the next step
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Posted on Nov 30, 2003 12:27 am
MyKungFu
Banned
so i eBayed my new powerbook. 17 inch widescreen with the dvd-R etc etc. anyway. i want to know what the best connection would be for an external harddrive. i hear external harddrive is alot better when interfacing audio. so its either USB or Firewire. being a PC user im usually comfortable with USB. but i hear good things about apple firewire. anyone have any tips let me know. thanks!
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WaltChief Cook and Bottle WasherMember
Since: May 10, 2002
Nov 30, 2003 02:25 am Your question interests me as well. I haven't kept up for about a year now; busy in other departments; so I am having some difficulty sorting it all out as well. I have both a firewire and a USB2 units. I will say the firewire is more tempermental. Such as after a power out it will not come back up untill I power it down with it's dedicated power switch with external power applied. From what I can tell USB2 has a little better bandwidth, but I would love to have confirmation of that. Of course just electrical power specs, peak to peak vs peak, vs rms power ratings, manufacturers are using bits vs bytes for specs. I am not sure of the conversion ratio; 32, 16, 8?
I'll be hanging out with you to see if any difinitive answers come forth. I would love to know how IDE compares with serial with USB2 with firewire.
olddogMember
Since: Jul 02, 2003
Nov 30, 2003 03:10 am USB2 has a bit more bandwidth than firewire, 400 mbit/s vs 480 mbit/sec for USB2. There tends to be more things hung on USB ports though and they all share that bandwidth. So if you hooked a USB drive + USB Soundcard on the same port there could be issues there. If your going to use the internal sound on a notebook or if there is more than 1 USB hub (2 ports) then you'd be fine I would imagine. Most desktop PC's these days have at least 2 hubs, and usually 3-4 for a total of 8 USB ports.
Dan
Nov 30, 2003 07:04 am Quote:
i hear external harddrive is alot better when interfacing audio
Better than an internal?!?! not a chance...you heard wrong. USB would be better IMO, as long as it's USB 2. Like Dan said tho, just don't pile on a lot of USB stuff.
flame...bringing sexy backMember
Since: Jul 01, 2002
Nov 30, 2003 07:43 am i tried to record straight onto an external zip drive one - man, that was a stoopid thing to try and do.
i know better now...
Nov 30, 2003 05:21 pm david ivory (might just be a name to you, who cares) told me- use an external harddrive with any computer. internals pick up "PC noise" or so he says.. i told him about my powerbook dilemmas and that was his main piece of advice.. so should i just get a big internal harddrive in my powerbook? or buy an external one.. i dont care about the price i want to know where the quality will be.
Nov 30, 2003 06:12 pm Just remember, USB2 is the only way to go. Reglar USB will not cut it.
Nov 30, 2003 06:14 pm OK, so do it then...I have never had PC noise, and externals can slow down your data transfer rates...not always, as external busses are getting quite fast.
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Nov 30, 2003 07:49 pm I too have never had never had an issue with noise being introduced via an internal hard disc. I am not sure how a digital signal could get noise into it that way unless the HD was bad or had major issues. I will agree USB2.0 has come far, but I also have not seen anyone taughting the external drives for anything more then storage at the present. So my advice is leave room on the internal drive to work directly with the audio files, and use the external for storage only.
