External HD's

I should preface this by saying that I am NOT a FS owner yet...I am still trying to decide which system to pick up...but I'm hoping you all can help me a bit.

Does anyone use external HD's?

I had some questions about them:

1) Is there a latency when using them? (I was planning on using 2 of them, either usb 2.0 or firewire)

2) Are there any extra configuration changes that have to happen in Traktor each time a HD is plugged in?

3) Can you hot swap HD's without having to shutdown Traktor?

Thanks

 

Q1 - No, with FW
Q2 - Not usally but sometimes I got a marker like this (!) in front of the songs meaning that FS can locate them. Then you have to relocate the songs. Just highlight them and use relocate, no big deal.
Q3 - For safety reasons o wouldnt do it in a live situation.

 

I use one and it is both Firewire and USB 2.0.

I have no problems using it with both FS2 and SSL. I am using it on a PowerBook.

 

Forgot to mention im using a 250 GB Maxtor.

 

I use one.

I have a Smartdisc Crossfire 160gig. It has FireWire400 and USB2.

I use it with my PowerBooks via FireWire. The responce is way quicker than the internal drive.

I store my entire Traktor Collection (Stripes, Playlists, etc) on the drive. THat way I can swap between my 2 powerbooks without any issues.

HotSwaping is not a good idea. When FS launches it looks for your track collection and if the drive is not there it will say the track is missing. There are also reports of the FireWire bus blowing FireWire devices that were pluged in while the machine was running.

Why would you want to use 2?

 

To answer your question, there's 2 of us that DJ together, and many times our musical selection is varied. I thought the best bet would be to have our standard music on the laptop HD, and we both keep our own external HD's with songs loaded on them.

The hot swapping was if one of us came late, we would just be able to plug in our HD and then have FS pick it up as another device.

The other device that I have is an iPod as well. I don't know if this helps at all, but I thought I would throw everything on the table and hopefully hear suggestions from everyone.

Thanks!

 

If possible, bring your HDs to the store and try it out live before you buy it.

 

I have a 300GB Maxtor with an external Firewire 800 (1394b) enclosure -- all my music is on it. More info here.