Okay, I'm really lost, someone PLEASE help me.

[JohnPaul Grim]

Ok so last week i finally caved in and pulled away from logic and decided to take the big plunge into pro tools

So i go online and buy the 003 rack interface with the factory bundle,
That has two Firewire 400 outputs on it.

and with it i purchased the new-

iMac 27inch 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7
with 4GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM
and 1TB Serial ATA Drive

Alas in this lies my problem
This new computer only comes with ONE, I repeat ONE Firewire800 port.

So I figure, "okay i'll just buy a Firewire 400 to 800 converter cable"

which I did.

In this lies another problem, Pro Tools recommends that i use an external hard drive with speed of 7200 rpm and uses Firewire 800.

But I CAN NOT FIND A FIREWIRE 800 HUB!

so what do I do?!?!?

The only solution i can think of is:

-Buy a regular Firewire 400 hub
-Use the Firewire 400 to 800 converter to connect that hub to my new imac
-Connect the 003 rack into the hub
-And connect external hard drive to hub at old firewire 400 speed

Do you think this will work???

should i just connect the external hard drive to my imac with a usb 2.0???

please please please help me, I BEG OF YOUUUUUUUUUUUU

[Keybeeetsss]

Hello JohnPaul; Welcome to the DUC where searching will get u over hills & mountains but for now, I'll get u goin as there is a ton of info on this around here...

pretty simple actually;Computer to Hard drive>Hard drive to rack via 400-800 cable(or 800-400/whichever way u wanna view it)...

the not so simple part will be SL & PT (Snow Leopard & Pro tools)

[JohnPaul Grim]

ok soo what you're saying is

connect an external hard-drive into the firewire800 port on my imac,
then connect the 003 rack directly into that external hard drive??

that will really work??

on the snow lep and pro tools note, im hoping that Pro Tools 8.0.3 pre-release will do it for me

[Keybeeetsss]

Thatz what I am sayin

[JohnPaul Grim]

oh and the reason why i didnt search is well...
i had no idea what to specifically search for haha,

im new to protools so i feel 100percent overwhelmed
and thanks for the quick response too
greatly appreciated

[Keybeeetsss]

Originally Posted by JohnPaul Grim

oh and the reason why i didnt search is well...
i had no idea what to specifically search for haha,

im new to protools so i feel 100percent overwhelmed
and thanks for the quick response too
greatly appreciated

No prob; & for the record, the search engine on here kinda sucks so u'd be better off searching on google which will lead u back here 10 times out of 10

[Norad155]

I might also recommend getting an esata card for your new mac such as this one: http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempo_sata_e2p.html

Frees up the load on your FW bus and it's a lot faster for large file transfers etc.

[Keybeeetsss]

Hey Norad, u may wanna check around & suggest that in some other threads because there are quite a few guys who worry about this due to imac's shorts & I don't think many know about the card...jus sayin

[Bjames]

I too ha djust purchased the Digi003, but mines the interface (mixer). I also have a iMac with one 800 port. The connection stated above is actually in the manual it says that if your mac only has 1 FW port, connect the Digi003 to the back of an External HD that is connected to your computer. This is my configuration;

iMac -->FW800 cable-->FW800 500gig Drive-->FW800 cable--->FW800 250gig drive ---->FW400 cable to interface.

My hard drives only have 2 FW800 and 1 FW400 ports, so I connected the drives to the iMac with FW800, then used the only FW400 connection on the drive out to the Digi003. This has been working very well. Also if you havent already done so, pick up a good ext FW drive. USB drives are not supported.

[nst7]

Norad,

You mentioned the sata card, but it looks like it's just for pci slots on a mac pro. Is there something for Imac that I don't know about? The OP listed an Imac, which is also what I have.