Hi,
I'm building a DAW.
Are the following parts all compatible and well-suited?

motherboard:
Abit NF7
(V2.0 nForce2 Socket A 8xAGP LAN USB2 6 ch Sound DDR400 Memory)

cpu:
AMD Athlon XP2500 333FSB 512 L2 Cache Barton

RAM:
256 DDR400 PC3200

Hard drives:
Seagate ST3120026A 120gb 7200rpm 8mb Cache Barracuda 7200.7 Plus - OEM

Maxtor 6Y080P0 Plus 9 80Gb 7200rpm 8mb Cache ATA133 Hard Drive - OEM

IDE cables:
Round IDE cable Ata133 x3

Finally, what wattage of PSU do I need?

Many thanks,

Ally

On Wed, 21 Jul 2004 17:56:16 GMT, (Ally) wrote:
motherboard:


PS.. Slight revision of my OP:

Abit NF7
(V2.0 nForce2 Socket A 8xAGP LAN USB2 6 ch Sound DDR400 Memory)

or possibly the Asus A7N8X-X ?

cpu:
AMD Athlon XP2500 333FSB 512 L2 Cache Barton

RAM:
512 DDR400 PC3200 - one piece

Hard drives:
Seagate ST3120026A 120gb 7200rpm 8mb Cache Barracuda 7200.7 Plus - OEM

Maxtor 6Y080P0 Plus 9 80Gb 7200rpm 8mb Cache ATA133 Hard Drive - OEM

IDE cables:
Round IDE cable Ata133 x3

Finally, what wattage of PSU do I need? I'm looking at a good-value
quest case: Antec Solution Slk3700amb. It has a 350 Watt PSU. Will
that be anough for this system?

Many thanks,

PS.. So now it's really down to the choice of mobo and PSU.. but still
I welcome other comments and suugestions,

Ally

"Ally" wrote in message


PS.. So now it's really down to the choice of mobo and PSU.. but still
I welcome other comments and suggestions,

Motherboard - I'm not comfortable with NForce boards for audio.

Power supply - Every time I put a watt meter on a working, fully-tricked-out
PC with all the goodies running, I find 100-150 watts being used. I build a
ton of machines with 300 watt power supplies and they all work just fine. Of
the 100s of machines I've built over the years, I think I built two with 450
watt power supplies, and that's because that's what the cases came with. One
of those two cases was the quiet Antec that has been discussed lately. The
other was a rack case.

On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 06:14:34 -0400, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:

"Ally" wrote in message


PS.. So now it's really down to the choice of mobo and PSU.. but still
I welcome other comments and suggestions,

Motherboard - I'm not comfortable with NForce boards for audio.

Power supply - Every time I put a watt meter on a working, fully-tricked-out
PC with all the goodies running, I find 100-150 watts being used. I build a
ton of machines with 300 watt power supplies and they all work just fine. Of
the 100s of machines I've built over the years, I think I built two with 450
watt power supplies, and that's because that's what the cases came with. One
of those two cases was the quiet Antec that has been discussed lately. The
other was a rack case.

Good day, Arnie. Thank you for that. That's good to hear.
Now all I need is to decide between the two motherboards.

Hopefully someone will help me decide soon; I want to place the order!
I don't think ther's much in it, but there's definitely going tp be
some differences. I'm leaning to the Abit AN7 rather than the Asus
A7N8X-X. It's got slightly better user ratings on the supplier's site.
(www.ebuyer.com)

Ally

(Ally) wrote:

On Wed, 21 Jul 2004 17:56:16 GMT, (Ally) wrote:
motherboard:

DAW. Does that mean digital audio workstation?

PS.. Slight revision of my OP:

Abit NF7
(V2.0 nForce2 Socket A 8xAGP LAN USB2 6 ch Sound DDR400 Memory)
///////////

You may replace that placebo by some good recording device.

[snip]

IDE cables:
Round IDE cable Ata133 x3

Most round IDE cable do not qualify for ATA-133. Flat ribbon cable
will perform better but may give some problem with air flow.
You may think of serial ATA as lots of disks are now available.

Finally, what wattage of PSU do I need? I'm looking at a good-value
quest case: Antec Solution Slk3700amb. It has a 350 Watt PSU. Will
that be anough for this system?

