I'm waiting...Especially with the advent of video.

FW400 is fine. You can always buy a FW800 case and a single 1TB drive separately if you really want FW800. It shouldn't take longer than about 5 seconds to a load the video in RAM.

the better wd drive are triple interface, usb, 400 & 800. as long as you're buying a drive you may as well go eSata

but hte triple interface drives are two drives in one unit..,. more points of failure. The macbook pros dont support esata do they?

I think the firewire reference in the FAQ is for video not hdd's...

I thought western digital sized down the 1TB to a smaller housing check bestbuy cause when they first came out the housing was huge which I did buy

I wouldn't worry about 400 vs 800 on a single drive. You are unlikely to reach those kinds of sustained data rates.
Don't forget video being used in VSL only around 2-6Mbps so even FW400 could theoretically handle around 100 concurrent streams.

Only the mybook home has FW 400, in a 1TB offering from WD. The FW800s are still two drives (double wide)

i takes about two days to move all the data off a 1TB drive over USB. that's when the bandwidth comes in handy. You can move 1Tb in a few hours over a fast interface.

I was in the Apple store today and they had Griffin e-sata adapters for the new line of macbook pro using the smaller card slot. I think they were $69.00

I saw that too, will that work? Should I use that with Serato or just to transfer and stick with 400 when live?

So just so everyone knows the speed difference I'm putting it down here. One thing to remember about doing videos on computers is that ou can never have enough speed...and the slowest item you have in teh "chain" of items will be the fastest speed you can get (understand?). So to answer your question, does esata make a difference...it does.

If you are buying equipment ow, get eh fastest you can...it will last longer.

So, here are the speeds for the various interfaces:

* USB 1.1 – 15 Mbps
* FireWire (1394a) – 400 Mbps
* USB 2.0 – 480 Mbps
* FireWire 800 (1394b) – 800 Mpbs
* SATA 1.5 – 1.5 Gbps
* SATA 3.0 – 3.0 Gbps

i'll add to what justin allen wrote. these are theoretical maximums. in practice you won't get anywhere near these speeds. also keep in min that better technology has a much better chance of reaching the theoretical max, without killing your cpu in the process.

usb 2.0 @ 480Mbs is a joke, even if you could get anywhere near that much bandwith sustained through a usb port, your computer would be hammered since the cpu would marshal the data transfer.

in practice, a 400Mbs firewire will absolutely smoke a usb drive even though it has a lower sustained throughput rating. not to mention, your computer will be a lot more responsive while achieving that throughput since the fw chip offloads the main cpu.

sata/esata absolutely wins this game for now. i've seen tests with esata raid nearly keep up with fibrechannel san (which are usually about $10k for a min configuration).

next would be fw800, fw400 and finally usb. however usb should never be considered a high performance interface under any circumstances. the moment you start to think that is the moment you'll meet disappointment. think of usb as just cheap and convenient storage.

I have a pc laptop that has a port called 1394a. Is that a firewire connection I can use for VSL? And how about using the ExpressCard Slot with a Firewire card for it? Has anyone tried that? Holla Back.

www.lacie.com

This is a great SLIM option I found, actually Norway found and I bought one too.
Interfaces anyway you want with PC or Mac compatibility.

Actually fits UNDER my Pioneer mixer in my coffin and has an internal PS and cooling.

Love the prices now a days too.

Actually has inline ps, not internal.

MINI STACk V3 up to 1 terabyte and has a fan enclosure and is same size as last enclosure. firewire 400, 800, usb 2.0 etc sata....

There outta stock, any other ideas? Anyone?

www.thenerds.net

The stock number is Lacie 301199U
Search the net under that for the best available price.
I have seen it under $300.

r

Yeah, 1394a = Firewire port.

Perfect, thank you.

Ive had mad problems with Lacie....gone through 2 of the triple interface ones....there great for a desktop, but once u start bringing it from show to show....count on screws coming lose inside and frying whatever data u have on it. I even had my drives in a custom made SKB case and still....

Can you tell us more about this problem?
If something needs a drop of loctite, i'd rather take it apart now if you know what I mean...
Thanks Z


r

You can get an eSata card for your Macbook Pro here for under $20

www.microbarn.com

Damn, I just ordered my lacie! Hope it holds up.

Took back my Lacie since Deejay scared me. Any suggestions on a good HD that will stand the test of time. Not concerned with price, just quality. Thanks in advance.

Listen to a-swift. This is why I use Firewire drives vs USB drives (though my drives are always dual). Transferring files is where the firewire is needed, not when playing music or videos ---- and you sure want to back up your stuff, don't you?

