Recording multitrack audio to esata vs. firewire 800

peteruno · Post by **peteruno** » Tue Mar 20, 2007 7:15 pm

Perhaps this has been covered but according to the specs. esata should be much better than firewire 800. Are people moving over to esata drives for recording? I've had no problems with firewire 800 so I don't know if I should follow the "if it ain't broke" axiom or not.

HCMarkus · Post by **HCMarkus** » Tue Mar 20, 2007 7:43 pm

If it ain't broke. Got that right. I use eSATA for my VIs and internal SATA for system and audio. Yeah, its great, but if you've already got Firewire 800 working and you are not hitting the wall, it's not like anything is going to sound different. with eSATA.

Dwetmaster · Post by **Dwetmaster** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 6:26 am

True Dat.
But If you experience any bottleneck, then Esata Rules!!!

larryf · Post by **larryf** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 11:55 am

Just a dumb question here. What does an esata drive connect to if it isn't already internal? I've got USB2.0, FW400 and FW800 interfaces. Is esata a possibility or do you need an esata interface to have esata?

Dwetmaster · Post by **Dwetmaster** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 1:02 pm

You need a express card port on your laptop and a express card to Esata adaptor. you connect your esata to it.

Frodo · Post by **Frodo** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 1:13 pm

Agreed-- if it ain't broke, let it be.

Mine was "seriously broke", so I had no other choice but to go eSATA with a host card.

FWIW, if you plug a FW400 device while an FW800 device is connected, all devices will run no faster than 400.

If FW is working for you-- rejoice!!

Frodo · Post by **Frodo** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 1:14 pm

Agreed-- if it ain't broke, let it be.

Mine was "seriously broke", so I had no other choice but to go eSATA with a host card. There *are* also FW host cards, should that option ever be needed.

FWIW, if you plug a FW400 device while an FW800 device is connected, all devices will run no faster than 400.

If FW is working for you-- rejoice!!

Just avoid USB 2.0 for audio recording/streaming.

Eleventh Hour Sound · Post by **Eleventh Hour Sound** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 2:41 pm

Yeah, eSata feels faster and more responsive... If you've used all the internal drive slots you can add an eSata PCIe card. I got the big Sonnet card at the time, but now I think they have a more affordable card. And if you have a drive enclosure and card that supports port multiplication you can run several drives (up to 5 I think) on one port....

Mr_Clifford · Post by **Mr_Clifford** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 4:42 pm

Frodo wrote:FWIW, if you plug a FW400 device while an FW800 device is connected, all devices will run no faster than 400.

If FW is working for you-- rejoice!!

Frodo, does that include running a FW800 drive off a FW800 PCI card (like the Lacie one I bought for my G4) whilst running a FW400 audio interface off the computers built-in FW400 port?

It's probably a bit academic as, from what I understand, you only really start to get benefits from FW800 when running several Hard-drives (or devices).

Frodo · Post by **Frodo** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 6:25 pm

Mr_Clifford wrote:
Frodo wrote:FWIW, if you plug a FW400 device while an FW800 device is connected, all devices will run no faster than 400.

If FW is working for you-- rejoice!!
Frodo, does that include running a FW800 drive off a FW800 PCI card (like the Lacie one I bought for my G4) whilst running a FW400 audio interface off the computers built-in FW400 port?

It's probably a bit academic as, from what I understand, you only really start to get benefits from FW800 when running several Hard-drives (or devices).

Mr C:

To the best of my knowledge, no. With the Mac, all the built in FW ports (400 and 800) funnel into the same bus and as a result reduce the Mb/s transfer rate. Once you add another bus, the bandwidth is independent-- so 800 stays 800.

However, there may be some spec on particular cards where multiple inputs are allowed and the bandwidth of the PCI (e or x) bus is likewise shared by all devices connected to the card. The good news here is that transfer rates on PCI e/x hosts are quite accommodating.

In most cases, specs I've read on host cards cite transfer rates per port. As long as that number is equal to or above the transfer capabilities of the drive connected to it, all should be fine.

FYI-- according to my online bits and bytes calculator:
http://www.speedguide.net/conversion.php

Firewire 800 cards: 800 Mbits per second (or 95 Mbytes/sec)
eSATA II cards: 300 Mbytes per second

PaganGods · Post by **PaganGods** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 6:44 pm

what about gigabit ethernet for audio recording? That should be even faster than FW800, but not as fast as SATA. Any reason not to put an ethernet port to use in the studio?

Frodo · Post by **Frodo** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 9:23 pm

PaganGods wrote:what about gigabit ethernet for audio recording? That should be even faster than FW800, but not as fast as SATA. Any reason not to put an ethernet port to use in the studio?

It is possible, but the protocols are not necessarily universal-- and that means there is a big risk of incompatibility. It's not nearly as plug-and-play as it might seem.

Gibson uses their own Magic protocol, Fostex uses Netcira, and so on.

Axia Livewire is among the leaders in broadcast audio over ethernet, BUT-- a lot of these protocols are for Windows and PC. Digigram Ethersound is one of the exceptions that posts OSX drivers.

A reason NOT to use audio over ethernet is a very good question-- and it also begs the question why it's not discussed more. Audio has to be "processed" somewhere before it is passed. Wherever it's processed, that device would first need an ethernet port, which is not always standard on any but the more expensive devices.

To be honest, I'm not sure how this could be set up reliably without a very large cash outlay.

But one thing about FW, for example, is that FW is a point-to-point protocol and relies less on the CPU than USB 2.0. These formats/protocols haven't been promoted or embraced by MOTU for use with DP to the best of knowledge.

Honestly, I'd like to learn more about how all this is done.