Firewire Audio Interfaces For Os X, Which one to buy ? Options

[urbanmatador]

get a 7200rpm firewire drive for the audio. ice warrior from box clever is really good but there are plenty to choose from, and they're cheap as chips.

most important thing besides rpm's on an external firewire drive is the chipset. firewire drives are just ide drives with a firewire interface snapped on the back, and the oxford 911 chipset is the only one which has been pretty much universally approved as being up to the task.

w.r.t. disk space: at 44.1khz, 16 bit audio costs 5mb per channel per minute. so eight channels, 50 minutes weighs in at around 2gb. the 828 can do 48khz, 24 bit recording, so figure around 15mb per channel per minute, and your total is around 6gb. so your estimate of 14gb is a little high, unless i'm forgetting something which is likely.

but even so, my advice is get a drive that's around twice as big as you think you'll need. there will always come the time that the band plays longer or does a double encore, or maybe just a time when you don't get a chance to do a mixdown... it won't cost too much more, and you won't regret it. drives are cheap. if you go above 40 gig or so, though, look for something faster than 7200rpm.

cheers,
sk