How does iMac handle LE8

[Strebor24]

I was looking to perhaps buy a Mac for PT8 LE. If Avid specs say two hard drives are required how does the iMac or MacBook do? it would be necessary to use an external drive. If the firewire port is used for the M Box2 pro that only leaves USB connectors for the external drives and I don't see that being a good enough speed for an external drive.

Also, is a firewire 800 connection OK for the M Box. I read that it is best to only use a 400 connection?

I was looking at an iMac with these specs:
3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
3MB shared L2 cache
1066MHz
4GB (two 2GB SO-DIMMs) of 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM
1TB Serial ATA 7200 rpm
8x SuperDrive
27-inch
ATI Radeon HD 4670 with 256MB of GDDR3 memory
FireWire 800 port; 7 watts
Four USB 2.0 ports

Thanks for any advice.

[basslik]

You would daisy chain. and cable converter from 800 to 400.

[Strebor24]

yep.... sounds good, no prob.

just need to use an external firewire drive and daisy chain the M box 2 pro at the end with a converter.

Some say this will make everything in the cahis 400 instead of 800?

Guess the Mac genius at the store is the guy to ask.

cheers

[Eric Seaberg]

Originally Posted by Strebor24

Some say this will make everything in the cahis 400 instead of 800?

Yes it will. DO NOT waste money on a FW800 drive as you will be dumbing down the speed of the buss because the interface is 400.

There are TONS of threads about this, if you do a little more hunting.


Good luck....

[Undertones]

What?

No, if the 003 is last in the chain the iMac and drive will communicate with the iMac at FW800 speeds. However, if you were to place the 003 first in the chain, the drive would operate at FW400 speeds, since the 003 is a FW400 device.

See here: http://www.mhsecure.com/technotes/Te...10/TN_0010.php

"If I connect a FW400 device to a FW800 bus, it will slow the entire bus down to 400 Mbs." -False

In a mixed speed bus, everything after the slowest device runs at the slower speed.
For example, in this FW800 chain:

The FW800 device communicates with the computer at 800 Mbs, and the FW400 device communicates at 400 Mbs. However, in this chain:

The FW800 device's speed is reduced to 400 Mbs, since the slower device is connected between it and the computer.

If you keep the FW800 connections together those devices will run at 800 Mbs regardless of whether there are FW400 devices in the chain. If you intermix FW800 and FW400 devices, you will lose bus speed on any FW800 device connected after a FW400 device.

[Eric Seaberg]

That may work with Metric Halo's hardware (my personal favorite), but haven't there been lots of documented problems using Digi hardware that way? I think so...

[Dism]

Originally Posted by Eric Seaberg

That may work with Metric Halo's hardware (my personal favorite), but haven't there been lots of documented problems using Digi hardware that way? I think so...

Indeed.

While there may be a lot of claims to the contrary, trying to push the Digi gear through a FW800 chain seems to result in a lot of problems. This is why it is recommended you use a FW400 drive with an 800 -> 400 adapter. Keeps the whole chain at 400, and the 003 is happy.

[jazzdrumr]

I have the very iMac you are talking about. I have partioned my system drive to have an audio partion that I sometimes recorded to. I also go FW800 to an external drive and FW400 from that drive to my 002. I've never had a problem working to or from either drive and like having the extra bandwidth of the 800 connection to the drive as opposed to a 800 to 400 cable.

[huzzam]

Undertones is incorrect, sorry. If you use a 800-400 adapter cable, everything after that cable will run at 400 speed, which is what you want. If you were to use an 800-800 cable to the drive, then yes, the drive would connect at 800, but this is known to cause problems.

~peter in oakland

[Undertones]

Originally Posted by huzzam

Undertones is incorrect, sorry. If you use a 800-400 adapter cable, everything after that cable will run at 400 speed, which is what you want. If you were to use an 800-800 cable to the drive, then yes, the drive would connect at 800, but this is known to cause problems.

~peter in oakland

I'm not sure about his setup, but the link I posted is factually true.

I was under the impression that he meant that simply including a FW400 device in any FW chain will reduce the speed to 400, which is false. A FW800 bus will deliver FW800 speeds to any FW800 device as long as you place the FW400 hardware at the end of the chain, something you also seem to agree on.