First Timer: Firewire 400/800 Drives with a Mac

[rythmicillusion]

Hey Everyone-

I am very excited to be joining the community of Digi users, as Im just a few weeks away from receiving most of the equipment. I have some recording experience and am a student at Berklee, im really pumped to really start doing it all on my own. Im gonna be running a Powerbook 1.5Ghz w/2GB RAM through an 002, with a new Mackie 800R piped in optically via ADAT lightpipe, with Mackie HR824s and Klipsch THX Promedia 2.1 as the monitors. Pretty basic, but rock solid setup.

My question is in regards to the firewire 400 and 800 standards. I have a LaCie D2-250 triple interface(400, 800, USB2.0). The Mac has both types of ports, but I have heard rumors that ProTools does not currently support FW800...is this true? If so, will USB2.0 be fast enough with the LaCie for fairly intense Pro Tools work? I will idealy be tracking at 96khz, but 48khz if I really need to for the time being. Also is it possible to use the LaCie via firewire through the 002?

I've found tons of great info through looking through the forum already, seems like a pretty cool place. Can't wait to use it more and more.

Thanks in advance!

-Andrew Nelson
Boston, MA

[rythmicillusion]

Anyone at all know if FW800 hardrives work with ProTools?!?!

[b mcgibney]

Anyone at all know if FW800 hardrives work with ProTools?!?!

AFAIK its firewire 400 only--should be fast enough

B

[Bhennies]

I use two FW800 drives every day (knock on wood).

[Avid]

Andrew,

On the PowerBook, the FW800 and FW400 ports are still on the same bus. You can experiment hooking the FW800 up to the 800 port, but there is no advantage with Pro Tools. Neither FW800 or USB 2.0 are approved with Pro Tools.

The supported way to hook up your system would be to connect the FireWire drive to the FW400 port, then connect the Digi 002 to the FW drive. (the Digi 002 interface is FW400)

Click on Compatibility, then on Digi 002 for Mac OS X and you'll find information on the supported configurations. You can't put the drive after the 002, has to have the drive before the 002 if you are chaining together.

Another configuration that you may or may not need, depending on track count and number of plug-ins in your sessions, would be to get a CardBus FireWire card for your PowerBook, and hook the Digi 002 to that, and your FireWire drive to the FW400 or 800 port. I wouldn't bother going that route immediately, but some users have reported increased performance with that setup. I would start out with the first setup I described.

[rythmicillusion]

Thanks for the info, that was really helpful...

so basiclly the FW800/USB2.0 might work with protools...but you can't say that it definetly will, and there will be no speed advantage...right? Is there a reason for this; will these interface standards be approved in the future?

As long as I can hook it all up in whatever configuration and it works, thats cool. Thanks for your input, that really helped a ton. I'll be sure to get some clips up on here once i get all my gear

-Andrew

[Dale-c]

Just make sure you have a drive with the Oxford 911 chipset and you should be fine. I would not use USB 2.0 since it is not nearly as reliable or fast at Firewire. Even though it is rated at 80 Mbps faster than firwire, it is usually slower in real world tests.

[rythmicillusion]

I have read much about the oxford 911 chipset on this website...but after many attempts to find out more about it on the www, i could find very little. What is this chipset, what does it do, and how do I know if my drive has it(or something very similar)?

Thanks again all!

-Andy