Imac Firewire Question Options

[Emprise]

Hi, I want to get a new computer for recording.
I am looking at getting an iMac, a power Mac would be nice, but they're a bit too expensive.
I am thinking of getting Logic as recording software and a Focusrite Saffire LE Firewire audio interface.

I heard that iMac has 2 firewire ports but uses only 1 bus, and that this could be a problem when using multiple firewire attachments. Does anyone know how much of a problem this is?

Is using an iMac recommended for recording and production? Would anyone recommend against it?

Thanks.

[stevejm]

Hi, I want to get a new computer for recording.
I am looking at getting an iMac, a power Mac would be nice, but they're a bit too expensive.
I am thinking of getting Logic as recording software and a Focusrite Saffire LE Firewire audio interface.

I heard that iMac has 2 firewire ports but uses only 1 bus, and that this could be a problem when using multiple firewire attachments. Does anyone know how much of a problem this is?

Is using an iMac recommended for recording and production? Would anyone recommend against it?

Thanks.

Hi

For what it is worth I've had a problem using both firewire ports simultaneously and read of others - but by no means everyone - having a similar problem. In my case I was running Logic on the iMac and using a Tascam FW1804 interface out of the FW400 port and a Western Digital external hard drive from the FW800 port. In this configuration I kept losing the connection - particularly with the external drive. If I daisy-chain the external drive off the Tascam interface (i.e. running at the slower, but still adequate FW400 transfer rate) it seems much more stable. Hard to say what the weak link is here but the single bus certainly isn't ideal. Still a bit annoyed that I can't reliably use the FW800 transfer rate from the external hard drive!

Other than that the iMac seems to be working pretty well for music production although it's not particularly expandable or upgradeable if you think you might need more "grunt" in future. MIne doesn't have a cardbus slot, for instance (mentioned in another post as a workaround)(do any of them?). Still good value, though.

Enjoy