Ableton Forum

I am looking to buy a ext hard drive for a present but needed for a Macbook -Live and use with Rane Serato Scratch. I am thinking of a Western Digital Passport 120 gb but not sure if will be good enough..what do you suggest without breaking the bank?

LaCie hard drives are very reliable.

+1 for LaCie

the rugged drive is a very good portable solution

+1 for LaCie

but if possible look for 7200rpm (that's ofkoz my suggestion) and rather 6pin 1394 unless the 1394 slot is to be used another device.

minus 100 on LaCies ... Many of my friends have had 2, 3, 4, even 5 LaCie drive deaths. I wouldn't trust one, even on a Raid1

ive got s few differnt types but the lacie bus powered usb 2 drive is going great. no problems

i'll diss the lacie idea as well...
it is well known they have issues,
they are known to die. out of 4 my group used we've had two take a shit.
i use gtech drives now, raid 1. i also have a portable mini 7200rpm/ buss powered drive. never had an issue with those.

Great thread.

Re: Lacie's

I have 3 (d2 Triple). The first 2 work great. However, my last purchase was a 320g. It had a high-pitched whine where the others were silent. Returned it and the replacement (probably from the same batch) was just as loud. Not so happy with that 3rd Lacie.

I want to get the 500g Quadra. Are they silent?

I've been using a WD Mybook for some time now and extensively moving it around, and no problems thus far.

Maxtor works out fine for me. I have used the same drive for XP and now on Mac without any problems.

My only suggestion is to do research and make sure whatever drive you are looking at does not have any sort of auto-sleep rule... I had a (admittedly cheap) Seagate that had a sleep mode hardwired into the unit... and every time it sat idle (maybe 5-10 minutes) it would have to spin up... not good for audio. I switched to an (admittedly also cheap) Maxtor that could be set to never go idle.

the Fearsome Fearful wrote:My only suggestion is to do research and make sure whatever drive you are looking at does not have any sort of auto-sleep rule... I had a (admittedly cheap) Seagate that had a sleep mode hardwired into the unit... and every time it sat idle (maybe 5-10 minutes) it would have to spin up... not good for audio. I switched to an (admittedly also cheap) Maxtor that could be set to never go idle.

ya, this is a big problem for me. it freezes out my computer for a couple of seconds.

The question was about portable=2.5, so all those sleep problems etc wont apply.
Actually any box can do, used a cheap few dollar one for years and a friend I gave it to still using it the only difference is the build quality, resistance to mishandling. I think Lacie had the one with fancy padding.
I would use it the chance to upgrade internal drive and use the old one for the purpose, that is what I always do, recycling the drives, the oldest ending on Ebay /never wait for them to die)
Buy from a shop where you can see, touch it and estimate how tough it is,

Someone say hard drive... ran into a pinch im selling this for 125. 250 gig 7200 rpm scizzorsandpaper@yahoo

I've decided to put my own 2.5" external drive together. I'll be getting a 200GB, 7200RPM, SATA-300 Hitachi Travelstar E7K200 and sticking it in a Oyen Digital EB2-S.

The Travelstar 7K200 is reportedly the fastest 2.5" drive available - just beating the best of the Seagate Momentus range. Apparently the Travelstar also uses less power. The E7K200 is the "enhanced availability" version of the 7K200. It's designed for servers rather than notebooks and is a touch faster but consumes slightly more power. (Note that there's also a SATA-150 version of the 7K200 and E7K200.)

The Oyen Digital EB2-S enclosure seemed to be the most versatile option, though it was a close call between that and the OWC Mercury On-The-Go FireWire 800/400 +USB 2.0 2.5" enclosure. Both have Firewire 400, Firewire 800 and USB 2.0, via the Oxford 924 chipset. The Oyen Digital also has eSATA and looks a bit more sturdy, whereas the OWC comes with backup software (and I think worked out a little cheaper). But what swung my decision was better pre-sales support from Oyen Digital (although their couriers did then let me down, so I don't have it yet!) They advise me that my MacBook Pro should be able to bus power the enclosure with a Travelstar inside over Firewire or USB.

Should be good. When I get it...