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I've run into a dilemma.

Here is my system stats:

Macbook intel dual core 2.1ghz
2gig ram
60gb stock 5200rpm internal
firewire 400 presonus firestudio



Now.
I can't record more then about 4 tracks at 24b/96khz without having cpu overload errors which I believe are really disk access errors. My first test was recording to my system drive. It says 'cpu overload', though my cpu meter (per activity monitor) never goes above 60% even with 8+ tracks at high quality. Playback with VST or lots of effects causes my CPU to max and drop audio though.

That said...
Recording to the system drive = bad idea

I haven't tried recording to a USB drive yet because if the internal drive won't do it, why would a USB be able to?

The Macbooks only have a single firewire port which in my opinion is stupid. The Macbook Pro has a firewire 400 and 800 but they share a bus, no clue how that holds up to video/audio recording.


Anyway...

I'm considering doing the following:
Gigabyte Network hub with multiple network hard drives.
I'm having good luck with my Lacie firewire drive and this company also makes network drives that claim to be 7200rpm and support 1000 base T network.

Has anyone tried this?

In theory, it should work.
In practice?!?

Any other suggestions?


I need my Macbook to be able to do at least 8 high quality audio tracks to perform as a mobile recording rig.

Anyone else recording on a Macbook?
How does yours hold up when recording multiple tracks?
Any suggestions?
Will this work?

Any advice would help.

I honestly still can't figure out why a 2ghz machine stutters with this. That never happened on my AMD PC machines of similar mghz and less memory.

Get a Glyph GT series firewire hard-drive..... it will work.

The Presonus FireStudio is plugged in when recording.

Even if you chain the interfaces, the Macbook only has 1 firewire bus so it isn't going to go fast enough.

Another thing I noticed, I can't do more then about a 15 track -bounce to disk- if I'm using my system hard drive. I haven't found the limit using my external firewire drives though.

Glyph Drives are optimized for this With that said if you're doing insane amounts of through-put, then a PCMCIA firewire adaptor is a way to add another firewire bus. Even if you had (2) firewire ports, it would still be a single bus unless it was specifically designed to be a separate bus.

The Macbooks don't have expansion capability, only the macbook pro does. I'm considering just getting a Macbook Pro, that way I'll have the Firewire 800 and can add another Firewire expansion card.

But what you're saying is these drives should be able to keep good throughput even if they're daisy chained to the same firewire port as the recording interface?

I thought it was a bus issue? I was reading benchmarks that imply the firewire 400 bus wouldn't be able to handle full throughput with daisy chained components. I'm not sure I can chain directly through the fireustudio interface either, maybe a firewire hub would work though?



Oh and I resolved my CPU overload errors. I set the Firestudio interface to medium CPU use (per forum member recommendations) and it's recording 8 channels of 24/96 to my system drive with almost 0 playback latency and using <30% cpu. Still not an optimum setup but it's working.