Any Firewire 1814 interface with Pro Tools users there?

[fris9]

I'm a new Pro Tools user.....about 2 days ago I connected my external hard drive to my interface and ever since I've been having problems with my Mac. It will shut down unexpectedly and then finally I got a message that said something to the effect of it wasn't receiving information fast enough to playback. The hard drive is a G Drive 250mb, 7200rpm, and the Mac is a MacBook Pro, so I can't believe it would be a hardware issue. Can anyone help?

 

[Hard2Hear]

You need the devices on different ports. Theres not enough throughput on one port to handle the amount you have going through it. Thats whats giving the error.

 

[fris9]

That makes sense, except my Mac only has one Firewire port. How do Mac users connect to both an interface and an external hard drive if the Mac only has one firewire port?

 

[sixways]

Do you have a PCMCIA card slot? I'm unfamiliar with mac's hardware, but that is the PC answer.

6

 

[Randy5235]

connect the hard drive to the computer and daisy chain the interface from the hard drive. may solve most of your problems with the message about getting information fast enough. what kinda track count are you using? and how many tracks are you recording simultaneously? and when you said shutting down do you mean that the computer is shutting down? or is protools just stopping playback and recording?.

Randy

 

[sixways]

Digi doesn't recommend the above solution. You really need to have your hard drive on a port totally seperate from the interface.

6

 

[MessianicDreams]

Use a USB port for your HD? works fine or me...

 

[Randy5235]

Digi doesn't recommend the above solution. You really need to have your hard drive on a port totally seperate from the interface.

6

actually they do recommend this setup Right Here
admittedly it is a link for the 002 not the fw1814. I have always run this setup this way with a macbook pro even for the past several months with virtually no problems. (you will also find ( and yes this is not recommended by Digi) that the internal drive on your macbook ( even the 5400 especially the 7200 rpm drive) is actually faster than an *most* firewire drives . I have found I get better performance this way ( again I know generally its not recommended) Get a hd performance test and check for sustained throughput. *most* fw drives are ata100 or ata133 Pata drives (some newer ones are SATA 2 these are faster than the internal) so the internal Sata 2 drive will be faster in sustained throughput. YMMV I typically use the internal to record and then use synchronize plus to backup incrementally to the firewire drive.

Randy

Randy

 

[sixways]

Do you notice excessive clicks and pops running it chained together like that Randy?

I always had problems with it when I tried that set up.

6

 

[Randy5235]

What is the chipset on your firewire drive. the oxford 911 is what digi recommends I have generally not had to much trouble finding them with that chipset ( i build my own firewire drives from enclosures and seperately bought drives WAY cheaper) Haven't had any problems that I can remember. That said I haven't used an external drive in a while. See previous post for reason why. I benchmarked the external vs the internal and the internal had higher sustained throughput ( sata 2 vs pata pretty easy to understand why) I expect that the next fw drive I build will be from an Sata fw enclosure just to see if the performance is any better.