regarding harddrives....

[tabmanmatt]

Hey everybody,

Right now my studio is using outboard SCSI drives connected directly to our Mac G5. These are our primary recording drives. I was wondering what other people are using these days. We are thinking(because obviously SCSIs are on the out) of starting to use Firewire. Have Firewires become fast enough to handle large Pro Tools sessions? Even sessions with video? We do a lot of sweetening to picture.

I know a lot of people just add another drive internally. But we need to have multiple drives, for backup, safety(peace of mind) purposes. Let me know what ya'll are using and what might be a good option going forward. Thanks!

--Matt

[Gohanto]

You might find this helpful...
http://www.glyphtech.com/support/trackcount.php
Tests with several drives and several connection types.

And it's generally recommended that even if your hard drive is fast enough, you should still have your video files on a seperate hard drive from your audio.

[Roy Pahlman]

Definitely different drives for your video and audio. I have had firewire bus problems with a G5 and large sessions. I would recommend Sata drives. I have had no problems with large track counts with these drives. I suspect the G5 firewire bus was my problem with errors. my 2 cents

[ggegan]

Firewire 400 and 800 drives with speeds of at least 7200 RPM are qualified for Pro Tools recording with some restrictions on the number of channels that can be recorded simultaneously.

Read the following Digidesign drive spec page:

http://www.digidesign.com/index.cfm?...4&itemid=23132

Look into eSATA and fiber drives. The speed is nearly as fast as internal SATA drives. I don't believe they have been tested by Digidesign, so they say they don't support them, but I know facilities that use them without any issues.

Here is an article that shows the speed difference between eSATA and Firewire 800:

http://macperformanceguide.com/Stora...-Firewire.html

[mikevarela]

wonder if eSATA might work, that way you could still stay external but maintain internal speeds.

Also, a company called DROBO makes a simple to use raid enclosure that uses a technology called iSCSI - i think over Ethernet. it's supposed to be really fast.

In any case, you're not going to realize speeds like you would internally due to added bus architecture. each stage adds latency.

SCSI worked great because you could run 10,00 rpm drives.

You could also, if you have a mac pro, raid 0 two drives internally as a record volume, then backup immediately that data once you're done.

[EarHole]

Originally Posted by mikevarela

wonder if eSATA might work, that way you could still stay external but maintain internal speeds.

Also, a company called DROBO makes a simple to use raid enclosure that uses a technology called iSCSI - i think over Ethernet. it's supposed to be really fast.

In any case, you're not going to realize speeds like you would internally due to added bus architecture. each stage adds latency.

SCSI worked great because you could run 10,00 rpm drives.

You could also, if you have a mac pro, raid 0 two drives internally as a record volume, then backup immediately that data once you're done.

Beware the Drobo.... I had a good friend loose 4 TB's off files and when he called the tech support that he paid extra for... after two weeks of un-returned emails and calls, they shrugged their shoulders and said nothing.

He had all of the files backed up but still, going down like that on a new system is bogus.

[reichman]

I'm very fond of MacGurus' systems: www.macgurus.com

I use their eSATA tower and it has worked well with Pro Tools. The difference between it and FW800 is noticeable.

[kd_special]

We use firewire drives only at our work as of PT 6. We run video off them too. If you want ultimate stability I suggest Lacie drives. They only cost a little more than a regular no Name PC extrenal firewaire drive but they work much much better. We use LAcie only now after the early years of testing with some PC external drives etc.

I run video off the same drive as my sessions and I usually dont have much of a problem. But some of our mix rooms have internal video drives to run video off of.

If you are going to build your own firewire drives be sure to make sure the external case uses an oxford chip. Or you will be in for a world of unstability.

kd

[infiniteloop]

Heh. LaCie drives have the worst rep i've ever known. No-one in London trusts them any more. I have two dead ones sitting under my desk. The power electrionics are terrible.

[Postman]

Heh. LaCie drives have the worst rep i've ever known. No-one in London trusts them any more. I have two dead ones sitting under my desk. The power electrionics are terrible

My experience with LaCie has been superb. The three I own were bought in 2003 and 2004, two of those get daily use and continue to be reliable. People have also griped about Western Digital too, and my very first firewire drive is a WD 80g that I bought in 2002. It still works perfectly too. All drive makers have had problems from time to time. I'll never forgive IBM.