The number of watts is pretty meaningless. The PSU should be able
to deliver the required current, so it should be compliant with
the CPU you intend to use.

Norbert

On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 14:35:11 +0200, Norbert Hahn
wrote:


DAW. Does that mean digital audio workstation?

Yup - last time I looked. :-)

Round IDE cable Ata133 x3

Most round IDE cable do not qualify for ATA-133. Flat ribbon cable
will perform better but may give some problem with air flow.

That's why I picked the ATA-133 *round* cables. What't the problem
with them?

You may think of serial ATA as lots of disks are now available.

Thanks for the suggestion. I thought about it, but couldn;t stretch to
the extra cash. Speed of disc access is not a big issue on this
machine anyway.

Finally, what wattage of PSU do I need? I'm looking at a good-value
quest case: Antec Solution Slk3700amb. It has a 350 Watt PSU. Will
that be anough for this system?

The number of watts is pretty meaningless. The PSU should be able
to deliver the required current, so it should be compliant with
the CPU you intend to use.

OK - thanks for your input..

Ally

On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 09:34:40 GMT, (Ally) wrote:

IDE cables:
Round IDE cable Ata133 x3

I think round IDE cables have now been debunked as a fad that actually
DECREASES performance. Use the flat ones. Or what have you got
against SATA? There's little if any price difference now.

"Laurence Payne" wrote in
message

On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 09:34:40 GMT, (Ally) wrote:

IDE cables:
Round IDE cable Ata133 x3

I think round IDE cables have now been debunked as a fad that actually
DECREASES performance.

The sharpest criticism I've heard is that they are only appearance items.

Use the flat ones.

Agreed.

curmudgeon hat on

Or what have you got against SATA?

Only one device per cable, and only two cable sockets per system board.

Most onboard SATA controllers I've run into don't implement hot-swapping.

There's little if any price difference now.

The cables cost twice as much and do half as much.

On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 14:10:53 +0100, Laurence Payne
wrote:

On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 09:34:40 GMT, (Ally) wrote:

IDE cables:
Round IDE cable Ata133 x3

I think round IDE cables have now been debunked as a fad that actually
DECREASES performance. Use the flat ones. Or what have you got
against SATA? There's little if any price difference now.

There seemed to be quite a premium to pay for a mobo with SATA and
likewise for the drives. I was thinking about it, and asked if it was
worth the money but no-one replied so I followed my ruling cheapskate
instincts and gave it a miss! Oh, well, it;s done now... I placed the
order. I had to draw the line somewhere... I gould have spent a bit
mopre on this and a bit more on that, but I fugure I'll be content
with what I've got.

Ally

On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 09:26:43 -0400, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:

Or what have you got against SATA?

Only one device per cable, and only two cable sockets per system board.

Most onboard SATA controllers I've run into don't implement hot-swapping.

Unlike IDE? :-)


There's little if any price difference now.

The cables cost twice as much and do half as much.

I guess it depends where you get them. When I've bought a
SATA-enabled motherboard, it's arrived with a couple of cables.
(Though many boards have 4 ports). My local computer-making shop
just gets out the box of SATA cables and gives me one if I ask nicely.
(As long as I'm buying something as well :-) Are suppliers
profiteering from the "new" technology, like some still do with
Firewire cables?

On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 15:30:03 GMT, (Ally) wrote:

I gould have spent a bit
mopre on this and a bit more on that, but I fugure I'll be content
with what I've got.

You? Never!

(Ally) wrote:

Round IDE cable Ata133 x3

Most round IDE cable do not qualify for ATA-133. Flat ribbon cable
will perform better but may give some problem with air flow.

That's why I picked the ATA-133 *round* cables. What't the problem
with them?

The flat cables have all signal lines separated with ground lines
to reduce cross-talk between the signals. Round calbes are made by
squeezing flat cables which in turn increases cross talk (read data
errors). Fortunately, ATA-66 and above use some CRC to detect data
errors so a retransmission can get started. And the speed will be
lowered to avoid retransmission. Most likely your ATA-133 disk will
operate at ATA-66 in the long run.

Unfortunately CD drives and CD burnes don't use CRC to validate the
data so you need to a verification step after burning a CD. Maybe
the latest CD burnes do use CRC. I don't know with DVD burners though.

