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How To => D.A.W. Help => Topic started by: AzureCrystal on April 04, 2007, 07:44:40 PM

Title: External firewire drive = good enough for audio ??
Post by: AzureCrystal on April 04, 2007, 07:44:40 PM

Grateful thanks for any help or insight, I have a Dell pc for music and do not want to add a new drive, I would prefer an external one in the event I switch computers, has anyone had success with using firewire based external drives to record audio ??

Below are the specs of the drive I'm considering:

LaCie 160 GB F.A Porsche External FireWire / IEEE 1394 Hard Drive.
Featuring spindle speeds of up to 7200 rpm, it ensures fast access times. The high speed FireWire interface enables fast data transfer rates of up to 400 Mbps.

Title: Re: External firewire drive = good enough for audio ??
Post by: digitaldrummer on April 04, 2007, 08:08:07 PM

I honestly don't do it myself (I have a couple big internal SATA drives) but I could... there are many, many, many users doing it with firewire external drives and laptops.

I mostly use them for backup devices myself.  There are also firewire 800 interfaces -not sure about drives, but that would be even better if you could find one.  fw400 should be sufficient for most systems though.

I just picked up a USB 2.0/IEEE 1394 enclosure (by Airlink+) at my local Fry's for $30 last week.  It has an internal ATA interface.  I also bought some CoolMax enclosures from buy.com awhile back that use SATA internally and have USB/Firewire/external SATA on the outside.

Mike

Title: Re: External firewire drive = good enough for audio ??
Post by: AzureCrystal on April 04, 2007, 09:57:12 PM

Quote from: digitaldrummer on April 04, 2007, 08:08:07 PM

I honestly don't do it myself (I have a couple big internal SATA drives) but I could... there are many, many, many users doing it with firewire external drives and laptops.

Thanks for the heads up Mike, I was wondering how much better firewire would be over USB, I might get that external drive since its only 100 from Dell and give it a whirl, then if I get any audio glitches, I'll do the same, use it for storage :-)

Title: Re: External firewire drive = good enough for audio ??
Post by: Gerk on April 05, 2007, 01:05:33 PM

Those drives are great for audio, have used quite a few of them in fact.  The porsche model is a good choice as is any of ht e Lacie D2 series drives.  Firewire is also a better choice over USB2 as it uses less CPU overhead.

Mark

Title: Re: External firewire drive = good enough for audio ??
Post by: AzureCrystal on April 05, 2007, 01:10:11 PM

Quote from: Gerk on April 05, 2007, 01:05:33 PM

Those drives are great for audio, have used quite a few of them in fact.  The porsche model is a good choice as is any of ht e Lacie D2 series drives.  Firewire is also a better choice over USB2 as it uses less CPU overhead.

thanks for the info, looks like I'm buying a new toy Friday  :D :D :D

Title: Re: External firewire drive = good enough for audio ??
Post by: Gerk on April 05, 2007, 03:40:32 PM

toys == good :)

Title: Re: External firewire drive = good enough for audio ??
Post by: AzureCrystal on April 05, 2007, 05:19:03 PM

Quote from: Gerk on April 05, 2007, 03:40:32 PM

toys == good :)

Shhh, told wifie it's for the business !!!! 

Shucks, Kids never grow up, they just find better excuses to buy their toys !!

Title: Re: External firewire drive = good enough for audio ??
Post by: Gerk on April 05, 2007, 05:50:48 PM

Its very viable for backup stuff too, you can use it for both :)

Mark