New Hard Drive

[Gulliver]

I have the 30GB Western Digital, works great. Both of the above have 2MB cache, both have around 9ms access time. I would go with the one with the lowest price; which will probably be Western Digital.

[slinky]

hell no....don't ever get a maxtor or western analog...IBM or seagate always.

[Axeslinger]

Im gonna buy my second HD for my G4 (audio dedicated drive)....im looking at either a maxtor or western digital 40 gig 7200 rpm...any suggestions as to which one and experiences youve had with both brands?? thanks!

[David Johansen]

Dont get a maxtor or a western . I ´v heard people got a lot of trouble using these on Mac´s . They work on pc .
Get a IBM nothing else !!!!!

[lwilliam]

Well, I guess different people, different experiences...

I have a Maxtor 28GB drive which has worked flawlessly for over a year.

------------------
LW

[evandaum]

I have 2 Maxtor 40GBs that have served me well. I have had several very bad experiences with Western Digital drives though, so I'd stay clear of them if possible. IBMs are great, and you get what you pay for with Seagate.

-Evan

[Gulliver]

Western Digital doesn't work well with Macs? My G4 came with a stock Western Digital.

Seagates are nice, but check the buffer size before ordering. My Western has 2MB cache. The Seagate only had 512K, and was a lot more money.

Statistically, there were reports that showed IDE drives being more reliable than SCSI. This is in part because of the huge quantity produced, the percentage of failure is slightly less. If your drive works for the first week, there is a very small chance of problems in the future; no matter which one you choose.

[Axeslinger]

Thanks for the help guys but unfortunately my plans will be on delay currently ...my dual 450 g4 seems to have the power switch problem that was real common a few months back and it doesnt even start up at all!! I took it to my closest service center for repair...hopefully i will have it back soon

[mustafatron]

the cache size of a hard drive does not matter at all for daw use. go for the most data throughput ata 100's. ibm and seagate are great hard drives, when it comes down to it with eide just go for the most gigs you can get for the money..

[Gulliver]

The current Apple G4s are only ATA 66. Getting ATA 100 will not make a difference. Throughput doesn't matter either. On an ATTO card, it is actually required to lower the sync and burst rate to slow down the drives.

The important thing is access time, as the drive needs to grab a little bit of each audio file as the recording streams. Most IDE drives are about 9ms. Seagates are a litle less, but I think they just push their claims.

As far as a memory buffer, I think it is best to get a fair amount. SCSI A/V drives are the same as regular SCSI drives except that they have more memory. I believe this helps for a steady stream in the event of OS inefficiency.