[stump4545]

got my mini. 

should i look for an external hard drive with firewire 800 or should firewire 400 work just fine to store aiff files on external drive?

anything to gain by using firewire 800?

[Mike Nomad]

If all you are doing is playback, FW400 will do just fine. If you were recording to an external device, I would recommend 800. Especially if you were recording above 16/48.

[stump4545]

in terms of burning my cd collection to the external hd connected to my mini would 800 firewire be a big help?

thanks

[Mike Nomad]

~

[jqp]

My guess is that an 800 drive may be ridiculously priced for little benefit for what is going on here.
Not that I would not love to have a reasonably priced 800 drive!

I don't think speeds over 400 will help with burning CD to the external drive? Especially since you probably don't want to burn at the highest possible speed.  Transfer speed, yes it would usually help to have that free overhead.

[planet10]

My guess is that an 800 drive may be ridiculously priced for little benefit for what is going on here.

What is ridiculously priced?  triple interface LaCie 1 TB in their lovely D2 case is $240 CAD (at least where i shop, not the cheapest place in town, but superb service & support).

dave

[bunnyma357]

What is ridiculously priced?  triple interface LaCie 1 TB in their lovely D2 case is $240 CAD (at least where i shop, not the cheapest place in town, but superb service & support).

dave

I've got a lot of FW800 drives for doing video work, and FW400 should be fine for playback of audio, but I would get the FW800 drive to save some time on things like backing up the music library, converting files to other resolutions for iPod, storing video, etc.

To be honest I would look for a drive with a eSata connection as well, since that seems to be where HD's are heading, and I'd want to be a little future proof.

As far as LaCie drives go I've got 8 and we use tons of them at work - and the drives and enclosures are very nice - but they have really unreliable external power supplies. I've had 10 fail in the last 2 years, it's only a $20 part to replace, but it is a major pain in the butt. Hopefully they've fixed it, but I no longer buy LaCie drives, my last ones were G-Tech and I also have WD and OWC drives that have been pretty bullet proof.

Also I've used all sorts of FW cables converting between 9Pin, 6Pin & 4Pin and have never had any issues.


Jim C

[jqp]

What is ridiculously priced?  triple interface LaCie 1 TB in their lovely D2 case is $240 CAD (at least where i shop, not the cheapest place in town, but superb service & support).

dave

Glad I said it was just a guess

[baldrick]

It depends on the type of drive.
If you're using SATA drives in your external enclosure then FW800 will definitely make a difference in throughput speed.
If you're using IDE / PATA then FW800 don't make throughput any faster since the PATA interface is the limiting factor.

[Daedalus Audio]

fwiw, I have six LaCie ext HD and have never had a problem, the drives are awesome and their customer service is great.... knowledgeable down to earth people in Portland Oregon.

ps I also have their external DVD drive and it beats all others for accurate reading of discs. I highly recommend this for ripping cd's.

[skunark]

I would consider picking up a usb mobile harddrive for your iTunes library.  750GB drives are around $120 and you can avoid the fan and powercord.

Keep in mind that the raw transfer speed for USB 2.0 interfaces are rated at 480mbps, FW400/800 are at 400/800mbps and internal sata(150/300) are at 1200/2400mbps.  Drive performance will vary but a few seconds isn't worth the cost or noise for the FW drives unless you needed to do video editing where sustained rates matter.   

I've had issues with some FW drives not waking up when the mac unsuspends.   I had to switch to the USB port just for that and I really didn't notice a speed difference (I'm sure there is one, just not much for ripping/streaming audio)   

[pardales]

If all you are doing is playback, FW400 will do just fine. If you were recording to an external device, I would recommend 800. Especially if you were recording above 16/48.

I agree. I thought the MINI only had a FW 400 port?

[Brandon B]

Latest model (August) has FW800.

[Lizard_King]

External drive that have the 2.5 inch drives sounds better. The Esata II drives at 5400 RPM sound better than 7200 RPM. This is for playback!

Latest model (August) has FW800.

[skunark]

External drive that have the 2.5 inch drives sounds better. The Esata II drives at 5400 RPM sound better than 7200 RPM. This is for playback!

I think you mean they make less noise, in which case SSD drives would be the best if one can afford them.