Quick question on external hard drives

[Hookani]

Aloha,

Is USB2 quick enough so I can record from interface straight to an external hard drive? And then play with with the mixing with files created on the external drive? I know a 7200 rpm drive would be recommended for the drive itself, but just want to be sure that USB2 is quick enough to handle the data.

Thanks,
Ho'okani

[richiebee]

In theory yes, it has the bandwidth to handle it.

In practice, I put more faith into Firewire.

[Crandles]

eSATA is the way to go
only problem is its not common yet

[brandondrury]

eSATA is the way to go
only problem is its not common yet

Don't think for a second that you NEED eSATA. It may be the next thing (and it may even be pretty awesome), but not once have I ever overloaded an ATA 100 drive over the years. I've had track counts in the 70s.

I'm not saying that eSATA is a bad thing (it certainly is not), I just don't want a beginner to think that this kind of performance is required. It's overkill unless you are doing 192Khz stuff or just a ton of 44.1Khz tracks.

Brandon

[Crandles]

Originally Posted by brandondrury

Don't think for a second that you NEED eSATA. It may be the next thing (and it may even be pretty awesome), but not once have I ever overloaded an ATA 100 drive over the years. I've had track counts in the 70s.

I'm not saying that eSATA is a bad thing (it certainly is not), I just don't want a beginner to think that this kind of performance is required. It's overkill unless you are doing 192Khz stuff or just a ton of 44.1Khz tracks.

Brandon

True.

Although I've seen in tests that firewire can beat it in some operations. Supposedly eSATA doesn't preform at the 3 GB/S rate it's advertised as doing.

[brandondrury]

This is nothing new. When they come up with these figures, they are using some sort of optimized and weighted lab conditions. Real world hard drive performance has never been up to the advertised rating since I can remember.

I would assume though that the eSATA stuff is a step forward, though.

Brandon