I have thinking of purchasing something to back up large amounts of data
(primarily audio, sonar projects, and digital video) on and am looking
at purchasing either a 2nd internal hard drive or an external one. I
have some questions on the advantages and disadvantages of each.

External Firewire/USB2.0 HDs:
I don't have any experience with external hard drives and am wondering
how they handle in respect to internal hard drives. In reading some
things, I gathered that they are almost if not as fast as an internal HD
(or am I mistaken because I find that hard to believe)? Can I use an
external hard drive for recording live audio to (are they fast enough to
keep up with doing audio and video recording)? In terms of data
storage, would you say they are safer as a back up tool than having
another internal hard drive? I have heard that if the power supply on
the computer fails, you are more likely to lose data contained on a
internal HD than an external HD, is this true? So what are the
disadvantages of purchasing an external HD compared to an internal HD
other than the price?

A firewire drive sounds very tempting seeing as I could back up tons of
data on it, and have the drive around so I can easily back things up
whenever I want and move it around. I just want to make sure that I am
not missing some disadvantage like well they are only half as fast as an
internal drive, etc. They sound too good to be true.

Thanks,
Andrew V. Romero

"Andrew V. Romero" wrote in message

..

External Firewire/USB2.0 HDs:
I don't have any experience with external hard drives and am wondering
how they handle in respect to internal hard drives.

I'm to presume that you are referring to putting an IDE drive in a Firewire
and/or USB 2.0 enclosure, as opposed to putting the drive inside a PC where
its IDE bus connects directly to the motherboard. Even as I state the
problem, you see that we are adding another layer, and that has the
potential of slowing things down.

In reading some
things, I gathered that they are almost if not as fast as an internal
HD (or am I mistaken because I find that hard to believe)?

The extra layer of protocols and interfaces has some cost.

Can I use
an external hard drive for recording live audio to (are they fast
enough to keep up with doing audio and video recording)?

There is no such thing as one kind of audio or video recording that is
always exactly the same thing. Therefore the question becomes, which audio
recording and which video recording format are you are talking about.

In terms of
data storage, would you say they are safer as a back up tool than
having another internal hard drive?

Due to the fact that you can take an external hard drive someplace else than
the computer it backs up, it's safer than an internal drive.

I have heard that if the power
supply on the computer fails, you are more likely to lose data
contained on a internal HD than an external HD, is this true?

IME you are talking about a zero probability of losing data either way,
particularly with NTFS volumes (as XP uses).

So
what are the disadvantages of purchasing an external HD compared to
an internal HD other than the price?

Slight loss of speed in use, slight loss of speed during booting.

A firewire drive sounds very tempting seeing as I could back up tons
of data on it, and have the drive around so I can easily back things
up whenever I want and move it around.

Another option is a drive in a portable drive bay. These are even more
portable and less expensive. They avoid the additional layer of interfaces
and protocols. OTOH both Firewire and USB are completely hot-pluggable and
plug and play. Not so with most inexpensive portable drive bays.

I just want to make sure that
I am not missing some disadvantage like well they are only half as
fast as an internal drive, etc. They sound too good to be true.

The loss of performance is nothing like half with current drives. As drives
get faster and faster the overhead of USB 2 and firewire will increase
proportionately, but right now it is pretty small, perhaps even negligible
for most applications.

I have limited technical knowledge, but I can offer my personal experience.

I've been tracking 18 to 24 24-bit tracks to a 160 gb Western Digital Caviar
drive in a firewire enclosure with a Fujitsu laptop and a digiset fairly
regularly with no problems at all. It's also a good backup. Great for
transfers and portability. I know a lot of people who do this. The drive speed
does not seem to be a problem at all. I have had problems tracking to the 5400
rpm internal drive of the laptop. That's why I went to the firewire drive. Get
a drive with 8mb cache. Bason computers sells a nice and affordable firewire
enclosure.

Tim

"Andrew V. Romero" wrote
I have thinking of purchasing something to back up large amounts of data
(primarily audio, sonar projects, and digital video) on and am looking
at purchasing either a 2nd internal hard drive or an external one. I
have some questions on the advantages and disadvantages of each.

For about 10$ you can get a removable hard drive bay.
They are much cheaper than Firewire or USB harddrive cases.
They are available in IDE or SCSI.
If you have one it is very easy to swop out your hard drive.

--
Anthony Gosnell

to reply remove nospam.

Hi,

did you put the drive in the enclosure by yourself? Is this easy to do?
cheers,
Bob

"tferrell" schreef in bericht
...
I have limited technical knowledge, but I can offer my personal
experience.

I've been tracking 18 to 24 24-bit tracks to a 160 gb Western Digital
Caviar
drive in a firewire enclosure with a Fujitsu laptop and a digiset fairly
regularly with no problems at all. It's also a good backup. Great for
transfers and portability. I know a lot of people who do this. The drive
speed
does not seem to be a problem at all. I have had problems tracking to the
5400
rpm internal drive of the laptop. That's why I went to the firewire
drive. Get
a drive with 8mb cache. Bason computers sells a nice and affordable
firewire
enclosure.

