bigblaze Posted April 15, 2008 Share Posted April 15, 2008 I am in need of a new external hard drive for recording audio. From what I've read, I should look for the following: a) Firewire over USB 2.0 b) 7200 RPM (or faster) Assuming that's correct, what else should I look for (or avoid). Any specific models? Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pantomimeHorse Posted April 15, 2008 Share Posted April 15, 2008 Another blatant plug for my article, folks. (Movie rights are just weeks away, and always will be ......) www.kbodance.com/audioDrives.pdf Recent Western Digital drives have motor management problems, it would seem. Try the new LaCie 500. Hope it's of help to you, bigblaze. - C Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Nahmani Posted April 15, 2008 Share Posted April 15, 2008 BEST: internal SATA 7,200 rpm ALMOST AS GOOD: external eSATA 7,200 rpm plus eSATA PCI card for your computer. GOOD: external FW800 7,200rpm drive NOT SO GOOD: external USB drive Avoid LaCie (if you do a search you'll find TONS of users having problems with LaCie drives. If you're going to go the external drive route, make your own. Get the simplest, cheapest fanless enclosure box you can find, and stick the drive in it. Seagate and Hitachi are good hard drive brands. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrnabo Posted April 15, 2008 Share Posted April 15, 2008 Great I've just gone and bought a Lacie Quadra 750gig drive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pantomimeHorse Posted April 15, 2008 Share Posted April 15, 2008 I've got 4 LaCie 250's and they're good nearly two years, now, with not a hiccup. - It's very hard to say YES or NO to particular hardware because for every satisfied user, there's a dissatisfied one, I guess. - C Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maninthedark30 Posted April 15, 2008 Share Posted April 15, 2008 Check out these drives as OWC: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/eSATA_FW800_FW400_USB I have the 320gb/16mb cache and it's working extremely well so far. I got the quad hookups but use fw800 to connect to my iMac. No probs, fairly quiet, well built, nice warranty. Actual drive is a Hitachi. Check each one though, 'cause if you want a specific brand, OWC seems to use something different in a few of them, for instance the 500g is a WD. Pacific Pro Audio drives look nice, too. I chose between them and OWC over a few bucks, but they seem very similar. http://www.pacificproaudio.com/drives.asp Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrnabo Posted April 16, 2008 Share Posted April 16, 2008 I've got 4 LaCie 250's and they're good nearly twoyears, now, with not a hiccup. - It's very hard to say YES or NO to particular hardware because for every satisfied user, there's a dissatisfied one, I guess. - C I know, I know. My gut instinct kicked in there instead of being rational - people have all sorts of experience with hardware based on their setup both software-wise and environment-wise (i.e. overheating issues) and lot's of people here seem to be working fine with Lacie drives, so I'll have faith Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Nahmani Posted April 16, 2008 Share Posted April 16, 2008 One of the issues people usually have with LaCie drive is that they spin down when not in use, meaning it takes quite a while to work with a project when the drive is stopped. Then again maybe not all LaCie spin down when not used? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
perversity Posted April 18, 2008 Share Posted April 18, 2008 what do you guys think about using an external usb2.0 drive just for project storage(no audio recording)? I'm using a macbook that only has one FW port, and I'm currently using that port for an Apogee Duet. Most of my writing is done with soft synths, so Audio Recording isn't a concern at this point Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pantomimeHorse Posted April 18, 2008 Share Posted April 18, 2008 One of the issues people usually have with LaCie drive is that they spin down when not in use, meaning it takes quite a while to work with a project when the drive is stopped. Then again maybe not all LaCie spin down when not used? My "Porsche" LaCie 250's never spin down. - I have Seagate and WD drives on the network, too, but they are smaller/older and also never give problems. - It seems to be a recent phenomenon, this tendency for the drives to "relax" when not accessed. Maybe manufacturers are pushing bearing systems to the edge in high-capacity drives and they need this down-time to get life-expectancy ? ? - C Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dkgross Posted April 18, 2008 Share Posted April 18, 2008 shameless plug for my friends at PacificProAudio: http://www.pacificproaudio.com/drives.asp never had an issue with any of these. Maninthedark is right. They're great drives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Nahmani Posted April 18, 2008 Share Posted April 18, 2008 shameless plug for my friends at PacificProAudio: http://www.pacificproaudio.com/drives.asp never had an issue with any of these. Maninthedark is right. They're great drives. I wish those weren't so overpriced! $404 for a 750 GB 16M cache? I just paid $150 for the new version of that drive, the one with a 32M cache. A 911 enclosure is, what... $45? That's about half the price of the pacificproaudio drives! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Les Beshears Posted April 28, 2008 Share Posted April 28, 2008 David wrote "If your going to go the external drive rout, make your own. Get the simplest , cheapest fanless enclosure box you can find, and stick the drive. in it." The 7200 RPM external SATA drive I have came in its own enclosure an with PCI eSATA card. But it has spin up delays. Can an internal SATA drive, say like a 10,000 RPM Raptor, be mounted in an external enclosure and hooked up through the eSATA card? Or Am I miss understanding your suggestion. It would be great if I could add another RAPTOR to the family and quit waiting for the external drive to spin up. Thanx Les Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dlf Posted April 28, 2008 Share Posted April 28, 2008 On my iMac, you can set the option to "spin down when possible", or "never spin down" in the System Preferences > Energy Saver panel. -d Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pantomimeHorse Posted April 28, 2008 Share Posted April 28, 2008 On my iMac, you can set the option to "spin down when possible", or "never spin down" in the System Preferences > Energy Saver panel. -d Yeah, we all appreciate that, dlf, but these recent problems relate to what the firmware on board the drive is doing, power management wise, and that seems to be over-ruling the prefs. - C Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Les Beshears Posted April 29, 2008 Share Posted April 29, 2008 Thanx for the suggestion Dlf but PH is absolutely correct. My eSATA disc comes from the factory programmed to sleep and OSX can't override. See this thread: http://www.logicprohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=23199 However while looking for my old thread I came across this. http://www.logicprohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=23588 It appears that he did exactly what I'm contemplating, which is to install and internal Raptor drive in and external box and conncect thru eSATA. I was tenative about trying this because I read that the eSATA connection is recessed more than an internal SATA and I wasn't sure an internal SATA connection would match up with the eSATA connection. My PCI card has two connections. Hmmmmm Three 10,000 RPM RAPTORS! And I can use the sleeper foradditional back up. I love this forum. Les Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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