Norbert

"Laurence Payne" wrote in
message
On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 09:26:43 -0400, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:

Or what have you got against SATA?

Only one device per cable, and only two cable sockets per system
board.

Most onboard SATA controllers I've run into don't implement
hot-swapping.

Unlike IDE? :-)


http://www.naspa.com/PDF/2003/1103/T0311003.pdf

page 2 paragraph 2-4


There's little if any price difference now.

The cables cost twice as much and do half as much.

I guess it depends where you get them. When I've bought a
SATA-enabled motherboard, it's arrived with a couple of cables.

Sure, but you *paid* for them

(Though many boards have 4 ports).

Seems like, still haven't had one in my hands.

My local computer-making shop
just gets out the box of SATA cables and gives me one if I ask nicely.

Sure, but you *paid* for them

(As long as I'm buying something as well :-) Are suppliers
profiteering from the "new" technology, like some still do with
Firewire cables?

The prices I've seen aren't ripoffs, but you end up paying at least twice as
much.

On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 13:31:46 -0400, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:

Sure, but you *paid* for them

(Though many boards have 4 ports).

Seems like, still haven't had one in my hands.

My local computer-making shop
just gets out the box of SATA cables and gives me one if I ask nicely.

Sure, but you *paid* for them

That's twice you've said that! Yeah sure. I paid for them. But if
I'd paid an inflated retail price I was getting the motherboard VERY
cheaply :=-)

In article , Norbert Hahn wrote:
(Ally) wrote:

On Wed, 21 Jul 2004 17:56:16 GMT, (Ally) wrote:
motherboard:

DAW. Does that mean digital audio workstation?

PS.. Slight revision of my OP:

Abit NF7
(V2.0 nForce2 Socket A 8xAGP LAN USB2 6 ch Sound DDR400 Memory)
///////////

You may replace that placebo by some good recording device.

[snip]

IDE cables:
Round IDE cable Ata133 x3

Most round IDE cable do not qualify for ATA-133. Flat ribbon cable
will perform better but may give some problem with air flow.
You may think of serial ATA as lots of disks are now available.


Nonsense, most round IDE cable are just flat 80 conductor cabling folded up
nicely into a rounded housing.

Finally, what wattage of PSU do I need? I'm looking at a good-value
quest case: Antec Solution Slk3700amb. It has a 350 Watt PSU. Will
that be anough for this system?

The number of watts is pretty meaningless. The PSU should be able
to deliver the required current, so it should be compliant with
the CPU you intend to use.

Norbert

In article , wrote:
On Fri, 23 Jul 2004 05:14:26 GMT,
(GMAN) wrote:

Nonsense, most round IDE cable are just flat 80 conductor cabling folded up
nicely into a rounded housing.

Thanks for the comment. Indeed, that is what the ones I ordered appear
to be. That's a relief!

Ally
IMHO i consider them better than flat since they usually have a foil
shielding under the tubing, at least mine did.

On Fri, 23 Jul 2004 05:14:26 GMT,
(GMAN) wrote:

Nonsense, most round IDE cable are just flat 80 conductor cabling folded up
nicely into a rounded housing.

Thanks for the comment. Indeed, that is what the ones I ordered appear
to be. That's a relief!

Ally

On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 14:10:53 +0100, Laurence Payne
wrote:

On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 09:34:40 GMT, (Ally) wrote:

IDE cables:
Round IDE cable Ata133 x3

I think round IDE cables have now been debunked as a fad that actually
DECREASES performance. Use the flat ones.

L, Thanks for the advice on that. However, the round cables I ordered
are actually flat cables that have been sort of folded up nicely into
a round housing.... (judging by the picture)..

Or what have you got
against SATA? There's little if any price difference now.

That suggests to me that it's not all it's cracked up to be... I think
someone commented that hard drives are limited in speed by their
mechanical limitations, regardless of whether ATA or SATA is being
used. However, if someone had told me that in three years time ATA
gear will be no longer available and everything will be SATA, then I
would certailnly have paid the extra.

Ally

On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 14:10:53 +0100, Laurence Payne
wrote:

On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 09:34:40 GMT, (Ally) wrote:

IDE cables:
Round IDE cable Ata133 x3

I think round IDE cables have now been debunked as a fad that actually
DECREASES performance. Use the flat ones. Or what have you got
against SATA? There's little if any price difference now.

