Tech: External USB/Firewire Hard Drives

Subject: Tech: External USB/Firewire Hard Drives
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 31 Jul 04 - 03:55 PM

This is more gonna be sorta a gushy post...

Costco had a 160gig Maxtor, external Hard Drive on sale this week, and I sprung for one.... I'm currently using it as A) a hard drive back up, and B) a place to keep my MP3s (About 12 or 13 gigs so far, but I want ALL the music!)... in the near future I also plan to install all the games I want to play on it...

I gotta say, this thing was money well spent! I love it... Currently testing it with the MP3s, playing music off it while chatting, surfing and doing one or 2 other things, and I've yet to get any chutter, stutter, or pause...

So, I guess I gotta recommend to my fellow technologically inclined Mudcatters... If yer in the market, these puppies are well worth the $$

Anyone else have any experience with this sorta thing?

Subject: RE: Tech: External USB/Firewire Hard Drives
From: Amos
Date: 31 Jul 04 - 04:24 PM

You have this thing on your Firewire bus or USB? Firewire's the best thing since sliced notes for musical recording because of its speed. USB has worked fine for me also, but some in the recording business have complaints about its lower throughput.

A

Subject: RE: Tech: External USB/Firewire Hard Drives
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 31 Jul 04 - 04:32 PM

It's connected USB2 right now, but can do either (But not both at the same time!)

I will try the Firewire option at some point as well....

Subject: RE: Tech: External USB/Firewire Hard Drives
From: M.Ted
Date: 31 Jul 04 - 04:38 PM

I agree with Amos--Firewire is definitely the way to go--I use my drive to back up a couple different computers, and so I need to use both the USB and the Firewire--the USB is so slow in comparison--

Subject: RE: Tech: External USB/Firewire Hard Drives
From: Justa Picker
Date: 31 Jul 04 - 04:38 PM

I picked the internal version of the same, at Costco a couple of months ago. Can't beat the price for 160 gigs!

Subject: RE: Tech: External USB/Firewire Hard Drives
From: beardedbruce
Date: 31 Jul 04 - 04:40 PM

presently $109.95, plus tax, in the DC area.

Subject: RE: Tech: External USB/Firewire Hard Drives
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 31 Jul 04 - 04:43 PM

I grabbed the External so I can ferry it back and forth between a couple of PCs... A bunch more $$, but it came with a cool carrying case too!

Or ya, I woulda gone internal as well (get yer minds outa the gutter!)

So much cheaper....

Subject: RE: Tech: External USB/Firewire Hard Drives
From: mack/misophist
Date: 01 Aug 04 - 10:16 AM

Mine's a Western Digital internal, but in a removable drawer - the best of both worlds! The drawer units are around $20 USD.

Subject: RE: Tech: External USB/Firewire Hard Drives
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Aug 04 - 01:02 PM

Do a search for SureFIRE800 (no spaces) Pretty pricey at the moment, but at 5.25 by 3.25 by 0.75 inches, it'll slip right into your pocket. Something to think about and shows where portable drives are headed.

Subject: RE: Tech: External USB/Firewire Hard Drives
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 01 Aug 04 - 01:09 PM

The USB external drives are a quick solution for people who've used up all the connectors on the inside too. While you can add another EIDE card, plugging into a USB port is usually a little simpler.

I've had Western Digital 120GB externals hooked up on two machines in the "home office" for about 2 years now. The only "problem" I've found is that I get an "insufficient resources" when one PC tries to access the external that's connected to the other PC (ethernet LAN). I suspect I could work out a fix, but she doesn't have anything on hers that I need, and it keeps her from messing with my archive files...

I have used mine a few times as a "take along" to feed my laptop, and it's a real winner there since the laptop has a rather small, and very slow, hard drive - which appears to be typical for laptops.

The one caution that should be noted with USB is that quite a few machines I've encountered recently have more USB connectors than USB PORTS. It's not uncommon for a 2-port machine to have a front and a back connector on each port, (4 connectors, but only 2 actual ports). I have seen 4 connectors on 1-port cards. While you can, sometimes, get by with having two devices on the same port, it's not recommended; and you will sometimes get "identity conflicts." If a problem comes up, a small "USB HUB" will let you have separate ports for each USB device - and lets you put the extra connectors wherever you want them. I haven't looked recently, but a while back you could get a 4-port hub for under $40 (US) and I'd expect them to be a little less now.

Old USB (USB-1), at 10 MB/s, is rather slow for a hard drive, but USB-2 keeps up with everything else on my etherlink LAN, and is faster than I can feed the HD on my 2+ year old laptop.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: External USB/Firewire Hard Drives
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 01 Aug 04 - 03:05 PM

Wow... you guys weren't kidding about Firewire being faster than USB eh!

LOL

Wish I'd known that before I blew HOURS trafering 13+ GIGs of mp3s onto it via USB!

Subject: RE: Tech: External USB/Firewire Hard Drives
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 01 Aug 04 - 05:15 PM

If you have older USB devices in the setup, they're not supposed to slow down the USB-2 ones, but sometimes do. If your internal USB is an older one, you'll get USB-1 performance regardless of what you hook up, and any firewire hookup is likely to look spectacular since it matched or exceeded USB-2 performance from it's (useful) inception.

The specs do say that firewire is somewhat faster than USB-2, but few people notice a significant difference if they're really getting USB-2 performance. (according to the "trade-magazine" reports)

There are a couple of non-specification "super-firewire" formats around that are really fast - but variable in "compatibilies" with other equipment. Of course "really fast" is a constantly moving target.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: External USB/Firewire Hard Drives
From: michaelr
Date: 01 Aug 04 - 08:59 PM

I recorded the latest Greenhouse CD "One Last Cold Kiss" onto a ME-320F portable hard drive -- it's a lot cheaper than audio tape!

Since I was working in two different studios (one running Pro Tools and the other MOTU), it was easy to take the sessions back and forth for various overdubs. The hard drive held all tracks, overdubs, intermediate and final mixes. I had no problems with it, and only spent about $120 US.

Cheers,
Michael