Hard Drive question (Logic, FireWire)

[mattisfrommars]

Hi,

My current set up is a 13" MBP (Pretty recent, can't remember if it's the most recent revision or the one before, but I got it in 2010) which has 1 firewire 800 port. I've been using the internal hard drive to record to, and then transferring and filing to an external USB drive. My interface is an M-Audio Profire 2626, which I know is pretty popular on this forum, so hopefully I'll be able to get plenty of help on this!

I've just bought a Behringer ADA8000 to add 8 extra tracks, but I've not had chance to test it yet (til M-Audio hurry up and deliver a replacement power supply!!) but I'm fairly sure that my internal 5400RPM hard drive wont be fast enough, I've already had the Logic "Disk too slow" error when I decrease the buffer size, and if I add 8 extra simultaneous tracks, I'm fairly sure that it wont be able to cope.

Firstly, if anyone has had success using a USB hard drive to record 16 tracks at 96KHz to, please let me know, because I think that will be the cheapest and the easiest option, but I'm almost definitely sure that it wont be fast enough.

At the minute, I'm plugging a firewire 800/400 cable from the FW800 port on my machine to one of the two ports on the interface. I can see three ways of adding a firewire drive to this configuration, but I need to know which of them (if any) will work before I buy any gear.

At the minute, i'm thinking of getting an [ame="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Iomega-500GB-FW400-USB2-0-Portable/dp/B002EC9JSG/ref=sr_1_19?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1298234632&sr=1-19"]Iomega eGo drive[/ame] because it seems like a lot of drive for not a lot of price. But if they're shit, recommendations are very welcome!

Scenario 1 - Plug my drive into the redundant input on the interface. What speeds can I expect from this? I'm not sure, but I guess that would mean that both the interface and the drive get 200MB/s each. Is this enough for either?

Scenario 2 - Plug the interface into the drive. I use an FW800 cable to connect my machine to the hard drive, and then a FW400 cable to connect the drive to the interface. I'm confused as to what speeds I'd see from this. Would I see 400MB/s each? Or would the whole signal have to be "downgraded" to a 400 type signal to get everything to talk to each other resulting in 200MB/s each?

Scenario 3 - Firewire splitter. I don't even know if this exists. But if they did, I'd plug an 800 cable into this and then run two cables from this to my devices.

Or, I could just upgrade the internal drive to a massive 7200rpm one and carry on recording to this and then copying files across. I know that recording to your OS disk is frowned upon, but with a laptop set up, is this the best I can do?

Any help on this will be greatly appreciated!

PEACE

 

[xTomx]

If I were you i'd just replace your internal hard drive with a 7200rpm one, they're dirt cheap to buy and really easy to replace. I did that on my 2008 MBP because I kept getting the same 'Disk Too Slow' error recording more than 8 tracks , I've not had any problems since and the whole OS seems a bit snappier.

And you're much better off with Firewire 800, shits all over USB.

I've never heard of plugging the interface straight into the firewire disk, but I'm not sure it'll solve any problems.

 

[mattisfrommars]

Is it worth buying one of those kits that allows you to mount a 2.5" drive in place of the optical drive? They're worryingly cheap on eBay, which is scaring me off the idea tbh

 

[Via Noctis]

I Have had good results chaining my Mercury elite pro with the fw800 connected to my mb pro, then connecting 16 channels to the External HDD with a Fw 800 to 400 drive. I also use logic and have done 16 channels without the disk slow error. I would recomend buying an external drive that has multiple connections. As long as it is 7600rpm you should be able to try different configurations and find the one that works best for you. Try looking at Owc.

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/

 

[dale_a_smith]

Don't forget that if you do mix FW 800 and 400 interfaces you need to get them in the right order. All FW800 interfaces first, then daisychain the FW400 interfaces afterwards. This'll give you the max bandwidth.

 

[ze kink]

I'm pretty sure that if you chain a FW800 external HDD and a FW400 interface from there, the transfer rate will be the same as if you just used FW400 for the whole thing. Essentially the signal has to be downgraded to accomodate the "slowest" device in the chain.

When I still had my Lacie Quadra, I'd just chain it from the other firewire port on the Profire 2626 and it worked no problem. Now I'm using a Lacie Rugged and it doesn't get enough power that way since it's bus powered. I tried using it by chaining the Profire from the HDD, but when I'd access files from the HDD the Profire would lose sync and I'd lose all audio. So now I'm just running the HDD with usb and honestly, I haven't noticed any problems.

BTW, why'd you record at 96khz? Seems a bit overkill to me, unless you're doing mobile recordings for classical or jazz.

 

[dale_a_smith]

All FW800 devices will operate at full speed, even if you have a FW400 later on in the chain. As soon as you hit a FW400 interface, your speed is perminently reduced to FW400.

so MBP >>> FW800 >>> HDD >>> FW400 >>> 2626

your HDD will run at FW800. the 2626 will run at FW400..

 

[mattisfrommars]

I'm not saying I'd always want to record at 96K all the time, but I wouldn't want to not have the option, if you know what I mean. I think I'm gonna go with the new internal hard drive and hope it does the trick, don't like the possibility of them "fighting" for bandwidth and having the 2626 drop out, the point is to make the system more stable

 

[Monstret]

"Scenario 3 - Firewire splitter. I don't even know if this exists. But if they did, I'd plug an 800 cable into this and then run two cables from this to my devices."

They do exist and i´ve been wondering if a splitter affects the sound in any bad ways? Because i want to plugin booth external soundcard and hd at the same time.

 

[rsvstudios]

@dale_a_smith; I have always had this issue with how I should connect my Glyph GT 050Q FW hard drive to my ProFire 2626.
At the moment it is: iMac >>> FW400 >>> 2626 >>> FW400 >>> HDD

I have tried it the way you have said before, but whenever I tried to set up the
Output in Sound Preferences, it never showed up with my ProFire, so I can never get audio out of my monitors. For example if I am playing music on iTunes, because my monitors are connected to the ProFire, I can only get audio from my iMac's internal speakers.

Am I doing something wrong?

 

[dale_a_smith]

Your not he first person I've heard of that has had a conflict between a Glyph firewire drive and an M Audio interface. I have no idea what possible solution there could be.
If it works one way, then it doesn't matter really, as your using firewire 400 for both. I'd try using them both connected directly to your iMac. 2626 in the FW400 and Glyph GT in the FW800. ( if the Glyph has an 800 socket, thats great, if not, us an 800 / 400 adapter )