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external drive...
Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2006 7:45 am
by David-H
I'm wondering if You can advise me please.
I'm using Ableton Live5 with my Audiophile Firewire 410 on my G4 Powerbook. I saw a DJ playing WAV/MP3 from an external drive...
Which external drive would you recommend i use for this application ?
Would any of these work ...?
http://www.cancomuk.com/products/search.htm?name=51930
http://www.cancomuk.com/products/search.htm?name=57568
Many thanks,
David-H...
My website
www.the-bongoman.com
Posted: Wed Oct 25, 2006 2:19 pm
by Herne
That seems arsing expensive for the size and speed. USB2 is [in theory] 80MB/sec faster than Firewire400.
If you haven't got any USB2 and are stuck with Firewire400, try and avoid Mac only dealers. You get shafted there and back again.
I'd try ebuyer [really crap service but cheap] Dabs [bit pricey] or Scan [low stock levels] for a generic external hard drive.
Better still buy a housing, and add your own hard drive, it's really simple, and you can choose a nice fast, [7,200rpm and/or 8MB Cache], drive.
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/79985 for USB.
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/118506 for firewire.
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/108782 with this drive as a cheap option.
Macs are pretty good at picking up generic HiD kit, so you don't need to get Mac specific stuff, unless you want to.
Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 11:03 am
by pev
Herne wrote:That seems arsing expensive for the size and speed. USB2 is [in theory] 80MB/sec faster than Firewire400.
In practice though, USB is not very efficient and nearly always shares the bus with other devices that don't play so fairly. Firewire users (in general!) tend not to daisy chain devices.
I don't know which G4 PowerBook you have but I'd guess that you have two firewire ports and no USB2 so this would probably be your best solution if this is the case.
Avoid any of the cheap generic Asian enclosures - I've had all sorts of issues with them! Personally I've found Lacie to make decent drives with sensible interface boards. My 320G Big Disk (two drives raided with a Firewire board) has worked totally reliably, plus it has a rack kit and lives in a nice 4U portable rack with an 828 + Midi Express XT and an audio patchbay. Everything you need for a fun day out!
~Pev