external hard drives

  • Thread starter Thread starter mixmkr
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mixmkr

mixmkr

we don't need rest!!
am I correct in thinking that an external drive connected with USB 2 will transfer data as well as an internal setup as a master/slave setup on the typical ribbon cable?

Would this be a good situation on an audio recording computer to use an external in this hookup (or by firewire), rather than installing the 2nd drive internally? I can kill a couple of birds with one stone if so.... archiving, separte drives for OS and audio files, physically taking it with me, etc.

sorry for the newb ciomputer questions, but I'm learning.
 
Transfer rates won't be as fast as an internal, but I use an external FireWire drive when I'm doing remote location stuff with my laptop. It handles the task quite well.
For a desktop or rack-mount PC, I would recommend internal style drives. Just use removable hard drive rack trays. Purchase extra drive cartridges for the number of drives you intend to use.
 
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I bought a USB hard drive and the transfer speed is really slow. I can burn DVD's faster than this.
 
My firewire drives are almost as fast as my internal drives.
 
fldrummer said:
My firewire drives are almost as fast as my internal drives.
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Same here....... I've got several of the Maxtor OneTouch 200gig drives -- they're excellent... I've even done video rendering off of one and I don't see a difference between it and the internal drives......

Farview said:
I bought a USB hard drive and the transfer speed is really slow. I can burn DVD's faster than this.
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Jason, you'll want to be adding/upgrading to USB 2 -- makes all the difference. Under USB 2 the transfer rates are slightly faster than Firewire......


Only downside to these Maxtor OneTouch drives -- they don't work well thru a network connection -- too many Windows "paging" errors to be usable. They work best mounted to a specific machine directly. I discovered this the hard way... had a couple mounted to my server, and I was copying stuff from the studio computer to it and I got a file I/O error - when I went over to the server, Windows reported that a paging error occurred and that the drive was corrupt, which scared the crap out of me... I dismissed the error and recycled the drive - sure enough, Windows wouldn't see it. Figured I'd try a reboot for fun, and the drive came up no problem (and no data was lost)... I tried the transfer again, and came up with the same issue -- it was a large file, to be sure. Same procedure, same error, but nothing was lost when the drive came up after a reboot. (Nothing was lost, but of course the file I was trying to copy didn't get copied!)

Anyways, I check the Maxtor site to see if there was any info - new drivers - whatever... no new drivers (these were new units) - but of course they talk about these exact "paging" errors right in the FAQ... no solution other than saying - these drives are not designed to be used for I/O of very large files across networks....

But I have been using these units directly attached to my computers over a year now without ever seeing these errors.
 
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I don't plan on transfering large files via my network, so that problem area hopefully shouldn't affect my situation.

I have read opposing views on firewire VS USB 2.0 on transfer speed, but they seem pretty close in most tests anyway.
But, it appears, firewire still has the edge over USB 2.0 at this point.

Anyone notice a difference with a 1 meter cable VS a 3-5 meter cable on these hookups? I wouldn't think there'd be a noticeable differnce, but 5 meters being the max....right?

Anyrate..thx for the responses, and I suppose I'll just open this box and try this drive I bought, out for a test drive and see what happens. I plan on connecting via USB 2.0, so I am crossing my fingers. At the least, will make for great backups and storage.
 
oh..as an after thought. I haven't heard any issues with using the external drives doing video and stuff like that. Was wondering if the drives would crumble with 25 audio tracks or not.
 
mixmkr said:
I have read opposing views on firewire VS USB 2.0 on transfer speed, but they seem pretty close in most tests anyway.
But, it appears, firewire still has the edge over USB 2.0 at this point.
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I don't have actual numbers, but I have an 80gig drive attached to my file server via USB 2 and it's very fast.......... I have 2 200gig drives attached to the computer in the studio and they're also very fast. I certainly see no difference in performance between either USB 2 or Firewire.....
 
mixmkr said:
oh..as an after thought. I haven't heard any issues with using the external drives doing video and stuff like that. Was wondering if the drives would crumble with 25 audio tracks or not.
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Video rendering worked well for me directly off the drives, as did audio track editing... I've not tried multitrack on them, though.........
 
