can i use external firewire drive as audio drive?

[Joseph Anderson]

there's no problem with speed or anything if i use an external firewire drive as the prime storage place for my protools session files is there?

thanks for any replies.

Joseph

[Garissimo]

there's no problem with speed or anything if i use an external firewire drive as the prime storage place for my protools session files is there?

thanks for any replies.

Joseph

That's the method Digi recommends. Stick with a well known vendor (Glyph, LaCie, etc.) and 7200rpm drive and you should be fine. Go to Digi's website for a list of approved firewire drives.

[deepdownlow]

Yes. Just make sure you get a fast drive, at least 7200 rpm. I generally grab one of the external firewire boxes and drop my own drives in. A little bit cheaper, and easier to swap drives in and out if needed. Alot of the drive enclosures have the Oxford chipset too, which speeds up data transfer a little.

[where02190]

As long as the drive meets digi specs, and the FW dirve is utilizing the Oxford 911 chipset, it works great. There's a vast variety of drives that work, varying in price from reasonable to absurd. We use The Amazing Firedock and get superb results.

If you're using a tower, you can install a second, and often third internal drive for audio, which is even more efficient that an external FW drive. It's very simple, and Apple has instructions for isntallation online at http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=31292

[Joseph Anderson]

Excellent advice, everyone. Thank you.

Joseph

[MeanTown]

I use a 30 Gig for my system drive (OSX & OS9). 2 - Western 120 GB internal for audio. Along with the DVD drive of course. 4 External Firewire cases with Oxford 911 chipset using Western Digital 120 GB ATA drives in each and record to any of them and have no problems. In fact I backup to each other and then clear the drives so I don't ever worry about having to defrag.

[Paul Cavins]

I have purchased two OWC (Other World Computing) Mercury Elite firewire drives and am very happy. Mercury Elite drives come with the Oxford 911 chipset and run at 7200rpm. They are reasonably priced and reliable.

Paul

[AverageJoe]

Another vote for the OWC mercury elite drives!

[where02190]

In fact I backup to each other and then clear the drives so I don't ever worry about having to defrag.

We do exactly the same thing. Just reinitialize the drive, which takes about 60 seconds, and copy from backup.

Interstingly, we also have almost the same identical drive set-up. We have an 80gb system drive, in 5gb/5gb and 70gb partitons for OS9/OSX/back-up with 2x120gb WD caviars internal, and two Firedocks with a multitude of drives.