Firewire drive for my situation

[ByronVader]

Hi.... I am an amateur recorder about to buy a MacBook Pro 2.16 ghz 17" but I thought I might as well buy a new Firewire drive as long as I'm doing that. I currently own a ProjecMix I/O. I am looking to spend around $200 and the drive MUST be around $200 or a little more little less... but I know nothing about good drives, so I was hoping to get some help from you folks!

Any suggestions?

[ByronVader]

http://www.samash.com/catalog/showit...0Q12&ovtac=CMP
I found that one... is this good? It is qualified and everything and looks good.

But then I read this:
http://www.m-audio.com/index.php?do=...89704091cab226

So now I'm having second thoughts about the Macbook Pro since it doesn't have a PCMIA slot or anything since the ProjectMix is an M-Audio FW400 interface....

WHAT TO DO?!

[joemusic]

Byron,

I'd look deeply into the type of hard drive you're considering. I personally use USB2 externals, and have never had a problem on Windows or Mac. I see a lot of people saying you can't use USB2 HDs, but I've never encountered any problems, except when I formatted one for Mac, and discovered that I had to reinput tracks after copying them back onto the HD.

I find USB2 to be cheaper in some cases, so look at those.

[atheos]

I recommend LaCie D2 drives, they have performed very nicely everywhere I've seen such. 250GB model costs around 250€ ($330) here in Finland and I'd think they're less than $300 in US. No, it's not around $200 but I'm rather sure it's worth the extra $50 or so. And go for firewire, they (FW400) perform better in any benchmark than USB2.0 drives.

I'd also like to point out that for audio production the MacBook Pro isn't really that much faster than the basic MacBook. The biggest actual differences are better graphics controller and FW800 bus. Well, the 17" model has bigger display, too. For me the MacBook's 1280x800 pixels have been enough, though (after all you can always use an external monitor if needed). I mean, if you don't really need those maybe you should go for the basic MacBook and save some bucks.