best external hard drive for pro tools?

[emersonrailroad]

I have pro tools m-powered a new dell laptop and a firewire 410, what would be the best external hardrive with the best compatibility with pro tools? Something within a decent price range. I also need to buy a firewire card for my laptop card slot... if anyone has a recommendation for this, that would also be nice.
Thank you.

[JrummerJ]

I'd get one of these:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firew...teAL/400+USB2/

All have the oxford chipset and are reasonably prices. Probably the one with just usb/fw ports would work best because it has 2 fw 400 ports if you want to chain.

I also have the fw 410. If you have a fw port on your laptop (and it has a compatible chipset) then you can simply chain the 410 and the drive with no problems. If your laptop port is a 4 pin you should be able to connect the hard drive first, and then chain the 410 to the hard drive (and not have to use the power adapter for the 410). Don't use the power adapter if you are using a 6pin to 6pin fw cable.......wow that got long winded, sorry.

J

[emersonrailroad]

Thanks,
what is the difference between the
Quad eSATA FireWire 800 + USB 2.0,
the FireWire 800/400 + USB 2.0
and the FireWire 400 + USB 2.0?

?

[JrummerJ]

Thanks,
what is the difference between the
Quad eSATA FireWire 800 + USB 2.0,
the FireWire 800/400 + USB 2.0
and the FireWire 400 + USB 2.0?

?

Just the type of connections. The eSATA/800/400/USB 2.0 has 4 different types of connections, the next one down has 800/400/USB2 and so on. Usb 2.0 is slowest and not really even supported, while the fw400 is the most widely compatible drive. Fw 800 is faster and esata is very fast, but I am not sure it is supported either.

Which one you get may depend on which card you add to your laptop. I would probably just go with the cheapest of the bunch, the 400/USB 2.0. The reason is that it has 2 fw400 ports, which means that you could connect the HD to the laptop and then chain the interface from the hard drive and then you would not have to use the power adapter for the 410 since the hard drive would provide bus power. You never want to use both the power adapter and 6 pin-6 pin fw cable at the same time as it could fry either your interface, your firewire card, or both.

J

[emersonrailroad]

thank you. I believe you have answered my questions quite well.

-n