I also hear opinions that SATA is not yet as reliable as ATA.

Ally

On Fri, 23 Jul 2004 06:00:02 GMT,
(GMAN) wrote:

In article , wrote:
On Fri, 23 Jul 2004 05:14:26 GMT,
(GMAN) wrote:

Nonsense, most round IDE cable are just flat 80 conductor cabling folded up
nicely into a rounded housing.

Thanks for the comment. Indeed, that is what the ones I ordered appear
to be. That's a relief!

Ally
IMHO i consider them better than flat since they usually have a foil
shielding under the tubing, at least mine did.

Thanks for that. I'll find out if mine are shielded when they arrive.
If so, I'll be delighted, because I read that most data errors
attributed to cables (flat or round) are caused by electro-magnetic
fields coming from *outside* the cables (from drives, etc)...

Ally

"Ally" wrote in message

On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 14:10:53 +0100, Laurence Payne
wrote:

On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 09:34:40 GMT, (Ally)
wrote:

IDE cables:
Round IDE cable Ata133 x3

I think round IDE cables have now been debunked as a fad that
actually DECREASES performance. Use the flat ones. Or what
have you got against SATA? There's little if any price difference
now.

I also hear opinions that SATA is not yet as reliable as ATA.

The connectors are more fragile than their predecessors.

"Ally" wrote in message

On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 14:10:53 +0100, Laurence Payne
wrote:

On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 09:34:40 GMT, (Ally)
wrote:

IDE cables:
Round IDE cable Ata133 x3

I think round IDE cables have now been debunked as a fad that
actually DECREASES performance. Use the flat ones.

L, Thanks for the advice on that. However, the round cables I ordered
are actually flat cables that have been sort of folded up nicely into
a round housing.... (judging by the picture)..

True.

Or what have you got
against SATA? There's little if any price difference now.

That suggests to me that it's not all it's cracked up to be... I think
someone commented that hard drives are limited in speed by their
mechanical limitations, regardless of whether ATA or SATA is being
used. However, if someone had told me that in three years time ATA
gear will be no longer available and everything will be SATA, then I
would certailnly have paid the extra.

I think that in 3 years ATA equipment will be pretty much out of new
production, and the replacments for ATA drives will mostly be SATA drives
with ATA-SATA adaptors.

Ally

On Fri, 23 Jul 2004 05:14:26 GMT,
(GMAN) wrote:

Most round IDE cable do not qualify for ATA-133. Flat ribbon cable
will perform better but may give some problem with air flow.
You may think of serial ATA as lots of disks are now available.


Nonsense, most round IDE cable are just flat 80 conductor cabling folded up
nicely into a rounded housing.

Having carefully separated the 40 active strands with grounded ones,
they then roll them up to push them back into as close proximity as
possible. Some say this degrades performance.

On Fri, 23 Jul 2004 06:10:10 GMT, (Ally) wrote:

Or what have you got
against SATA? There's little if any price difference now.

That suggests to me that it's not all it's cracked up to be... I think
someone commented that hard drives are limited in speed by their
mechanical limitations, regardless of whether ATA or SATA is being
used. However, if someone had told me that in three years time ATA
gear will be no longer available and everything will be SATA, then I
would certailnly have paid the extra.


Suddenly you're subscribing to "more expensive is better"? :-)

Yes, I wouldn't be at all surprised if parallel ATA goes the way of
the parallel printer port in 3 years. But that's a long time in
computing.

"Laurence Payne" wrote in
message
On Fri, 23 Jul 2004 05:14:26 GMT,
(GMAN) wrote:

Most round IDE cable do not qualify for ATA-133. Flat ribbon cable
will perform better but may give some problem with air flow.
You may think of serial ATA as lots of disks are now available.


Nonsense, most round IDE cable are just flat 80 conductor cabling
folded up nicely into a rounded housing.

Having carefully separated the 40 active strands with grounded ones,
they then roll them up to push them back into as close proximity as
possible. Some say this degrades performance.

The cables I've seen like this cut the cable into strips. But the results
are about the same. There should be some increase in capacitance.

"Arny Krueger" wrote:

"Laurence Payne" wrote in
message
On Fri, 23 Jul 2004 05:14:26 GMT,
(GMAN) wrote:

Most round IDE cable do not qualify for ATA-133. Flat ribbon cable
will perform better but may give some problem with air flow.
You may think of serial ATA as lots of disks are now available.


