Laptop HD recording issue

  • Thread starter Thread starter Polaris20
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Polaris20

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Alright, so I have my Gateway notebook that I eventually want to record on.

Everytime I see an ad for the MOTU or any of the USB stuff, it never says anything about needing an extra drive for audio.

Everytime I visit the Digi Users Conference, they say that you can record directly to the same hard drive and back it up later, without consequences (on a Mac though).

I have separate drives on my desktop, because people here said you had to have at least 2 separate logical drives, if not physical drives.

My question is, what is one to do with a laptop? Can I record to the same hard drive? Should I just partition it into 2 drives? Or do I absolutely have to buy an external FW drive?

My friend has the M Box, and always uses his internal drive with no problems (on his Mac, obviously).

I would suspect if there is a need for separate drives on an XP machine, it's because there's a fundamental difference in the file systems' ability to keep sh*t straight.

I really don't want to have to bring an external drive to the club with me too, the idea here is portability!
 
You can record on the one HD in the laptop.

I'm stratling the fence on issue of partitioning the HD.

I would be the most concerned with the HD rotations per minute.

BTW......... what is your HD's RPM?
 
SPINSTERWUN said:
You can record on the one HD in the laptop.

I'm stratling the fence on issue of partitioning the HD.

I would be the most concerned with the HD rotations per minute.

BTW......... what is your HD's RPM?
Click to expand...

It is the lowly 4200rpm drive. But I'm thinking of getting the 60gig 5400rpm IBM drive.
 
c9-2001 said:
get a firewire drive
Click to expand...

I don't have a FW port though. I'm still insure as to whether a FW cardbus adapter would work under these circumstances.
 
c9-2001 said:
get a firewire drive
Click to expand...

Why?

Firewire is half as fast as IDE at best.

Firewire 400Mbits/sec (50Mbytes/sec)
IDE 66 to 100Mbytes/sec (depending on whether you use ATA66 or 100)
 
State of the art hard drives are definately not necessary for recording. Recording 2-4 tracks at once won't hurt any harddrive.
I've been multitracking on my not so new pc with a 3 year old 54000rpm hard drive while playing back at least a dozen tracks.
The faster, the better of course because that makes editting a lot easier. But you'd better want to keep those jobs for a well featured workstation at home.
The USB interface will be the bottleneck anyway.
 
I have had no problems recording 4 tracks at a time (haven't tired more yet) into by ibm 700 piii. I think the drive speed is also only 4200. I also have been able to playback over 20 tracks with some plug ins, with no real problems. Try it first and then see before you buy. an external drive may not be needed at all.

Nothing like keeping it simple. While I love my upgraded to a 'pro' soundcard -- rme multiface and a DMP3 preamp, over the stock soundcard, I do miss the all in one laptop built in card. Now I have a pcmcia card, firewire cable, breakout box, cords to the preamp, cords from the internal card (midi), cords to the monitors etc. Now, when I want to listen or work on midi without setting up everything, I need to change some settings and reprofile the stock card.
 
adam said:
I have had no problems recording 4 tracks at a time (haven't tired more yet) into by ibm 700 piii. I think the drive speed is also only 4200. I also have been able to playback over 20 tracks with some plug ins, with no real problems. Try it first and then see before you buy. an external drive may not be needed at all.

Nothing like keeping it simple. While I love my upgraded to a 'pro' soundcard -- rme multiface and a DMP3 preamp, over the stock soundcard, I do miss the all in one laptop built in card. Now I have a pcmcia card, firewire cable, breakout box, cords to the preamp, cords from the internal card (midi), cords to the monitors etc. Now, when I want to listen or work on midi without setting up everything, I need to change some settings and reprofile the stock card.
Click to expand...

I would only be recording 1 stereo track at a time (taking up 2 tracks obviously).

I'm a one man band doing recording using Cubase and hopefully soon Acid 4, due to its ASIO drivers.

Even if I had to record a band, I would run stereo ins, with shotgun mics or run off the board.
 
brzilian said:


Why?

Firewire is half as fast as IDE at best.

Firewire 400Mbits/sec (50Mbytes/sec)
IDE 66 to 100Mbytes/sec (depending on whether you use ATA66 or 100)
Click to expand...

well i think you need to look into this case http://www.cooldrives.com/usb20andox91.html with a WD 120gig 8mb cache drive.. b/c my friend has 1... he can playback 64+ 24/96 track with out a problem...

Polaris20 doesn't need that much power but i was just stating what i knew about my partners fireware drive.
 
Polaris20 said:


It is the lowly 4200rpm drive. But I'm thinking of getting the 60gig 5400rpm IBM drive.
Click to expand...

I'd be concerned about the drive speed. 7200 RPM is recommended. I have only one drive in my DAW with no problem, but it's not a laptop, so I don't know if there's a difference.
There are other options, some manufacturers offer a PCMCIA connection for laptops that I would think would be better than USB or Firewire. :cool:
 
its usually hard to find 7200rpm laptop drives.. here's a 30gig one i found for $92
i have a 120gig 8mb cache drive in my daw right now.. soon will be putting a 200gig 8mb cache drive in..
 
I figured there was a difference in laptop drives. Sorry I can't help more, I'm not the portable sort...:rolleyes:
 
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