New to Mac: Basic Questions

[Ford Prefect]

Hi there Mac-User,

I plan to become part of your community soon. I think about buying a MacBook Pro and have some questions:

- The MacBook Pro has only two USB ports. So if I want to use a MBox2, iLok and a mouse I need a USB hub. Does anyone have problems running the iLok via USB hub? Are there any special hubs?

- The new MBP has one Firewire800 port. To run 3 HHDs (1x system, 1x recording, 1x programms and plug-ins) I need to connect two external HDDs to one port. Are there any problems with this setup? Are there special cases (912 or 924 chipset) for several HDDs?

- Does the connection of an additional display affect the performance of PTLE 7.4 or 8?

Thanks for your help.

[bmcoonan]

Hi,

I'm a newb myself but one thing that you'll probably find out is that a lot of your questions will be answered by going through the discussion boards, or doing searches - especially if you're not actually recording yet and have some time before you do. I've gone through this board and learned so much by just reading all the posts, and while I don't know the answers to your questions - I bet they are out here somewhere.

Welcome to the board!
BC

[Mark Reis]

Seeing as you're new to Macs, you might want to assume that things will just work. Macs are funny like that. Seeing as how Digidesign is in the mix, you should assume there will occasionally be problems.

Specifically:
ilok on a hub - no problem

firewire - not sure why you need a separate drive for plug-ins and applications.

Additional display - can't help you there, but I would assume it just works unless you're using one of those USB video adapters.

[mindnoise]

Originally Posted by Ford Prefect

Hi there Mac-User,

I plan to become part of your community soon. I think about buying a MacBook Pro and have some questions:

1 The MacBook Pro has only two USB ports. So if I want to use a MBox2, iLok and a mouse I need a USB hub. Does anyone have problems running the iLok via USB hub? Are there any special hubs?

2 The new MBP has one Firewire800 port. To run 3 HHDs (1x system, 1x recording, 1x programms and plug-ins) I need to connect two external HDDs to one port. Are there any problems with this setup? Are there special cases (912 or 924 chipset) for several HDDs?

3 Does the connection of an additional display affect the performance of PTLE 7.4 or 8?

Thanks for your help.

HI,

to keep things short
(also you SHOULD scan this forum for more answers)

1- running everything off an Powered USB Hub is fine.
I use a 7 hub.
The MBox must be connected to itßs own special MB Pro usb port
i think the farthest away from the screen because of power.
this is a design flaw in generations of Macbooks.

2- You just need one HDD for recording.
it is NOT a good idea (and hell to maintain and install) to run programms and plug-ins from any other drive than the system drive.
make sure you´re system drive never gets more than 50% full
(because of adaptive hotfile clustering)
The new MB Pros just have one FW800 connector.
The Problem is that you should not mix FW800 and FW400 devices
using a FW800 to FW400 adapter is not a problem.

3- No
best
m.

[Ford Prefect]

Thanks for the replies, so far.

I come up with two additional HDDs because of BFD2 (disk-streaming multi-channel sample playback engine; drum sampler) by FXpansion. They write:

"We recommend, in order of performance preference (first is best):
1. A dedicated SATA or IDE internal drive, 7200rpm or above
2. A dedicated external 7200rpm (or faster) firewire drive (do not chain the firewire drive with a DIGI002 or other firewire audio interfaces!)
3. A dedicated external 7200rpm (or faster) USB2.0 drive
4. An internal drive shared with the data from other heavy disk-accessing programs, eg the operating system (virtual memory swapfiles), or another disk streaming application such as your host sequencer (audio tracks) or Kontakt etc."

I guess, I can install the other plug-ins on the system drive. But BFD2 is something special...

What do you think?

[flommer]

BFD does work much better with it's samples on another, exclusive drive. But the program still gets installed on the system drive.. I do note that they recommend that it does not share the FW bus with other drives by chaining. You could accomplish this by adding a FW Express card to the MBP:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firew...i-pcmcia-cards

You could certainly test this out before adding the card.. I used to use 2 FW drives, 1 for recording and 1 for BFD, on the same FW bus and had no problems, but that is not to say that I was pushing things to the limits.. I use an internal SATA drive for recording now..

Don't worry too much about installing software to the wrong drive... Most installers won't allow you to put something where it shouldn't be... The only exception might be if you have 2 disks with systems installed...

[Ford Prefect]

Thanks for your help, folks!

[mindnoise]

Hi,
I see,
you see "Plug-In" is well,... the actual Plug-in
while you mean the library content (e.g. samples) for a plug-in.

So yes, it´s ok to install the content for Plug-in on an additional drive.

just to clear that up :)

best