G4 PowerBook running out of Internal HD space for samples

bnr33 · Post by **bnr33** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 1:17 am

Dear all,

I recently purchased dfhS & Sythogy Ivory.... both libraries combined requires more than 75GB of HD real-estate and my internal 80GB (5400RPM) stock hard drive is running out of space.... What options do I have? Add a FW800 external disc to host the samples and DP project files or get a bigger internal hard drive? (Dunno if there will be an internal one big enough for all those samples while the physical size will fit in a PowerBook)

While an external FW800 HD seems to be an attractive choice, I am wondering if the FW800 for this HD and the FW400 for the 828MKII working together will have any impact on the overall performance of the FW bus....

Any thoughts will be much appreciated!!

boonier · Post by **boonier** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 4:57 am

I have no experience of using these VIs with huge sample libraries but get yourself a Lacie FW800 drive - they're pretty damn cheap considering.( To be honest you should have a separate drive for audio anyway as it significantly improves performance)

Then try it out with your interface running at the same time. I you have problems then you can get a firewire pc card to take the load off the bus. I using the internal 400 and 800 bus at the same time and have not problems whatsoever. But then I don't stream gigs of samples for realtime VIs

S

midilance · Post by **midilance** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 10:00 am

boonier wrote:I have no experience of using these VIs with huge sample libraries but get yourself a Lacie FW800 drive - they're pretty damn cheap considering.( To be honest you should have a separate drive for audio anyway as it significantly improves performance)

Then try it out with your interface running at the same time. I you have problems then you can get a firewire pc card to take the load off the bus. I using the internal 400 and 800 bus at the same time and have not problems whatsoever. But then I don't stream gigs of samples for realtime VIs

S

That's a good idea about the firewire pc card. I have a Dual 1 Gig G4 and invested in a firewire card to take the load off my bus also. I have a couple of LaCie D2 250 gig drives. They're doing a good job.

bnr33 · Post by **bnr33** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 8:03 pm

Thanks all for the reply

Quick question, if I am to get a PCMCIA Firewire Card, Any recommendations? As for the Lacie FW800, should I get the bus powered variant or the one with a wall wart?

Cheers!!

Anson

mikebeckmotu · Post by **mikebeckmotu** » Wed Feb 08, 2006 3:03 am

I'm using a Belkin adapter with my Powerbook. Works great - though it's three FW400 ports, no 800. I'm running both a LaCie 250gb Extreme and a homemade FW drive from the Belkin adapter. I am using BFD and now Dimension Pro, and have the samples for each app on the LaCie drive, and I record to the other external drive.
Edit: here is a link to the Belkin adapter: http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductP ... _Id=148854

rockitcity · Post by **rockitcity** » Wed Feb 08, 2006 7:20 am

http://cgi.ebay.com/Adaptec-FireConnect ... dZViewItem

Here's one I got on ebay for all of (are you ready?) $0.99. (Ok, with shipping and tax it was about $15, but it's a name brand and works fine...after I got my Powerbook fixed!)

The Powerbook does not supply firewire bus power through a PCMCIA card, although this card came with a USB adapter with a power split. Haven't tried it, as the USB power on Powerbooks isn't that robust anyway. I bought an external power supply for the card (about $15 locally in LA) and am able to bus power 3 60 Gbyte Hitachi external drives from it. Adaptec told me this card has a TI chip in it, but when I checked the card on a PC laptop, it said NEC. Regardless, it works fine for drives; haven't used it with the Traveler. The main reason I got it was that I was getting hard disk access noise in my monitors when disks were daisy-chained with the Traveler. Splitting the drives from the Traveler firewire bus eliminated the noise.