PCMCIA firewire/usb cards

Tommy Tron · Post by **Tommy Tron** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 9:54 am

Ive got one firewire port on my laptop which im going to use for audio interface, but also need to get a fast external hard drive. does anyone know of any issues surrounding the use of PCMCIA firewire/usb2 cards? are they slower than having the port on your computer? or do i have to be careful about which one to get (following on from that thread about firewire chipsets)

anyhelp would be greatly appreciated

got a toshiba satellite pro

borg · Post by **borg** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 2:44 pm

never heard of pcmcia hard disks (i'm not that much of a geek). however, i succesfully run a toshiba satellite 3000 with a pcmcia sound card (rme) and a fw hard disk. so it's the other way around.

in the other thread someone said texas instrument fw controllers should be avoided. for pcmcia, however, the texas instrument pcmcia contr is the one to look for... (which is likely to be in your laptop. at least, my satellite has this ti pcmcia contr.

Per Boysen · Post by **Per Boysen** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 2:50 pm

I'm also doing it the other way around. Running a PCMCIA card for audio interface and an external FireWire800 hard drive for recordings and sound library.

Machinate · Post by **Machinate** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 3:45 pm

don't exclude pcmcia soundcards, tron. I've heard wonderful things about the Indigo series and the rme multiface, which are both pcmcia cards

A lot of fw audio interfaces have two fw ports for easy daisychaining with other fw products.

M.

Per Boysen · Post by **Per Boysen** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 4:12 pm

Even the slower firewire 400 (compared to fw800), of your Toshiba, is good for an external drive. I've seen many posts on this forum from ppl using FW400 with PC's and they seem to run many tracks.

PCMCIA is known to be a little faster than FW800 and, used for audio inteerface, it will give you the shortest latency when playing soft-synths or audio input.

Tommy Tron · Post by **Tommy Tron** » Fri Jul 09, 2004 10:01 am

cheers for the advice people

you're lovely