How to switch external drives??

[59 Gibson]

I am considering switch external drives from the WD that i currently have to one of the Pro Tools certified OWC externals. Question, will this help with the continuous errors that I receive for buffers, CPU, and USB that I get. I have PT 8.0, Macbook Pro, WD Winbook external, 4gb ram, 2,26 Intel Core 2 Duo and I have always and continue to get error messages when I have 1 track or 20. I have set the laptop to PT rec settings as well and done as much research that one can do to fix this with no good results. Please help me decide if I should take the plunge on the OWC drive. I will try anything at this point or move to Logic and cut my losses.

Thanks gang

[KMcK]

What is a "WD Winbook external"? Searching the Western Digital website turns up nothing by that name.

If you're using whatever that drive is via USB then yes, you'll see dramatic results by going to an approved drive. If it's firewire but not with the approved chipset the change may not be as dramatic as non-oxford drives still usually work with PT, some are just more finicky than others.

FWIW, I just finished a 2 week Dub managing multiple 156+ track reels for a concert film on my 2008 2.4ghz Macbook Pro using 2 OWC drives and an MBox2 Mini with PT9. Never had any errors pop up at all.

[59 Gibson]

Sorry, my bad, it is a MyBook. Right now I have it connect from the FW400 port to the FW800 on the MacBook via a cable with both connectors as the MacBook does not have a FW400 port. Would changing the external drive to the OWC help me?

Thanks

[KMcK]

Ah - yes, well those Mybook drives are meant to be storage drives, not work drives. They're not built for performance or throughput, they're built to have small footprints and use as little power as possible. The WD site doesn't even mention if they use 7200rpm drives in them, but even if they do there's a good chance they're 'green' drives with lower power consumption and small buffers, which is not what you want when it comes to streaming audio.

Get yourself a real audio drive, it should definitely help. OWC or G-Drives are the best in the biz right now IMHO.

[albee1952]

I'll give a thumbs up for the OWC drives, but a thumbs down for G-Tech.

[59 Gibson]

Going to order one tonight. Last questions, Is it as easy as copying all the contents of the Mybook and dragging it into the new OWC drive then plugging the new drive into the laptop? Or do I need to change something within Pro tools to tell it that I have installed a new drive? I assume that I should get the model with FW800 instead of 400? Does the amount of cache n the drive make a difference in performance?

Thanks for the help!

[nst7]

Generally, you want the one with 2 800 ports and 1 400. Unless you have the Mbox 2 Pro, which doesn't like to see 800 anywhere in the chain. But anything other than that should be fine.

[LanceK]

Don't forget to format the drive correctly before copying stuff to it.

[59 Gibson]

Thanks, Any links on how to properly format the drive? I have done it before but cannot find it.

Thanks

[Carl Fuehrer]

What's wrong with G-Drives? I have been using 2 of them with great success as my primary recording drive in my busy studio.