Recording/running sessions from an external hard drive.

[nwright]

I know this may have been asked before, but how many of you are currently running of ext. HD's? I just picked one up and while it seems insignificant, I'm loving it!

I had initially bought it to use as an archiving solution, but I'm liking the idea of running from it for recording.

So, my question is, how do you run yours, USB, Firewire, eSATA, etc?

The specs for mine say it can transfer 480MB/sec through USB 2.0, and 400MB/sec through firewire. I was surprised to see firewire isn't faster, but I don't know much about transfer speeds between the 2...does it make a difference in the recording arena to run through USB (which is what I'd prefer)?

In eSATA mode, it can transfer up to 3GB/sec, but I don't have those connections on my laptop.

Thanks for any insight.

 

[Metaltastic]

Firewire has more consistent high-speed, so it's definitely what you wanna use, and I always run my sessions off my external Seagate, works fantastically!

 

[JeffTD]

It'll be fine... run it in Firewire, though.

While USB is 480mbps, it's a buffered connection - sends data in bursts. Firewire is a constant stream of data, so for large files and big grips of data, like you'd be dealing with when recording, it's actually faster.

 

[Exocaster]

I use a 160 gb and a 250 gb Firewire external for recording, and I love it. Faster than my internal drive. I have no issues with mine.

 

[nwright]

Dang, I was hoping you guys wouldn't say that...I only have 1 firewire port on my laptop, and I have to use it for my Firepod.

Dumb question...My HD has 2 firewire ports, which I'm assuming is for daisy chaining drives...Could I daisy chain the Fire pod to the HD?

Firepod > Ext. HD > laptop firewireport?

 

[Metaltastic]

Yep, another reason FW is totally tits

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

Try this.

 

[LydonB]

Dang, I was hoping you guys wouldn't say that...I only have 1 firewire port on my laptop, and I have to use it for my Firepod.

Dumb question...My HD has 2 firewire ports, which I'm assuming is for daisy chaining drives...Could I daisy chain the Fire pod to the HD?

Firepod > Ext. HD > laptop firewireport?

Yeah. That is how I have mine running.

 

[Wolfeman]

I think I posted about it a while ago, but I would steer clear of the eSATA..... It's not reliable yet and I have nothing but issues with my eSATA connection.....

Go with firewire.

 

[nwright]

Awesome, thanks guys!

I'm going to check the PCMCIA firewire dealio now...

 

[JeffTD]

You'd want to run your audio interface before the drive, just for redundancy. I'd go PC -> FirePod -> Drive

 

[nwright]

^ You mean hooking the drive up to the extra firewire port on the Firepod?

I tried it going computer>drive>firepod. It worked really well and was pretty fast in opening sessions and whatnot, but my output latency was ~200ms (input was around 5-6ms)...I'll try it the other way now and see what it is that way.

I also just bought a PCMCIA firewire card, too, so I'll be running it that way once it's delivered.