External Hard Drives, Do I really need Glyph? Options

[Tim]

I'm getting a Powerbook and will be running ProTools LE and Absynth...at least for now. Some guys at a music store I am working with are making me think that I need a Glyph drive for my external hard drive. Now, I do know that i want an external drive, because i don't want to tax the Powerbook drive with the audio I record and playback. But, the Glyph drives are so expensive. I just looked at a Mac Warehouse Catelog and saw 7200 RPM, 80gig firewire drives for a little over $200. Won't this suffice. The 80gig Glyph Companion drive is $500.

Anybody using drives from LaCie, Que, etc? Any problems or rumored problems?

Thanks,
Tim.

[discostu131]

First off, im no expert, and i dont really know what ur talking about. Im assuming that Glyph (spelling?) is a brand? well i dont see any reason why you would need to get a certain brand drive for audio, as long as it is a reputable name, and it is fast enough (at least 72,000 rpm), then i would say it should work fine

[lepetitmartien]

Hum…

Do you really want to put a foot on the ladder of the 'digi said and wants some cash' stairway to the seven golden cards obsolete in 2 years…

The premium price you pay is to have the right to put a dirve in an enclosure like the digi. Is it worth ? BTW, the drive inside has the same MTBF as the others on the market, so

Take a good IDE drive, like discostu131 (and some find my avatar long and hard said, maybe in firewire, or if you want with his own IDE card and go!

Premium for nothing but a label on a box is SLAVERY.

[damann]

oh yes,
a hard drive is a hard drive, a marketing concept is...
digidesign are masters of the illusion.
usb is, er, usb unfortunately.
digidesign ultimately want you to step onto the megabuck ladder, it's just not necassary.
also, i use absynth and protools has to be the worst choice of software for support of this excellent MIDI INTENSIVE MEMORY HOG!

[Stuartpa]

No doubt about it at all, you can put the exact same drive that Glyph uses in a box with a Power supply and get almost the same performace that you would get from a Glyph.

Glyph do tune their HDs so that they run at max performance for audio work but there are tons of drives out there that will do the job with no problem. Besides if you really want to get into it there are some utilities Like Hard Disk toolkit and others that will also let you tune your drives up this is mostly for SCSI drives (Be careful here as you can also detune a drive real fast)

Having said that use Glyphs ( I am getting old and lazy) but right next to them on the same SCSI bus I also have a couple of Older Drive Kits that I have dragged along with me through several system upgrades and they still work just fine.

You are going to make your CPU work pretty hard no matter what drives you use and getting something because Digi says is ususally just a real good way to spend money you could other wise save.

La Cie make really good drive systems and have been around for years so you might want to give them a call and see what they recommend.

You can also make up a drive yourself if you have the time it is not at all a difficult proposition and you will save some money, but at least a drive from La Cie will be warrantied and you will get support for what you bought.

The 80 G Firewire drive you are looking at will probably work fine as long as you do not try to start laying down 32 tracks all at the same time.

[rickenbacker]

It's not true that every hard disk is exactly the same. A LaCie drive costing $200 will NOT give the same performance as a Glyph costing $500. Believe it or not, the extra money is actually going somewhere!

It's going into build quality, innovative construction techniques, optimisation for audio, 100% reliability in performance and perhaps the best after-sales service around - 24-hour replacement for defective drives, for instance. If your LaCie drive goes down, how long are you left without one?

No, I don't work for Glyph. I don't even own a Glyph drive. I just think it's misleading to suggest that all hard drives are the same just because the tech spec figures are kind of similar.

[Synthetic]

Stuartpa has a good point. Glyph "tunes" their drives so they work more effeciently for multimedia production. Also, Glyph has great support. If ANYTHING happens to your drive within the first year... just contact them or your retailer for a return and they ship you a new drive within 24 hours. That is part of the reason they cost more. I have a glyph drive (project x) 30gig that I use with my Digi001 and love it. Never had a bit of trouble with and fast tranfers.

Not all drives are built the same either. You should really seek the best performance when dealing with audio and that means looking at throughput rates and seek times. I do not recommend IDE simply for the way it handles incoming data (doesn't manage data effeciently enough for good performance especially with multitrack high bit rate use). It is possible to use just the standard ATA or IDE drives that come with laptops and desktops internally but you may experience some "hicups" in the recording when it gets too intense for it.

Audio drives should either be some form of SCSI or firewire for best performance and at least 7200 RPM with 10000 RPM being the ideal drive. Also, the bigger the drive... the more time it takes to read data and to find data so you want to get it as fast as possible.

So yes, any drive "will work" but, if you want reliability, performance and good support... you will most likely have to pay for it by spending more for your drive than just grabbing the most bytes for the buck.

I do know someone who created a 100gig wide SCSI raid system using cheaper drives that were bought seperately and then housed into a raid system for less than I paid for my Glyph 30Gig but I also know he was fuming mad when he lost a drive with important data on it too. So you never know.

[damann]

But, the Glyph drives are so expensive.  I just looked at a Mac Warehouse Catelog and saw 7200 RPM, 80gig firewire drives for a little over 0.  Won't this suffice.  The 80gig Glyph Companion drive is 0.

Anybody using drives from LaCie, Que, etc?  Any problems or rumored problems?

Thanks,
Tim.

back to the point, NO you do not need to use a glyph.
sorry rickenbacker, i'm not trying to p*$$ you off here, but the extra cash glyph demand is not warranted. we ARE talking ide drives here!
these drives, although fast, are nowhere near as reliable as scsi drives, can only be expected to live for a couple of years, and an extra internal drive will definitely out perform a firewire drive every time AND save loads of cash.
synthetic, i'm not trying to p*$$ you off either, but a firewire drive IS an ide drive, it can only work as fast as the firewire to ide bus inside it will allow!
ultimately, my advice would have to be, buy a seagate barracuda and fit it internally...

[Synthetic]

hmm... never new firewire drives were actually ide... i do know that the older platforms that firewire was introduced on need to use a PCI card with newer firewire protocol that is supposed to alleviate some of the negative aspects of firewire for audio and video work but never really consider it was ide drives.

I still think unless I bought an ultra scsi pci card and drive that the glyph drive was good investment. After spending $150-$200 for ultra scsi card and then $150-$300 for drive... the price is almost the same as the glyph.

by the way... i don't get p*$$ off unless you were send a virus to my mac or call it a wimp... then I would have to kick some a$$... otherwise, its all good one person can't know everything thus the usefulness of the forums where the debates begin and either a lesson is taught, given or criticized sometimes for newbies and sometimes for old dogs

[damann]

hi synthetic,
please look into this (i'm sure you will), inside every firewire drive is a humble ide device and a buffer that allows the firewire to access it, as always (almost) i'm just trying to politely guide public knowledge in a useful direction!
i'd love to be wrong here, but don't think so.
i love your input into these forums and consider you a "model citizen" around here. peace, good luck, and hopefully i'll communicate with you soon.
it's all good...