I pay attention to swift. I got a mpb so I think I'm going Esata. Who doesn't back up there stuff now a days? I just need a solid HD thats gonna last.

One post and you return it?

Hell, i've heard bad shit about every drive known to man for Gods sake.

click click click click click click click click....oh shit
operating system not found....now what

Yup. That's how I roll. If DeeJay Z says a few of his broke no need to repeat history naw meen. I guess all HD's have the potential to fail but I've never heard anything bad about Western Digital or Maxtor so I might go that route. Tried to get a Western Digital My Book today but the lady at the Apple store told me it wasn't mac/esata compatible, only pc/esata compatible so it's back to square 1.

EVEN IF:: those stats are accurate, do we really think load speeds of a video are truly a factor?? I really don't think there will be as big a hit as being predicted. loading a 50-70mb file will take, a whole maybe 6 seconds MAX to load via USB 2.0? - and that is when selecting a song, so you're most likely not "ENGAGING processor intense EFFECTS/SCRATCHING" on the other playing video. I hate to compare, but I used a USB 2.0 1TB western digital drive loading 200-300meg MPEG files with Virtual DJ on a Centrino 1.6 w/ 2 gig ram... I'd have to lay low for about 10-12 seconds while the track loaded, and admittedly the playing video would be slightly altered, frames would slightly slow down, BUT not the sound, it was fine. Noticeable to anyone, but me - not at all.

Don't know if it's a factor but I'm all about maxing out my gears full potential. If its got the option to do it why not. If I have trouble finding a esata/mac compatible name brand HD I'll just go Firewire 800.

Demon, its all in who you ask or who posts.
Try a Google search if you want to see a pattern rather what one person says.
I have had Maxtor's fail and Western Digitals fail repeatedly.

Its important to understand what cuts a drive's life short.
It's also important to realize that the use we apply to drives is limited in comparison to system drives that run for years non stop. The life of our music drives are a fraction of others when used as we do.

Probably the biggest factor in drive life is heat.
Having an external with a cooling fan is a plus, having an external power supply removes additional heat from the enclosure also.
The drive I posted conforms to both of these things and is slim.

The second most factor in a drives life is age.
I have been retiring my drives religiously after 2-3 years for this reason when they are the main data drives. 3 years seems to be the magic number for drives to fail if there is any pattern over brand worthy of paying attention to.
In other words, as an electro mechanical device, all drives will fail in time and heat and vibration will influence failure and life expectancy.

I'm not here to give you a hard sell on my personal recommendation or preference, but do a little more research than taking someone's word for it.
All drives fail sooner or later.

My practice has been to replace these drives and retire them as back ups.
This achieves three things, one it gives you a back up, two it reduces the chances of failure live and three as your collection grows you need more space anyway.

Hope this helps

thanks...I do the same every 2 year.

I have adopted a 3 drive system. The drive size is large enough to hold the whole collection. Drive #1 is the gigging drive that all new data gets added to. Drives 2 and 3 sit shelf and alternately get updated from drive #1. Eventually I will retire drive one to be numbered as #2 or #3, so it isn't in the rat race traveling all the time. And one of the other drives is promoted to the gigging spot. My thinking is that the drives will all get equal use over time and that I will possibly get more life expectancy out of the "GROUP".

I have a similar thing going on.

3 Drives.

Main drive for gigs. Back up drive on my G5 tower once a month or when I dump a lot of new music at once. And, another external drive as a back up just in case there's an emergency and I need one ASAP.

Thanks for the advice Rick. Never needed a external till now so I'm kinda new to this. I have 2 maxtors that I've had for years that are still running tuff but then again I never take them out. I'll do some research before making a final decision.

okay so all the speeds and all the types are now known...so does anyone know for sure that we should use firewire,esata or usb...now i have been using the usb self powered harddrives and they actually have a slight studder in the video side (just a little fall back drag behind type) but not the audio side..i have a mac book pro and the usb powered harddrives are WD...the little black nice sleek ones...has anyone had a slight video lag (not audio) with the other harddrive options???

I'd like to give a vote for the Western Digital My Books ... i've had the 500gb USB version for yonks now, and it's never let me down. Just upgraded to the 1tb triple interface (usb, firewire 400 and 800, and eSata2). It cane formatted for a mac, but after a quick reformat, it's been working superbly on my HP Pavilion 6335 windows xp, for several months, with no errors at all.

I'm not doing video yet, but have been using the esata through the expresscard slot. no problems.

Do you gig with it? If so how often?

HI Demon,

Yes. I gig 5 nights a week for 4-5 hours a night.

DJing is my job/live/vocation !!

D:)

Really...Ok, thanks for the input.