Recommendations for Express-Card for MBP

[Jed]

Hi Guys,

I've got a late 08 MBP, so just one FW800 port that I'm using for my 828mk3. I need to add some I/O for an external HD for recording. I'm planning to use a G-Tech G-DriveQ (with eSATA and FW800 ports) for the external drive. Does anyone have any comments or advice relative to various brands of Express-Cards that should play well with my set-up? I assume that an Express-Card is the better way to go versus a FW hub? I'm temped to go the FW800 route since my bandwidth needs are relatively modest (I'm just starting out with recording).

I'm just getting started with DP6 and as you can imagine there's a bit of a learning curve for me to deal with so I'm taking things slowly at first. I'm currently using the MBP's internal HD but I can see that will get old very quickly (and leave my internal drive a mess as well). I have added MOTU's Mach5, MSI and eKeys to the mix just for learning purposes but I don't expect to be using any of these to a significant extent anytime soon. Most of what I'm doing is recording various guitar and keyboard (analog) parts for live performance reinforcement purposes (so additional tracks / parts rather than full blown CD quality digital recordings).

Thanks in advance for your comments and advice. I read this forum religiously every day hoping one day to understand everything that people are talking about. But for now I'm just trying to avoid being a PITA.

Cheers,

Jed

[stephentayler]

Hi there!!

I have had great success with the Sonnet Tempo SATA Express 34, has worked brilliantly with my LaCie Quad drives allowing me to use the Traveler and Mbox2 simultaneously on my MBP.

Cheers

Stephen

[Dwetmaster]

Had success with the sabrent
Cheap
Works...

[mhschmieder]

Hmm, I thought SOnnet was supposed to be best also, but it gets pretty bad reviews on Amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000JINAAU

No reviews yet at newegg.com, but the ones on Amazon seem to be from intelligent people who know what they're doing. The caveats are pretty severe.

[Jed]

I ordered an ExpressCard from Belkin but I can't seem to get it working with the MBP15 (late '08). I'm assuming the FW800 spec includes power but my G-mini (http://www.g-technology.com/Products/G-DRIVE-mini.cfm) won't power-up when attached to the ExpressCard. The G-mini works fine when attached directly to the MBP. So some questions:

1) Do ExpressCards need to be configured? (Belkin says this is a "plug 'n play" unit)?
2) Do I need a wall-wart to power the drive (I thought the FW800 spec included power - at least for low-power devices, but the ExpressCard has a power-port)?
3) I searched around for other manufacturers but it appear that all of the dual FW800 ExpressCards are made by the same factory (Belkin I presume)
4) Alternatively, maybe I need to use a self-powered external drive?

Any help is greatly appreciated, cheers

[Jed]

with some experimentation, I found my own answers

1) No, not in OS X
2) Yes
3) this isn't really a question
4) Yes

Thanks for you patience,