Nonsense, most round IDE cable are just flat 80 conductor cabling
folded up nicely into a rounded housing.

Having carefully separated the 40 active strands with grounded ones,
they then roll them up to push them back into as close proximity as
possible. Some say this degrades performance.

The cables I've seen like this cut the cable into strips. But the results
are about the same. There should be some increase in capacitance.

Well, the transistors in the buffer chips must be able to source the
increased current required for the increased capacitance. Extra shielding
adds more capacitance. So the performance depends on both the board
(IDE controller) and the disk.

Norbert

"Norbert Hahn" wrote in message

"Arny Krueger" wrote:

"Laurence Payne" wrote in
message
On Fri, 23 Jul 2004 05:14:26 GMT,
(GMAN) wrote:

Most round IDE cable do not qualify for ATA-133. Flat ribbon cable
will perform better but may give some problem with air flow.
You may think of serial ATA as lots of disks are now available.


Nonsense, most round IDE cable are just flat 80 conductor cabling
folded up nicely into a rounded housing.

Having carefully separated the 40 active strands with grounded ones,
they then roll them up to push them back into as close proximity as
possible. Some say this degrades performance.

The cables I've seen like this cut the cable into strips. But the
results are about the same. There should be some increase in
capacitance.

Well, the transistors in the buffer chips must be able to source the
increased current required for the increased capacitance.

Sure, I'm sure that most controllers have plenty of current margins.

Extra shielding adds more capacitance.

IME the 80 wire cables provided better shielding than the old 40 wire cables
did.

So the performance depends on both the board (IDE controller) and the
disk.

Well, we're in the SATA era, so IDE cables are getting kinda moot.

Ally wrote:
Hi,
I'm building a DAW.
Are the following parts all compatible and well-suited?

motherboard:
Abit NF7
(V2.0 nForce2 Socket A 8xAGP LAN USB2 6 ch Sound DDR400 Memory)

cpu:
AMD Athlon XP2500 333FSB 512 L2 Cache Barton

RAM:
256 DDR400 PC3200

Hard drives:
Seagate ST3120026A 120gb 7200rpm 8mb Cache Barracuda 7200.7 Plus - OEM

Maxtor 6Y080P0 Plus 9 80Gb 7200rpm 8mb Cache ATA133 Hard Drive - OEM

IDE cables:
Round IDE cable Ata133 x3

Finally, what wattage of PSU do I need?

Whatever hard drive you decide on, you will need two - one for
OS/Applications, and one for audio data (installed on separate IDE
channels). As you will doubtlessly be adding a CD/DVD writer ( on the same
IDE cahannel as the primary HDD) , I would suggest a PSU of at least 350W
capacity.

And I've heard that the flat ribbons are better than the trendy 'round' IDE
cables.

geoff

Ally wrote:
On Fri, 23 Jul 2004 05:14:26 GMT,
(GMAN) wrote:

Nonsense, most round IDE cable are just flat 80 conductor cabling
folded up nicely into a rounded housing.

Thanks for the comment. Indeed, that is what the ones I ordered appear
to be. That's a relief!

But coiled potential DOES increase crosstalk in comparison with flattened.

geoff

Laurence Payne wrote:
On Fri, 23 Jul 2004 06:10:10 GMT, (Ally) wrote:

Or what have you got
against SATA? There's little if any price difference now.

That suggests to me that it's not all it's cracked up to be... I
think someone commented that hard drives are limited in speed by
their mechanical limitations, regardless of whether ATA or SATA is
being used. However, if someone had told me that in three years time
ATA gear will be no longer available and everything will be SATA,
then I would certailnly have paid the extra.


Suddenly you're subscribing to "more expensive is better"? :-)

Yes, I wouldn't be at all surprised if parallel ATA goes the way of
the parallel printer port in 3 years. But that's a long time in
computing.

Yeah, but then somebody will figure that if you put 8 SATA lines in
parallel, you can transfer a whole byte at 8 times the speed of one SATA
.....

