Ableton Forum

hello all.

i want to get an external firewire drive for live performances...

what are your experiences (bad & good) of using firewire hard drives live.... is it worth spending more and getting an audio specific one like a glyph?

if you haven't got time to answer all that then just saying which one you use (and if you're happy with it) would be nice

any help would be much appreciated...

thanks

mark

Hi Mark,

not a recommendation, but some words to that issue.

The big question is do you want to use a small firewire drive with 2,5" (or smaller) disks like in Notebooks and which needs no external power ? Or do you plan to get a firewire drive with a "normal" desktop size disks where you need external power?

For myself I use a small notebook disk in a firewire drive. I used it once or twice together with Live and it was ok but a desktop disk is definitively faster (but louder, bigger and heavier).

regards,
Alex

Hi Alex.

I was thinking more of a desktop style disk, though am open to suggestions. What is the make of your disk? How much was it?

I am currently looking at Lacie & Glyph drives, as they have the biggest choice in the UK. So you think that the specs won't matter too much? I want one with 2mb or 8mb buffer, 7200r..., oxford 911 chip.....

If Live generally is ok with external firewire drives of modest quality then there's no need to shop for a very expensive one....

any suggestions would be great...
mark

Haven't one yet myself but hear good things on the Lacies ...

cheers

I use a Western Digital Jumbo 200 GB drive, 8MB cache, in an external Firewire Wiebetech SuperDesktop GB enclosure. I have not gigged with it, but, I did some performance testing and found that the file transfer rates are right in the neighborhood of your internal laptop drives (some tests it actually performed better). The newest laptop drives have 16MB caches, and those sound really fantastic for gigging, as you can get whole songs + into drive cache. No more glitches!

-0

speaking as a newbie with hardware change out, how hard is it to change out to one of those new hard drives with the 16mb caches and where abouts do i find one?

its easy.. its just a case with an IDE and power connector.

you can buy your case and hd and assemble yourself.

the trick is make sure to buy the oxford 911 chipset as thats the best performing firewire chipset (sends and recieves data asyncroniously.. while others have been known not to )

www.fwdepot.com

sorry I'm no real techy.... but do you mean to buy an internal drive and stick it in a case and use it as an external drive via firewire? if i've got this wrong then can you explain?

is it perhaps worth changing my internal drive for a larger/faster one - instead of using an external drive?

I just like the idea of being able to store ALL audio in 1 place.....

also, I thought that the highend external firewire drives were actually better solutions to internal drives where audio and programs share the same space????

Hi Mark,

I cannot say something about performance of my current firewire drive. It's a 2.5" 60GB Toshiba disk in a Fire case from Datafab.
If I will find time I can check the disk performance compared to an internal hardisk on the weekend.

Concerning the Disk from Lacie... it seems that also the Lacie desktop size disk cases come without a fan. It would mean it's not so noisy like other firewire cases. Good point in my opinion.

regards,
Alex

Mark Henning wrote:sorry I'm no real techy.... but do you mean to buy an internal drive and stick it in a case and use it as an external drive via firewire? if i've got this wrong then can you explain?

is it perhaps worth changing my internal drive for a larger/faster one - instead of using an external drive?

I just like the idea of being able to store ALL audio in 1 place.....

also, I thought that the highend external firewire drives were actually better solutions to internal drives where audio and programs share the same space????

Forget about changing your internal drive. The biggest factor regaurding limitations as to the nunber of simultaneous tracks you can record without glitches is the RPM of your harddrive. Most high end laptop hds only spin at 4800-5400 RPM, I've only heard of one in the works by IBM (TRavelstar) that is a 7,200 RPM laptop. Problems are the high heat cause by such fast spinning, and getting it to not burn up your laptop. Not only do the internal drives spin less fast, but you will definitly pay more per gig for an inferior (performance-wise) interior drive.

If you've recorded much multitrack stuff, you'll see how quickly disc space evaporates--recording 7 tracks for about 2 hours at band practice at 24 bit in Live is about 4 gigs of harddrive space. Therefore, may as well get a big daddy drive with 120+ gigs, you will not have trouble filling it up. The bigger drives actually allow you better/faster storage towards the outside of the hard drive disk, as it allows you to store more info per drive revolution that a smaller harddrive. Analogy: two bicycles are being pedaled at the exact same rate (RPM), but one has bigger diameter tires--(more gigs), the bigger tires will take that cyclist that much further each revolution. As long as you aren't super worried about noise (my firewire drive is no louder than my toshiba satellite 2430), and size(9" x 1/12" x 6"), and external firewire drive enclosure containing a western digital 7,200 RPM, 8 MB cache, 8.98 ms seek time drive is the way to go. You can spend more for no fan, super small quite drives, or for dedicated audio stuff, but I know of many high-quaility studios (both mac and pc based) using external firewire drives like I describe. If you can handle the noise/size/wallwart factor (which to me is no problem--its no noiser than my computer, it fits in my laptop bag, and I alway have power where I record anyway), then that is what you should get--in the end you will be getting a drive that will outperform the expensive small, quiet drives as well as the expensive audio drives. Should be no more than $250 for 120 gigs, not bad.

Definetly agree with you thoughts about programs sharing the same internal hd. It is absolutely a better situation to be reording all of you audio via firewire to a drive dedicated soley to recording audio, and have all of your programs and apps on your internal drive. Go for the external fw westerndigital 7,200 RPM, 8 MB cache, 8.9 ms seek time--the best performance, and a better price than the other options. Definitely don't bother with the internal drive.

Hope that helps,

Ryan

wow - ryan thanks a million... that's sorted it for me. you've told me everything I could possibly want to know

In addition to Ryan's arguments you can read through this : http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/20030411/index.html

Mbazzy wrote:In addition to Ryan's arguments you can read through this : http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/20030411/index.html

thanks dude

Ditto with Ryan Rpm is the killer number when it comes to performance along with the 911 oxford bridgeset. You want 7200 rpm at least which will be plenty for you.

Try here http://www.jigsaw24.com/cats/storage/ ask for Rachel tell her jamie told you to speak to her she's very helpfull and it's agreat company in the past we have bought many macs and other stuff from her.

Look at the com5 disks under the above link > i,m using the portable 120 gig 9, needs 12v power supply, no fan - it's quiet and they look very very cool and there small as well. I bought mine from a different company last summer as jigsaw didnt stock at the time so ask Rachell it's still 911 bridgeset 7200 rpm disk - just to check.



best

J~F