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440 Forums _ Hard Drives _ Need Advice On Esata External Drives For Audio

Posted by: miserlou Fri 27 Feb 2009, 16:19

Hello all, I need some advice on eSATA external drives for audio. I use Digital Performer 6 for my main DAW. I have 4 WD Firewire 800 drives that are connected to my 8-Core Mac Pro by the tower's firewire ports. I've been told that I need an eSATA PCI card and that I can connect my WD hard drives individually to the card via the eSATA connector ports that's provided on the drives...and this will give me faster results with my audio.

Does anyone have experience with external eSATA connections and what cards and drives do you recommend?

Thanks!!
Rod

Posted by: lepetitmartien Fri 27 Feb 2009, 18:29

Hello
First you need a PCI-e card (PCI express), not just PCI.

I've still to try the thing, but as I'm in PCI-x… I've got to buy the card in the USA to have a decent price, so it'll come… One day ^^ The question of the enclosure needs to be cared of too, I'd like a not-RAID multiple drives eSATA enclosure, and I've still to find one.

Now some basics:

- one eSATA port goes to one hard drive only.
- beware that a lot of cards are RAID only, so be careful when choosing one if it's not your choice.

Now I leave the mic to those already eSATAfied. I'm curious about their input too.

Posted by: fictionmusic Sat 28 Feb 2009, 07:12

I use Lacie sata2 drives (well they were originally called sata 2 when they came out, now they are called sata 3gig, but in any event, they use a different connector than sata1 drives.)

I also have a pci-x system and lacie has cards that support up to three sata2 drives per pci-x card. I use the lacie quadra drives (firewire, usb, sata2) and I have 6 working all the time. Never a problem. I also use firewire 800 with another pci-x card (that supports three firewire drives). I also have the sata 1 set up as a raid array (via ANOTHER pci-x card that supports two sata1 drives). I prefer the sata2 drives, but truthfully they all work pretty well. All Lacie too.

Posted by: FastEddy Sun 1 Mar 2009, 16:34

Puzzled: Why "rebuild" all your drive mechanisms? You don't actually gain much (if any) in performance.

Of course, if you already have FireWire ports, you would not need to get more SATA drives at all. ... FW800 is as fast or faster anyway, for streaming audio or video. Plus cross compatibility with other Apple systems ... and more compatibility with pro-audio, generally (especially useful in a pro-audio studio). There are plenty of "combo" port drives too .., find one with both SATA and FireWire ports (or USB, or all three types). Here is but one: http://nav.440network.com/out.php?mmsc=forums&url=http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=11156 ... That way you can save the cost of the PCI / PCexpress card(s), etc., for something useful ...

(Mercenary Announcement: http://nav.440network.com/out.php?mmsc=forums&url=http://firewirestuff.com is one of my web sites ... but we don't carry hard drives anymore ... But I like La Cie drives and equipment, generally.)

Posted by: Bluemover9999 Mon 2 Mar 2009, 16:30

Hi There

have you seen this

http://nav.440network.com/out.php?mmsc=forums&url=http://www.newertech.com/products/esata_cable.php

It uses two redundant ports on the MacPro motherboard and creates two additional esata ports on your MacPro.
Then you can take you pick of esata RAID options...do a google search for the best option.