[Housteau]

My Firewire iomega MiniMax external HD for music storage on my Mac Mini is beginning to fail and needs to be replaced before it is out for good.  I have a few questions before I go and do that.  I was using Firewire because my DAC has a USB connection and thought it best to separate the two in this way.  Is this still the best way to go?  If I go firewire and since the Mini only has one firewire input, I assume I can piggy-back the new firewire HD to my existing one (there are inputs) for the transfer?  Since I am starting over with a new HD for storage, are there other options I should consider?

[wilsynet]

1/ That's correct, you can indeed daisy chain Firewire drives.

2/ You're right, there is an advantage from using firewire for the drive, and USB for the DAC (or vice versa, Firewire for the DAC and USB for the drive).  The main theoretical advantage is that 1) USB audio is a real time streaming protocol, 2) USB ports on a computer typically share the same USB controller and bus, and hence separating the two guarantees that you 3) minimize contention on the USB bus.

That's a theoretical advantage -- whether it is a real and practical advantage is hard to say.  For example, it is also true that many computers will have multiple USB controllers (each with their own interrupt request line), and so that sort of theoretical advantage may disappear.

3/ Another option is to upgrade the internal drive on your Mac Mini.  That's what I'm doing.  I'm having a 1TB SSD drive installed tomorrow, which should be plenty of space for a long time to come.

No extra cords, no extra power supplies, etc.

Wilson

[Housteau]

Thank you for your quick response.