Firewire Solo and Firewire External Drive

[TrevorForrest]

I am currently using an M-Audio Firewire Solo. I have connceted an Iomega external Drive to the second firewire port on the Solo. I seem to be getting lackluster performance when mixing and editing session stored on this drive as compared to doing the same thing with sessions store on the system drive of my laptop. The system drive on my laptop is a 5400rpm drive and the external iomega is a 7200rpm drive. Is this supposed to happen ????...i thought i would see better performance with the external drive connected via firewire to the M-Audio Firewire Solo interface.

[spkguitar]

Digidesign recommends using external drives with the Oxford911 firewire bridge chipset. I'm not sure what's in the Iomega, but this might be one of your problems.

[jp_dt]

I've found connecting a firewire drive to the same bus as an m-audio interface to be lackluster whether you use the recommended drives and chipsets or not. There are other reports on this board that share that experience. My particular interface is the fw410.

SpkGuitar, have you had success with this configuration...m-auido device and f/w drive on same bus?

[spkguitar]

SpkGuitar, have you had success with this configuration...m-auido device and f/w drive on same bus?

Yes, I use my Ozonic like that all the time; m6811 Laptop->Hard Drive->Ozonic. No problems.

[spkguitar]

Also, now that we can run LE and MP on the same machine, I've also used my 002r in the same manner; laptop->drive->002r. No problems.

[uncoiled]

Slightly off topic, but is it better to hook the external drive before the interface rather than the other way around? Does it make a difference either way?

[spkguitar]

Slightly off topic, but is it better to hook the external drive before the interface rather than the other way around?

That is the recommended method, yes.