I use a WD USB2/FW 7200RPM 120GB Hard Drive. I think it's marketed to gamers cause it has neon pink tubes glowing in it and a clear case. Anyways, I do multitrack recording on it, have ran 32 tracks in USB2 mode with my laptop and had no problem at all. I am very happy with the setup.

H2H
 
ATA100 (IDE) can support up to 100MBps
firewire is 800Mbps
USB 2.0 is up to 480Mbps
(notice the difference of B and b)
this is all taken from the definitions from webopedia.com

I'd say go with firewire if you want the external drive. You'll get a better result than any USB drive will give you. Also, I noticed you said you wanted to install another OS on this hard drive as well as use it for audio stuff? I'd recommend against doing that. Running an OS and trying to read or record audio at the same time (especially on a external USB or even firewire drive) on it will probably result in problems for you. Just my opinion though :cool:
 
On the Maxtor OneTouch drives specifically, the Firewire bus transfer rate is 400Mbps, and 480Mbps for USB 2........
 
the 400 Mbps and the 480 figures are the ones I have been seeing too.

Benny... No...I was only going to put audio files on the external...so it would be separate from the OS hard drive.

I've seen the PCI cards for a little as $30 (like a Belkin) for a couple of firewire ports, and figure if the firewire was called for, that might be an answer for computers that didn't have them built in already. However, USB 2 seems the first route to take for me.

H2H....glad to hear about your setup without problems. I'll be hooked up after I do another 100 chores, and I'll report back how successful I was with multitracking.
 
oops...sorry, misread what you wrote
BlueBear...they must be using 1394a then...wonder why they didn't opt for the 1394b. Must be more expensive to make it that way. Interesting that they've gotten USB up to 800 :)
 
Just as a (positive) udate. Did a (quickie test) multitrack session with about 15 tracks in Adobe Audition, and had no problems. Running a Dell P4 2.8 with 512 RAM.

All audio and session files were run off the external drive via USB 2.0 connection.
I was pleased. :)
 
Wow...portable plug and play terabyte. That's...cool. So...no power lag from CPU with recording to external device? (Thinking about using external device as back up of HDD and music files...good idea? Or sole music files?
 
Honestly, I don't think you will really see a difference between Firewire or USB as far as performance and speede etc... The biggest differences will probably be in price, and whether or not you are using a quality drive. From what I understand, it doesn't matter whether one is 400 or one is 480. I was always under the impression that the hard drive wouldn't sustain that even though the spec is there for both Firewire and USB 2. Internal will still be the fastest most stable way to do it in the end, but now adays any decent drive be it internal, USB 2, or firewire will be able to handle most things you will be able to throw at it (within reason of course). Thats kind of why SCSI is quickly dropping off the map. IDE technology has advanced so far that there isn't much (if any) performance difference, but there is still a huge (but narrowing) gap in cost.
 
please be aware in usb 2.0 that mb/sec is MEGA BITS not mega BYTES.
it misleads some people.
 
manning1 said:
please be aware in usb 2.0 that mb/sec is MEGA BITS not mega BYTES.
it misleads some people.
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Doubling with the Firewire 800 coming out (I know some Mac HDDs external can do this) and with people not complaining about the 400...I don't see the problem. What kind of speed do the removeable hard drives provided by, ProTools, for example use? I'm going to see if I can find that info because people have been transporting those for quite a while.
 
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seeing that this thread kinda came alive again, I'll just pop back in and say that my Maxtor one touch is doing great. I didn't install all the Dantz software that came with it (looked at it and tried it out, then I just happened to reinstall my OS to clean things up, and just installed the hard drive software only...none of the extra stuff). I have been running Adobe Audition with the files on the drive, and have yet to see a problem. It's nice to have externals as backups too. As far as the technical mumbo jumbo, I enjoy reading it, but will let you guys hash it out....and just say I am now a fan of external USB 2.0 drives.
 
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