External HDD for Traktor

Hi There

What kind of external hdd should i buy? USB / Firewire or LAN connectivity ? I already have an external firewire soundcard.

How do I reach maximum capacity and performance ?

Greetings

Lasse

 

Hello
for me and my experience. definitly a firewire !
buy a HDD case (a cheap one with just usb/firewire) and put a damn good HDD in it

 

I've tried a number of alternatives, and have had the best results (speed, support, portability, durability) with:

LaCie Mobile Hard Drive (Design by F.A. Porsche) 100GB 5400RPM
USB 2.0, FireWire 400

LaCie d2 Hard Drive Extreme with Triple Interface 500GB
USB 2.0, FireWire 400, FireWire 800

I've also built a couple of:
ALU Pocket 2,5" enclosure (USB+FireWire)
Samsung M40 60GB 2.5" 5400rpm

But the Firewire ports on the Pocket enclosure weirds out, either not working or works partially (not mounting).

HTH,

 

I've also always had good results with Lacie.

I've got one of the Porche designed pocket drives, which I've been using for a couple of years with no problems at all. I've just done some surgery on it though, .....I've removed the original 80 gb drive & replaced it with the Seagate 160Gb drive.

 

It depends on your needs and platform you run on. Heres the interface options

USB2.0 - Broad compatibility generally. BUT if you are using Mac platforms, pay attention to ensure your enclosure is fully Mac supported. I just upgraded out of my 2.5" CoolMax enclosure which worked great in Win-XP but was in compatible with Mac. The adaptec 2.5 and 3.5 inch enclosures support OSX and Win-XP. At 480MB/Sec it has plety of bandwidth to run the fastest drives. and now some of the newer enclosures support Serial ATA (SATA) drives. Its entirely possible to run four tracks simultaneously off the external drive. Performance is substantially similar to 1394a (firewire).

1394a (Firewire) Broad compatibility generally and the spec is tightly controlled to be compliant you must reach spec but take care because several cheap enclosure vendors advertise being spec compliant but are not. The enclosures today are mostly Parallel ATA 5 or 6 but some SATA enclosures are making it into the market today. Performance is good in most cases and about the same as USB2.0 but is better performing on my Mac Book Pro 17 than USB2.0 by a good margin.

1394b (Firewire 800) Just hitting the market now and the only laptop I know of that has built in support is the Mac Book Pro 17. 1394b will likely be slow to be adopted on PC's due to cost but its a top performer and addresses several of the inherent problems in the current 1394a spec. One of those being the host bus (re-)initialization issue that has plagued some FS2 users. Current enclosures are fairly expensive and some are probelmatic. If you go down this road spend an couple of hours researching and reading reviews. The new 9 pin connectors require new firewire cables. Connectors are not backward compatible But adapters do exist for performance reason make sure all devices on the firewire 800 bus are all Firewire 800. BUY GOOD QUALITY CABLES! That does not mean expensive, it does mean good quality alone. Reviews are in from some that the Monster cables are not one a reliable ones especially at the price.

eSATA. External SATA enclosures are just starting to hit the market now. But buy good quality if you choose this line. Two off-brand models recently released have target disconnect problems under moderate and heavy load, they are a good price but thats for a reason. To make use of eSATA you will need an adapter card. CardBus PC cards are available for PC and MAC Powerbooks and run $29-$129 Almost all current expresscards next gen beyond cardbus are expresscard 54 size. Only one or two on the market to my knowledge are in expresscard 34 format which would fit into the McBook Pro 17 but neither of these cards have OSX support. FirmTek have announced their expresscard 34 offering that will have OSX support but its not going to be available till Q3 2006. Any vendor that makes a good priced card, that works well, and gets out really soon will totally cleanup. None of the VM software (Virtual PC or Parallels) support native PC card interfaces. Bottomline here... do copious research, DO NOT LET $$$ dictate your buying options first off.

For my money I'm holding off for either a good eSATA or FW800 enclosure, we are not there yet.

Phil

 

The Apple PowerBook G4 15" & 17" models both have FW400 and FW800 ports built in. The 12" only has a FW400 port (This is why I still love the PB models because Apple really put a lot of features in them that they've skimmed on with the MB and MBP models.)

I would definitely suggest going with a FW800 external HD.

 

The MacBook Pros has a different config:

15": only FW 400
17": FW 800+400

Go figure...

 

see my signature.
i used to use a maxtor 250 gb, but i exchanged it for the light-weight tough drive that doesnt have to be powered.

both are usb 2.0 and i never had problems with them!

 

I'm interested in a 2.5" USB bus-powered HDD, but I cannot find them faster than 5400 RPM. Is that speed suitable?

 

Try this:

Toshiba
# Model: MK1032GAX
# Slim Series
# Capacity: 100GB
# Cache: 16MB
# Average Seek Time: 12ms
# Spindle speed: 5400RPM
# 2.5 laptop drive
# 3 year manufacturer warranty

Can deliver 4 tracks in Wav Format concurrently from a good enclosure (Adaptec)
to Traktor in WinXP and OSX without any problems.

Cost is right on $140.00 up here in PDX, should only take a day or two to get down to you in So Or.:
http://www.enuinc.com/lx.html

 

Thanx Thanx Thanx

I´m getting back 2 u with my decision.

/Lasse

 

I'd go for at least 7200rpm... Saves precious seconds loading a track.

I use a Maxtor one touch II (320gb or something) over USB 2.

Its good but I think it is the cause of a Traktor 3.02 crash if it is left idle for a long time (e.g overnight). In normal playing circumstances it works great though and is lightning fast. I must say though where at all possible keep your tracks on an internal HDD as that will always be the fastest.

 

Yes, similar here. Used to gig with Lacie 250 gb, heavy and big to transport + you need to carry (and plug) the Power adaptor. Now this HD is always at home and to gig I use a Lacie Mobile 100 gig Porsche Design that I connect directly to my second firewir port of the M-Audio 410. The HD is only 5400 r.pm but I just use it for Traktor and performs well. 7200 of course is better but if you plan to use it with other audio apps like Cubase or Live where audio streaming is more demanding.