External hard disks - what to buy?, Pondering what external HDs are best Options

[rickenbacker]

Anyone got any recommendations for an external FireWire hard disk? I have a combo-drive iBook and want to get an external hard disk that I can use as a dedicated audio drive for music making only.

Any suggestions, tips and information would be welcome.

[lepetitmartien]

Now that this thread is in a better placed forum (I can be really orthodox;)

Great because someone in an other thread had a question Off Topic upon Firewire so… great!

the most important thing is the Oxford 911 thing, it give really better speed to the bus. Something like 40-50 Mo/s instead of 20Mo/s. not sure 100% of the number but you get the idea.

After that, which 911 boxing is the better…

Also, 7200 rpm disk are ok they match to this, 10000 rpm are really too fragile as far as I know and no external boxing now is up to the task to dirve them to their full potential.
5400 are theorically too slow.

[DigitMus]

The Mercury Elite from OWC (Other World Computing) has the 911 chipset, 7200rpm drive (IBM, I believe) and their prices are very reasonable. I have one and it works great; others I've talked to report 50+ simultaneous tracks without a hiccup - my projects don't get that big.

Scott

[macmax]

Glyph
Make a rackmount firewire drive that
A) matches the MOTU828 cosmetically, (thus looks professional, which while not actually important technically, seems to cheer up prospective clients)
B) Has excellent performance and reasonable accoustic noise.
C) Has a built in firewire hub, allowing connection of multiple 828s for example......
D) if the interface AND drive are rackmounted in a little SKB 2u case, you wont forget one on the train....... or pickup the wrong drive by mistake, etc.
portable and bullet proof, as well as decidedly functonal.

Nuff said

GREEN AN MEAN
need to borrow charger for ray gun, mines run out......
still nat west have some vacancies in the uk now, if anyones interested...
They dont pay danger money tho....

[lepetitmartien]

To put 828 and the drives on the SAME firewire port is a mistake reported by guys having trouble then with the 828. Definitely not the thing to do at least for the moment (firewire 2 maybe)

[macmax]

Hey Martian
The name of the comapny is Glyph, as i mentioned.
The purpose of the Firewire hub built in on the new model is as described. as the 828 only has a single port, meaning you cant daisy chain to get 16 I/O if required.
While in general i would agree with your comment on using seperate ports, i have encountered this match up a couple of times, and experienced no problems in the short (single day sessions) i used it.
Having said that, we were only dealing with between 8 and 16 tracks of audio.
It may be that the difficulties appear at higher track counts, when significantly more bandwidth is being used.
We only used a maximum of 4 inputs at a time and stereo out.
So perhaps using all 8 in and 8 out as well as 30 odd tracks may be another matter.
I'll let you know when i try it. (Havent got such a session booked at present, but i'll make effort to squeeze an investigative one in soon)
Even if they are mounted in one case, they can still be used on seperate ports if required.....
Still say its a neat and effective partnership, and looks the business too.
The caveat is that i have heard of 828s frying peoples firewire ports on the odd occassion, couldnt comment on where the fault lay , as it wasnt a first hand experience, but it does seem to have happened to more than one user.
I want an 896 for my birthday by the way!!!
The drive review can be found in Sound on Sound in the firewire drive roundup recently published.
(although this is the older , Non Hub version.)
best regards
max

[lepetitmartien]

I've edited my last post (never reply when the sun is rising and you have not slept
Also, my firstname sir Denis, not Martian

I've heard also of the frying port, I don't think it's a rumor as I've seen the post of the offended. But it seemed to be a defect on one 828 or the port on the mac.

The complains about the strain visible when both 828 and HD are on the same port are certainly related to a 828 used to the max, 4 ins at the same time can't be such a strain to a firewire link (except if the thing is really bad behaving which is not the case)

I'm going to try to find the testimonies right now