;-)

geoff

On Sat, 24 Jul 2004 10:38:41 +1200, "Geoff Wood"
-nospam wrote:

Whatever hard drive you decide on, you will need two - one for
OS/Applications, and one for audio data (installed on separate IDE
channels). As you will doubtlessly be adding a CD/DVD writer ( on the same
IDE cahannel as the primary HDD) , I would suggest a PSU of at least 350W
capacity.

Why? After protracted argument elsewhere, we've established that
when LOADING a recording application, Windows may readjust the part of
paged memory which is dumped to disk. But there's no evidence that,
on a computer with sufficient memory installed, there will be
continual access of the hard drives by Windows or the application,
other than to stream audio data.

Laurence Payne wrote:
On Sat, 24 Jul 2004 10:38:41 +1200, "Geoff Wood"
-nospam wrote:

Whatever hard drive you decide on, you will need two - one for
OS/Applications, and one for audio data (installed on separate IDE
channels). As you will doubtlessly be adding a CD/DVD writer ( on
the same IDE cahannel as the primary HDD) , I would suggest a PSU of
at least 350W capacity.

Why? After protracted argument elsewhere, we've established that
when LOADING a recording application, Windows may readjust the part of
paged memory which is dumped to disk. But there's no evidence that,
on a computer with sufficient memory installed, there will be
continual access of the hard drives by Windows or the application,
other than to stream audio data.

1 - Some applications dymanically load and unload modules during recording,
especially if playing back trax at the same tiume.

2 - Neat and tidy.

geoff

On Sat, 24 Jul 2004 17:49:25 +1200, "Geoff Wood"
-nospam wrote:

1 - Some applications dymanically load and unload modules during recording,
especially if playing back trax at the same tiume.

Really? Actually DURING RECORDING? What could an application
suddenly require half-way through a recording? We set up the effects
we need - then run the recording.

Have a look at what happens when you load an application. There's a
re-adjustment of what Windows kernel code needs to be in unpaged
memory.

Everything else loads into paged memory. There is the potential that
this may be dumped to disk, if RAM runs short. But this is really
ancient history. We design our DAW with sufficient RAM so that paging
to disk won't be required. This happened when we were running
programs in 16MB of memory, 15 years ago. Now we install amounts of
RAM that are huge compared to the size of program code. Paging to
disk just doesn't happen.

(Note that "unpaged memory" is a small region kept independent of
Windows' virtual memory system. Everything else is "paged memory".
But not paged to disk. Unless you're grossly low on physical memory.)


2 - Neat and tidy.

More so than a folder or partition on the same drive?

Laurence Payne wrote:

Really? Actually DURING RECORDING? What could an application
suddenly require half-way through a recording? We set up the effects
we need - then run the recording.


Well I concede that you should really have all load, run, and unnecessary
services killed off, but most users don't.



More so than a folder or partition on the same drive?

Yep. You can uplug the data drive, take it to another machine, and still
use both machines.

geoff

On Sat, 24 Jul 2004 23:20:03 +1200, "Geoff Wood"
-nospam wrote:

More so than a folder or partition on the same drive?

Yep. You can uplug the data drive, take it to another machine, and still
use both machines.

I guess users who want to do this would buy an external Firewire drive
or the like? Preferable to constantly dismantling their computers.

"Laurence Payne" wrote in
message
On Sat, 24 Jul 2004 23:20:03 +1200, "Geoff Wood"
-nospam wrote:

More so than a folder or partition on the same drive?

Yep. You can uplug the data drive, take it to another machine, and
still use both machines.

I guess users who want to do this would buy an external Firewire drive
or the like? Preferable to constantly dismantling their computers.

Yes, Firewire or USB-2 are the current solutions, and fine solutions they
are. I guess SATA's hot-plug feature (largely not implemented in equipment
on the market at this time) would make the third alternative.

Hot-plug SCSI is old news, and that would be the fourth (or is it first,
chronologically?) alternative.

Laurence Payne wrote:
On Sat, 24 Jul 2004 23:20:03 +1200, "Geoff Wood"
-nospam wrote:

More so than a folder or partition on the same drive?

Yep. You can uplug the data drive, take it to another machine, and
still use both machines.

I guess users who want to do this would buy an external Firewire drive
or the like? Preferable to constantly dismantling their computers.

I turn a key, pull a handle and withdraw the tray, and I'm away laughing.
Takes all of 3 seconds. No cables to lose.

geoff