Recording to an SD card?

[RCW]

Has anyone recorded music to an SD card before? I have an external hard drive but I don't like it. It's not fast enough for the work I am wanting to do.

Now before any of you say don't waste your time on an SD card and get an external HD instead... here is my reasoning. I just got a macbook pro. LOVE IT btw! It has a built in SD slot with rather limited usb/firewire hookups. It would be sweet to just get a 16 or 32 gig SD card and record to it instead of lugging around an ext HD.

I did some research on transfer rates. It seems some of the expensive cards can get decent transfer rates. Is it enough to write 8 to 12 tracks at once though? I know USB claims high transfer rates but everyone here says firewire all the way. So i really can't rely on transfer rates anymore!

So someone please provided me with opinions, expertise, and the knowledge I don't have.

thanks!
Rory

 

[Trevoire520]

The problem with usb, sd cards etc is that data is sent in packets, whereas firewire is constantly streaming, so it works much better for audio as it's not stopping and starting.

It's not like hard drives are expensive tbh man, just get a cheap, small capacity firewire drive to run the session you're doing off, and back up stuff that's finished to a larger usb drive.

 

[AntonioPetrole]

just carry your external around, its not like carrying and amp around or anything, just make sure for the love of christ you never lose or drop it!

also that packet thing makes way to much sense. Thanks for enlightening that. Now i can sound all smart next time someone asks that lol

 

[AudioPhile777]

buy an external that is fast enough.

 

[RCW]

I only have one firewire port on my mac. I have two extra usb 2.0 ports though that never get used. So I guess you have basically killed my sd card idea. haha BUT! now my question is the age old will usb 2.0 hard drive work? What if I could get a 7200 rpm external? It would basically have to usb 2.0 because of the fact that I have to use the firewire for my interface.

 

[arv_foh]

I have recorded a bunch of tracks at one time to a usb 2.0 drive w/o any problems

 

[RCW]

I have recorded a bunch of tracks at one time to a usb 2.0 drive w/o any problems

OK! Thanks for the reassurance. I'll look into getting a good, fast external hd. You have to admit though that recording to sd cards does seem like an appealing idea. They are so small and cheap now that I could buy a new one (16 or 32 gig) of course for every new project. Of course I would make the artist pay for that ha.

Maybe one day that technology will not only exist but be reliable AND fast enough to handle multi track recording.

While the thread is still active... anyone know of any really good usb hard drives? Preferably ones you have used and tested yourself? I am even looking at a rackmount possibly. I know those get pretty expensive though.

 

[RCW]

Also, while I am looking at hard drives..... I came up with another way to ask stupid questions and try to avoid using an HD. haha

What about flash drives? They make pretty decent sized drives, 32 gig and 64 gig. Enough to hold any project I would do. The best spec'd one I could find on newegg (64 gig) has these rates:

Speed 30 MB/s read / 16 MB/s write

Is this anywhere near fast enough write speeds to multitrack 8 - 10 tracks? I feel like it isn't... So go ahead and shoot me down and tell me to get an external HD . It would be sweet though if I could figure out a way to get this to work. Are there any other alternatives besides usb drives and sd cards? I just feel like there has got to be something extremely small with speed and best of all doesn't require a power supply.........

Way too much to ask for?

 

[AudioPhile777]

I dont know if macbook pros have those extra slots for cards, but you could probably go that route and get some extra firewire that way...

 

[kaomao]

never had problem with usb drives on mac, I can't say the same thing on windows.
So my advice is try it, at least you can use it to backup stuff.

 

[Trevoire520]

It would basically have to usb 2.0 because of the fact that I have to use the firewire for my interface.

You do know that you can daisy chain firewire devices right?

 

[RCW]

You do know that you can daisy chain firewire devices right?

Right! I have heard of it before. I mainly didn't consider this an option because I figured it wouldn't be wise to run the hard drive I was recording to and my interface daisy chained. I figured I would run into bandwidth issues, drop outs, etc....

I probably shouldn't assume though. I am off work today so I will def test this out and see if daisy chaining interface and drive will let both work just fine.

I dont know if macbook pros have those extra slots for cards, but you could probably go that route and get some extra firewire that way...

Unfortunately I would've had to spend 2 grand to get the macbook pro 17" to get an express card slot. This is pretty much the only problem I have had with getting a mac. No expansion.....

Thanks for the suggestion though!