What should be stored on an External USB drive?

Pasha · Post by **Pasha** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 8:56 am

This came up often lately, especially after Ableton announcement of Session Drums and EIC2. What would be better?
The word to the the experts...
After the poll post your Preference / Experience for USB 5400 RPM self Powered drives or 7200 RPM Powered drives (with brick power supply)

- Best
- Pasha

hambone1 · Post by **hambone1** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 9:02 am

If you've got Firewire, nothing.

USB (even 2.0) is SOOOOOO slow compared to FW (especially 7200 RPM FW800).

Broken Chip · Post by **Broken Chip** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 9:11 am

Pasha,

you're working on a macbook, which only has 5400rpm drive, unless you have replaced it with a faster one. If you are using external drives for audio work the faster rpms the better. I would not recomend using anything less than 7200 rpm for audio recording and streaming.

Streaming samples and writing to disc is faster and will cause less problems with paly back in ableton.

I have all my work on an external and on my lappy. This way if one drive dies I still have my work on the other (data only really exists when it's in more than one place)

USB 2.0 or firewire 400 are your options. Do not get USB 1.0 it will be usless.

Pasha · Post by **Pasha** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 10:13 am

Broken Chip wrote:Pasha,

you're working on a macbook, which only has 5400rpm drive, unless you have replaced it with a faster one. If you are using external drives for audio work the faster rpms the better. I would not recomend using anything less than 7200 rpm for audio recording and streaming.

Streaming samples and writing to disc is faster and will cause less problems with paly back in ableton.

I have all my work on an external and on my lappy. This way if one drive dies I still have my work on the other (data only really exists when it's in more than one place)

USB 2.0 or firewire 400 are your options. Do not get USB 1.0 it will be usless.

I tried with USB Lacie 2.0 7200 Drives but the D light keeps turning on when I record tracks or while using EIC Piano so I think maybe Session Drums only could be a good deal. USB drives are better for reading than for writing. I regularly use VMWare Virtual Machines from USB 2.0 Drives (even 5400 self powered) without performance problems. What do you think?

Broken Chip · Post by **Broken Chip** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 11:30 am

I think the better choice would be to scrap the usb idea and go with firewire (less data spikes).

Things like VMWare maybe very stable running from external usb drives. They are a shell for apps that need to process, read and write. I personally don't use any pc apps on my mac. If I need to use pc apps I use them on a pc.

It can get a little messy with pc apps on macs. Most apps are not tested and not supported by developers to run under these conditions, even though they do work and sometimes very well.

Ableton OSX UB version running on your macbook and external firewire drives have all been tested and little can go wrong.

xzusa8ky · Post by **xzusa8ky** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 12:04 pm

i use usb only after my firewire 400 ports all blown up

but it seems to make no difference in my case

usb 2.0 is actually faster than a firewire 400 thats for sure...

if you set it up right i guess it shouldnt be a problem with usb

regards

ThrowAway · Post by **ThrowAway** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 12:38 pm

wheres the option for porn?

Broken Chip · Post by **Broken Chip** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 12:45 pm

ThrowAway wrote:wheres the option for porn?

that would be included in "Everything" I suspect

Pasha · Post by **Pasha** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 1:58 pm

Broken Chip wrote:I think the better choice would be to scrap the usb idea and go with firewire (less data spikes).

Things like VMWare maybe very stable running from external usb drives. They are a shell for apps that need to process, read and write. I personally don't use any pc apps on my mac. If I need to use pc apps I use them on a pc.

It can get a little messy with pc apps on macs. Most apps are not tested and not supported by developers to run under these conditions, even though they do work and sometimes very well.

Ableton OSX UB version running on your macbook and external firewire drives have all been tested and little can go wrong.

Just to avoid misunderstanding, I use VMWare Server and Workstation at my work with a Toshiba Laptop (XP Pro) and the same brand (Lacie) of USB drives I use with Mac. I'm not running Live under VmWare. However I have got VMWare Fusion to run the windows only software that controls my external gear and works like a charm.

- Best
- Pasha

Pasha · Post by **Pasha** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 1:58 pm

Broken Chip wrote:
ThrowAway wrote:wheres the option for porn?
that would be included in "Everything" I suspect

Porn should go on an 'encrypted' drive, just in case...

mook@skewer · Post by **mook@skewer** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 2:40 pm

My harddrive recently filled to brimming so I had to move some of my samples onto my USB2 Western Digital MyBook.

Great storage solution, but naff for trying to do any serious work. I should really get a bigger HD but until then I'll find myself copying the files I use from that drive back onto my HD.

Aside from that, I keep my program instal files, backups, ripped DVD WAVs and other none real time essential files on my external drive, all other important stuff on the HD.

Pasha · Post by **Pasha** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 2:46 pm

mook@skewer wrote:My harddrive recently filled to brimming so I had to move some of my samples onto my USB2 Western Digital MyBook.

Great storage solution, but naff for trying to do any serious work. I should really get a bigger HD but until then I'll find myself copying the files I use from that drive back onto my HD.

Aside from that, I keep my program instal files, backups, ripped DVD WAVs and other none real time essential files on my external drive, all other important stuff on the HD.

It really seems that every USB2 implementation for external HDD it's different. One thing it's for sure: none goes even closer to the 480 Mbits/secs specification. Thanks for reply, I'll avoid that model.

- Best
- Pasha

Pasha · Post by **Pasha** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 6:59 am

gjm · Post by **gjm** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 7:46 am

xzusa8ky wrote:

usb 2.0 is actually faster than a firewire 400 thats for sure...

No its not!

leedsquietman · Post by **leedsquietman** » Sat Jan 26, 2008 9:51 am

A lot depends on the chipsets and hardware configurations.

Firewire is not usually implemented very well or piss poor cheapo FW chipsets that are designed for digital cameras and are crap for pro audio are often found in PCs. Mac has always been a stronger platform for FW.

On my lappie which has a decent TI firewire chipset, my Maxtor One Touch Ultra III still runs marginally quicker on USB 2.0 than FW400. But audio interfaces perform better on FW but not as good as PCMCIA cardbus.

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