External recording drive for laptop: Will USB work? Firewire? eSATA?

C

complexprocess

New member
I'm going to be recording on my laptop, and I'll be using an external data drive (despite the fact that I hate losing a bit of mobility.) My laptop has only USB 2.0 ports. My recording setup will be as follows:

2 GHz single core processor
2 Gigs of RAM
Windows XP
Emu Tracker Pre (2 channel USB recording interface)
Sonar LE / Sonar Studio (If I like sonar enough to buy)
? External hard drive

Right now I have an old-ish 80 gig external hard drive @ 5400 RPM. Will I be able to track with this? Should I buy a faster USB Hard Drive? Should I buy a PCMCIA firewire or eSATA card and a drive to go with it?
 
Well, ordinarily I'd say eSATA for maximum throughput with minimum latency. In your case, though, I'd suggest FireWire because you will probably eventually upgrade to a beefier interface that uses it, your laptop doesn't have such a port, and you probably only have one CardBus slot for a single card.

You definitely should not use a USB hard drive. The CPU overhead will utterly kill you maximum track count....

I would suggest getting an external drive that supports eSATA, though, just to future-proof it. The cost difference is small compared with the cost of replacing the case if you decide you want eSATA someday.
 
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