USB outboard hard drive fast enough?

Z

zenpicker

New member
I'd like to hang a second hard drive off my music PC, which is a beefy Vaio laptop. My Firewire port is already taken by my Yamaha i88x PC interface, so I'm looking at using a USB hard drive.

My question is: Is a USB 2.0 bus fast enough to provide for skip-free, real-time direct-to-disk recording?
 
I have a Compaq laptop AMD64/512 ram. Presonus Firebox into the firewire port. I have been using a USB external HD for about 6 months now with no problems. No dropouts, no glitches, nothing. When I record 4 tracks at a time it works perfectly. When I playback and record a bunch of tracks still no problems. I would make sure you get one that spins at least 7200 rpm.
 
Sounds reassuring indeed. I think I'm going to go for one of the Maxtor ones, pretty good bang for the buck.

Cheers!
e
 
Same Here

Got a phillips 7200rpm 160gb drive, same setup as last post, and works a treat,

Did a test at 96khz, 8 tracks at once and no probs!

Hope this helps!

E
 
The theoretical speed of usb2.0 is 450 mb/s ... firewire is only 400.. (yes i know there is firewire800 as well) , you should be fine.. but beware.. windows xp has a nasty little usb bug.. with a device like that, it will be constantly consuming power.. so never leave it on battery power...
 
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