Mbox & USB External drive

[christopherleary]

I had planned on buying a Digi 002 but I put those plans on hold for a few years until I have a permanant place to live. In the meantime I'm buying an Mbox.

Questions:

1. Will I have problems witht he USB interface on this thing? I'm using a laptop (Gateway MX6920) and I've heard people had problems with the USB port on laptops not supplying enough power.

2. I'm looking at buying a Hard Drive with an eSATA enclosure that has a USB port as well. If I wait on buying the PC card for the eSATA, will I be able to record to this drive using USB with no problems? I want to find a PC card that is compatable with both Mac & Windows. Not only are they pricy but I can't find one in Canada right now. That is the reason I would wait on the card.

3. If I start a session on my Windows based laptop on my external drive, will I be able to open that session on my friends Powerbook with Mac OS and record. Then of course use it on with Windows again.

[albee1952]

1. you should not have problems with the USB powering the Mbox. If you do, a powered hub may solve it.

2. USB drives are not supported or recommended. Best solution is an external firewire drive with the Oxford 911 chipset. Search the DUC to find out the model of Bytec case and build your own with a regular IDE 7200rpm drive mounted in the proper Bytec case. If your Gateway has no firewire, get an approved firewire PCMCIA card.

3. If both systems have PT7 or later, you should have no trouble at all. If you both have PT6.x, remember to check Enforce PC/MAC compatibility whenever you create a new session. If one system has PT7 and the other has an older version, you must select compatibility with 6.xx when you save on the PT7 setup or the older PT version will not be able to open the file.