Anyone using an external USB 2.0 Hard-drive for recording?
 

Digidesign doesn't think usb 2 is the way to go, but it's supposed to actually be faster than firewire.

Why are external usb 2 hardrives considered infereior to firewire for protools?

Is anyone using an external USB 2.0 Hard-drive for recording? Does it work well for anyone? Does it work badly?

Re: Anyone using an external USB 2.0 Hard-drive for recording?
 

I have never had luck with my USB 2 drive. I have tried it several times when I travel. And I get errors, and sometimes it just stops responding. It has worked on occasion but not reliable. USB and Firewire are a different beast. Firewire has more throughput than USB. USB 2 is 480Mbit/s, Firewire is 400 Mbit/s. USB uses CPU cycles so it actually slows down your performance in PT. Firewire does not.
Google "Compare USB and Firewire" and you will find loads of information why they are different.

Re: Anyone using an external USB 2.0 Hard-drive for recording?
 

FireWire, uses a "Peer-to-Peer" architecture in which the peripherals are intelligent and can negotiate bus conflicts to determine which device can best control a data transfer


Hi-Speed USB 2.0 uses a "Master-Slave" architecture in which the computer handles all arbitration functions and dictates data flow to, from and between the attached peripherals (adding additional system overhead and resulting in slower data flow control)

Edit: and don't forget about FW 800. That's 800Mbit/s.

Re: Anyone using an external USB 2.0 Hard-drive for recording?
 

I've been using a USB 2.0 drive for all of my Pro Tools recording, and I've never had a problem.

I did encounter hardware issues with my first drive, which turned out to be a horrible product from Western Digital. But it never had problems with Pro Tools. It simply started having cabling, bad sector errors, and input/output problems after only a few months.

I've since learned that the MyBook line of drives is highly suspect. So I recently purchased a Seagate drive with a much longer warranty but more limited space, and it's worked just fine.

Re: Anyone using an external USB 2.0 Hard-drive for recording?
 

How many tracks do you record at once?

Re: Anyone using an external USB 2.0 Hard-drive for recording?
 

In the testing I have done USB does work some of the time but is not nearly as consistent.

Re: Anyone using an external USB 2.0 Hard-drive for recording?
 

:confused: Where they do that @ :confused:

Re: Anyone using an external USB 2.0 Hard-drive for recording?
 

Beyoutofull1,
You can do what you want, but if you looked at digi's support pages you would clearly see that it's not supported meaning you're on your own if you wanna use usb including if you lose your audio due to that fact. That being said, there's no reason not to have a usb drive for backup purposes so if you have one already or if you need to purchase an additional drive for backup, you don't need to spend extra $ for speed and a firewire interface just for storage space. EDIT: Your comment about speed with USB vs firewire while I won't explain the technical aspects, firewire has faster "throughput" than usb even the 400's.