Another Firewire Drive or Internal SATA II Drive???

[fenderguy]

Just bought a MacPro 2.66 to replace my aging Powerbook. I've been using my Lacie D2 160GB Firwire drive for audio, with a partitions for images and file backups. Needless to say, this drive has done well. But I'm left with bout 40GB for audio.

I've read that partitioning mac drives cant benefit anyone. So I was considering just using the firewire drive for backup, and buying another internal Sata2 drive for audio.

My question is what would you suggest. Would it be better to buy another drive for backup, and then reformat the firewire external drive and just use that for audio? Or vice versa where I'd use the firewire for backup and the internal drive for audio? Which in your opinion would be faster,and offer the best PTLE performance.

I was thinking of gettin another 250GB SATA2 Seagate, they're pretty cheap, any suggestions on other drives?

Thanks.

[The Dougfather]

Sata II all the way for your audio drive, the bandwidth on sata is massive compared to firewire. It's always nice to have a firewire drive for back because it's independent of the tower and plug and play.

Firewire 400mbps
Sata II 3gbps

Cheers

[fenderguy]

Thanks for the info. Perhaps I will look into a second internal drive for audio, and just keep the firewire drive for backup.

I know the MacPro comes with a stock 250GB Seagate Drive. When I open a browser or any app, I can hear the drive spinning and clicking. The MacPro IS that quiet, I couldnt believe it when I first booted it, but now, I just notice the drive doing its work.

Would you recommend I install another drive of the same make, or perhaps a Western Digital or something else that is a bit more quieter. Guess I'd like a quieter drive. Let me know what you all use for internal drives and why you chose them. Thanks again.

[guitates]

I got an EZQuest 500 FW800 external with my MacBook Pro at work, and for my G5 Quad at home, and I have a 40 GB partition for the Session files, and the other 460GB for the Audio files. I carry it back and forth, and have the ability to see the exact same files at both locations.

I have never Not been able to open as many plugs as I wanted, so I do not know IF there are any plug-in/track limits with this drive.

I record at home and mix at work. I do have regular 7.3.1 LE on the Quad and 7.3.1 M-Powered on the MacBk Pro, with Never any issues working on both platforms. I got a Transit ($100-US) for the MBPro and it fit's in my shirt pocket, and makes it easy to mix on airplanes, and it allows 96k.

[The Dougfather]

Drive choice is very subjective and most people will have a different view, heres mine.

I swear my Maxtor external firewire drives, i have two of the original One Touch firewire only models and they're great, quiet, fast and equipped with 911 chipsets.

I recently switched to Hitachi Travelstar internal drives after seeing my friends external caddie and barely being able to hear it. I then installed a 5400RPM Travelstar in my iBook because the junk toshiba was a nightmare and noisy, again a great move.

I personally find WD to be very unreliable, i've had one burn out on me and i was at a recording session recently when a soundscape rig equipped with WD's failed.

Cheers