Need some advice - please help!

[Zownd]

I would go for 2 (or 3 or 4) small drives this ensures for more tracks in a session.
So you can devide 24 tracks per disk, without getting "disk too slow" errors.
I'ts also a thought to buy a DVD burner so you can backup large sessions to 1 disc instead of something like 4 CD's.

Hope this helps.
Mark

[rtcstudio]

I'm using a Ti with the Magma 4 slot chassis.

If you use this chassis, you can mount three firewire drives inside it: Two fixed drives, and one removeable bay that opens out the front. Just daisy chain all the drives' firewire bridges (you can get Oxford 911 chipset bridges that simply plug into the back of a raw drive from Granite Digital at www.scsipro.com. Takes up VERY little room. The removeable bay can be ordered from them as well, and it comes with the bridge board already mounted inside.)

The removeable bay makes it easy to back up the other two drives. You can also mount the firewire plugs on the back of the Magma for I/O (again, these female to male cables can be ordered from Granite).

I use the IBM Deskstar 60 GIG 7200 RPM drives because I have heard they are actually faster in some cases than the Maxtors. Also I have heard that 60 GIG is the max you want to use, because the bigger drives can actually slow down as they fill up (sorry about being so non-technical).

If you are going with the Magma 2 slot chassis, you can still order a portable removeable bay from Granite. My assistant and I have three of those and they are great for moving edited versions and slaves around, and for doing overdubs etc. Raw drives are so cheap that you can just order the drawers from Granite and not have to worry about filling up a drive. When I get through with a project, I make a Retrospect backup, and an actual mirror image backup of all the drives (for this backup I use one 80 or 100 GIG drive, depending on the project).

Since your PB will be new, I'm sure it may have OS X on it. You want to change that to Mac OS 9.2.2 for ProTools. This OS works best with Firewire as well.

I just loaded the DAM firewire drivers on my Powerbook Firewire drives and all is well. I wasn't having any problems at all before though. I hear now that if you want the driver, you have to get your drives from them as well.

Hope that helps, sorry about being so verbose.

[yelhahc]

Hey all!

Thanks for having a look at my thread..... [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

I'm in the midst of buying a new Tibook (800) that I plan to use with a Magma Expansion Chassis - and have been reading all the previous threads about hard disk solutions.

Lots of useful info there, learned a lot about what to look for - but just wanted to ask a couple more direct questions.

I've decided Firewire is the way to go right now, and that I should definately make sure the drive is 7500 rpm and the casing uses the Oxford 911 chipset. I was just curious if the size of the drive is an issue, as I noticed most of the previous postings mentioned drives that are in the 60 - 80 GB range. Has anyone used a 120 GB drive, or is this a bad idea?

Also, names such as the IBM Deskstar 120 GXP, Western Digital Caviar, and Maxtor Diamond Plus were mentioned as good candidates for the drive itself - I'd love to hear from anyone who uses one of these or has another recommendation.

I really appreciate the time anyone takes in helping me out here - I just want to be doubly sure I'm buying a combination that's reliable and known to work well......

Also love to know if anyone uses a drive from Digital Audio Miracles with their Firewire driver!

thanks again everyone

[img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

Steve.

[yelhahc]

Mark and RTC

Thanks loads for the advice - really appreciate it! Sounds like the IBM drives are the way to go for sure...........

There are a lot of posts on here about the powerbook/magma/firewire option, and quite a few people with Desktops switching to Firewire too - I think I won't be the only one smiling when SCSI goes the way of the serial port!!!

[img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

thanks again guys...