Extenral firewire drive for 9 and 8hd on Powermac?

[fourthtunz]

What do you think of this drive for protools 9 on a Macbook
and prtools HD 8 on powermac G5 dual 2 gig?
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other.../MS8U7250GB16/

Thanks!

[flommer]

I have always worked with these presumptions regarding external HD enclosures:

1. External HD enclosures are not really designed for continuous usage (the type that a DAW demands) unless they have a fan.

2. 2.5" hd's are even worse because there is even less airspace around the drive and less mass to absorb/conduct the heat away. I've never seen one with a fan.

3. 7200 rpm Hd's, while necessary for good DAW performance, create even more heat than typical 2.5' drives.


Given those 3 facts, I would never use that type of drive for anything other than data transfer.

IMO, of course..

[fourthtunz]

Yeah, I guess you're right.
The old firewire drive that I have is big and bulky and was thinking it'd be nice to go with something smaller for 2 track live recording, I do like the quiet aspect of the thing for classical recording.
True though, not much good if the thing burns up at a session.
How about this one?
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other...g/ME8QW7500GB/

[albee1952]

For strictly 2 track live recording, I would just go to the system drive(I know its not supported, but I have never had an issue doing 2 tracks that way). If PT won't do it, GarageBand will(assuming you can get the desired sample rate and bit depth in GB).

[Dism]

Originally Posted by flommer

I have always worked with these presumptions regarding external HD enclosures:

1. External HD enclosures are not really designed for continuous usage (the type that a DAW demands) unless they have a fan.

2. 2.5" hd's are even worse because there is even less airspace around the drive and less mass to absorb/conduct the heat away. I've never seen one with a fan.

3. 7200 rpm Hd's, while necessary for good DAW performance, create even more heat than typical 2.5' drives.


Given those 3 facts, I would never use that type of drive for anything other than data transfer.

IMO, of course..

There's a lot of debate over whether or not a fan actually does anything for external enclosures. Really, all you need is decent heat dissipation. I've never had an enclosure with a fan, and I've never had an external drive fail on me while recording.

I've also used 2.5" enclosures for 12-18 track simultaneous recordings that last for over 2 hours with no problems whatsoever.

The biggest, most important factor (as always) is compatibility. As long as your drive uses the proper Oxford chipsets, is formatted per the preferred partition table (GUID for Intel, APM for PPC) and doesn't get flaming hot, you shouldn't have any problems.

[flommer]

Originally Posted by Dism

There's a lot of debate over whether or not a fan actually does anything for external enclosures. Really, all you need is decent heat dissipation. I've never had an enclosure with a fan, and I've never had an external drive fail on me while recording.

I've also used 2.5" enclosures for 12-18 track simultaneous recordings that last for over 2 hours with no problems whatsoever.

The biggest, most important factor (as always) is compatibility. As long as your drive uses the proper Oxford chipsets, is formatted per the preferred partition table (GUID for Intel, APM for PPC) and doesn't get flaming hot, you shouldn't have any problems.

The problem is you won't know you have a problem until you have a problem.

Since the recording you make to these fallible devices are "precious" and "irreplaceable" (at least until they are backed up) it seems like a best practices type of thing and I can't bring myself to recommend something that is not, in my opinion, best practices..

[Dism]

Originally Posted by flommer

The problem is you won't know you have a problem until you have a problem.

Since the recording you make to these fallible devices are "precious" and "irreplaceable" (at least until they are backed up) it seems like a best practices type of thing and I can't bring myself to recommend something that is not, in my opinion, best practices..

Well of course. Regardless of what you use, they all still have a hard drive in them, which is most certainly going to fail at some point. The best thing you can ever do is have several drives and several backups.

My point is, I've never seen any real evidence to prove that having an expensive enclosure with a fan in it is any better than a good one without.

The best policy is simply to use what works, and be prepared for the worst. No enclosure is can ever keep a hard drive from eventually failing.

[Park Seward]

I have been told directly from Western Digital that heat is not a large factor in drives failing. If the enclosure has a heat sink, you don't need a fan.

[fourthtunz]

Originally Posted by albee1952

For strictly 2 track live recording, I would just go to the system drive(I know its not supported, but I have never had an issue doing 2 tracks that way). If PT won't do it, GarageBand will(assuming you can get the desired sample rate and bit depth in GB).

Right, this is what I've done for a number of years, record to the boot drive for 2 track recording, it's worked fine up until now.
I have a black lion upgraded 002 that will not allow me to go into record unless I have an external drive.
Pretty sure I used the boot drive before I upgraded the 002 but maybe I'm wrong.
Anyhow it works fine with the external drive.

[JazzyJ]

I recorded an album in the North of Brazil (no Sertão) with one of these drives (well, an older version actually!) and had no problems:

http://oyendigital.com/2.5-portable-hard-drives.html

2.5" Buss powered Firewire 7200rpm

Without air conditioning, and the north of Brazil is 33º all year round.

On top of that, have had video files going on and off that drive as well and it's still going great for me after 3 years or so........

So I have to say that Oyen Digital drives for me are brilliant and have never overheated or gone down on me.