I'll then have 2GB with paired 1GB next week (currently on 1.25GB)
That plus the external drive cache/project setup should make my Macbook scream far more than now.

Thanks again!

JamieG · Post by **JamieG** » Fri Oct 13, 2006 4:01 pm

Krugger wrote:dude, no offense to other people, but you've been the most helpful of all since my day began!!

I'm gonna set it up on firewire then as a test and do some sessions, see how things go.

My 1GB extra RAM arrives next week, completing the upgrade. I'll then have 2GB with paired 1GB next week (currently on 1.25GB)
That plus the external drive cache/project setup should make my Macbook scream far more than now.

Thanks again!

Nice. Are you using Live 6? or 5. Cos if your using 5, you would see a big jump in performance upgrading to 6. Live 6 takes advantage of Multi-Core processors (such as the one in your MacBook)

http://www.ableton.com/pages/live_6/wha ... or_support

Mac OS X loves ram, adding ram is the best way to boost performance bar upgrading the processor. Your system will be flying!! I'm feeling very jelous as I type this on my battered PowerBook (which has lasted very well considering the abuse it has taken - i'll defin get another Mac laptop when I need to upgrade)!!!

Jamie

FrankH · Post by **FrankH** » Fri Oct 13, 2006 4:02 pm

Krugger wrote:after doing some research, your post looks very accurate indeed!

leaving me still with the question: can I daisy chain the FW410 sound card to the drive?

Firewire has seperate send and receive wires and is therefore 'full-duplex' where USB is sort of half-duplex (send and receive packages sharing the same wire) so it should not be any problem to daisy chain the devices and not losing bandwidth. Hook it up and see how it works.

Krugger · Post by **Krugger** » Fri Oct 13, 2006 4:05 pm

FrankH wrote:
Krugger wrote:after doing some research, your post looks very accurate indeed!

leaving me still with the question: can I daisy chain the FW410 sound card to the drive?
Firewire has seperate send and receive wires and is therefore 'full-duplex' where USB is sort of half-duplex (send and receive packages sharing the same wire) so it should not be any problem to daisy chain the devices and not losing bandwidth. Hook it up and see how it works.

Will do! Thanks for your input

Krugger · Post by **Krugger** » Fri Oct 13, 2006 4:07 pm

JamieG wrote:
Krugger wrote:dude, no offense to other people, but you've been the most helpful of all since my day began!!

I'm gonna set it up on firewire then as a test and do some sessions, see how things go.

My 1GB extra RAM arrives next week, completing the upgrade. I'll then have 2GB with paired 1GB next week (currently on 1.25GB)
That plus the external drive cache/project setup should make my Macbook scream far more than now.

Thanks again!
Nice. Are you using Live 6? or 5. Cos if your using 5, you would see a big jump in performance upgrading to 6. Live 6 takes advantage of Multi-Core processors (such as the one in your MacBook)

http://www.ableton.com/pages/live_6/wha ... or_support

Mac OS X loves ram, adding ram is the best way to boost performance bar upgrading the processor. Your system will be flying!! I'm feeling very jelous as I type this on my battered PowerBook (which has lasted very well considering the abuse it has taken - i'll defin get another Mac laptop when I need to upgrade)!!!

Jamie

Live 6 - As i had already paid 39 euros to upgrade to 5.2 when I bought my Macbook, I got Live 6 for 60 euros only

I actually got rid of my copy of Logic Pro 7.2 - nothing against it, just see myself spending more time on Abes 6 now and couldn't justify the price paid for Logic.
Hence i decided to reinvest the cash into memory and an external drive.

FrankH · Post by **FrankH** » Fri Oct 13, 2006 4:12 pm

Have fun!

JamieG · Post by **JamieG** » Fri Oct 13, 2006 4:17 pm

Krugger wrote:Live 6 - As i had already paid 39 euros to upgrade to 5.2 when I bought my Macbook, I got Live 6 for 60 euros only

I actually got rid of my copy of Logic Pro 7.2 - nothing against it, just see myself spending more time on Abes 6 now and couldn't justify the price paid for Logic.
Hence i decided to reinvest the cash into memory and an external drive.

Yeah, I find myself using ProTools less and less. Live is just so much more fun!

Which one faster > Ext. drive via USB2 or Gigabit Etherne

Which one faster > Ext. drive via USB2 or Gigabit Ethernet?