Tim

In article writes:

I have thinking of purchasing something to back up large amounts of data
(primarily audio, sonar projects, and digital video)

You know what they say about putting all your eggs in one basket?
Think about it before putting all of your valuable data on one large
disk drive. They fail sometimes, and usually in ways that are mighty
expensive to recover.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

"Bob" wrote in message

Hi,

did you put the drive in the enclosure by yourself? Is this easy to
do? cheers,

It's basically a screwdriver, plug and play operation. You need the
screwdriver to take the case apart and mechanically mount the drive. Plug in
two cables that only go in the right way, and reassemble the case. Just make
sure your case can handle a drive with the number of gigabytes and the IDE
interface (serial or parallel) that you want to use.

Also be very sure you have a working USB 2.0 port on the PC. XP has built
in *universal* drivers for USB mass storage devices. Win98SE and ME need a
driver disk.

You know what they say about putting all your eggs in one basket?
Think about it before putting all of your valuable data on one large
disk drive. They fail sometimes, and usually in ways that are mighty
expensive to recover.

I know, I have been daring lately, which is another reason I am thinking
that an ext firewire drive would be good to purchase. I may go out
today and pick one up. Any thoughts on a Western digital 120gb 7200rpm
usb2.0/Firewire hard drive?

Thanks,
Andrew V. Romero

Mike Rivers wrote:
In article writes:


I have thinking of purchasing something to back up large amounts of data
(primarily audio, sonar projects, and digital video)


You know what they say about putting all your eggs in one basket?
Think about it before putting all of your valuable data on one large
disk drive. They fail sometimes, and usually in ways that are mighty
expensive to recover.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

In article writes:

I know, I have been daring lately, which is another reason I am thinking
that an ext firewire drive would be good to purchase. I may go out
today and pick one up. Any thoughts on a Western digital 120gb 7200rpm
usb2.0/Firewire hard drive?

I suppose one is as good as another. How does the cost of a firewire
package compare to the cost of bare bones drives?

Also, how many active projects do you have going at once? If you have
30 unfinished songs, maybe you should spend more time finishing up a
few and reducing your backup storage requirements.

I know that one backup philosophy is to expect that your primary data
will evaporate seconds after you write it, so it's important to back
it up immediately. I live on the edge and back up when there are
significant changes, and only on active projects (of which I rarely
have more than a couple at a time). I use a Mackie HDR which has a
removable drive bay for backup. I have a couple of loose carriers and
a pile of unmounted drives in plastic school pencil boxes (39 cents at
Staples) on the shelf. When it's time to back up a project, I mount a
drive in a carrier, plug it into the recorder, push the button, and go
do something else. It takes just a few seconds to install the drive,
and another few seconds to remove it and put it back on the shelf.
These days, I pay $40-$70 per drive depending on the size, the time,
and the rebate offered, and because I scrub the backup once the
project is finished (or offer the drive to the customer so he can keep
it) I always have a free drive or two if I need it for a new project.



--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

Jesus, Mike, are you chicken little these days? Sometimes everything fails.
That's why we need and should use backup systems. I know, I've said it
before, but everyone that works with data as a form of their livelyhood
should have a backup strategy, whether it's another hard drive or some form
of tape backup or even DVDs, but with their limited capability in terms of
data storage, it only works if you do a session by session backup.

Yes, hard drives fail, but they don't fail like they used to.

--


Roger W. Norman
SirMusic Studio

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message
news:znr1078798198k@trad...

In article writes:

I have thinking of purchasing something to back up large amounts of data
(primarily audio, sonar projects, and digital video)

You know what they say about putting all your eggs in one basket?
Think about it before putting all of your valuable data on one large
disk drive. They fail sometimes, and usually in ways that are mighty
expensive to recover.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

"Andrew V. Romero" wrote in message
...
I know, I have been daring lately, which is another reason I am thinking
that an ext firewire drive would be good to purchase. I may go out
today and pick one up. Any thoughts on a Western digital 120gb 7200rpm
usb2.0/Firewire hard drive?

The thought is, if you don't have something like it, you'll have needed
something like it, and if you do, you won't. Murphy will **** you every
time, and O'Toole said Murphy was an optimist. But the fact is, the more
prepared you are, the less likely you'll need to have been prepared. Then
again, there are tons of other people that will say I'm wrong.

--


Roger W. Norman
SirMusic Studio

Thanks,
Andrew V. Romero

Mike Rivers wrote:
In article writes:


I have thinking of purchasing something to back up large amounts of data
(primarily audio, sonar projects, and digital video)


You know what they say about putting all your eggs in one basket?
Think about it before putting all of your valuable data on one large
disk drive. They fail sometimes, and usually in ways that are mighty
expensive to recover.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

Bob:

Buy any drive you feel comfortable with, but I'd go with a newer drive with 8mb
cache. I run a 7200 RPM drive in a firewire enclosure from Bason Computers.
Google them. They are online. Their enclosures support any size drive. I'm
running 160GB. Buy the drive and enclosure separately. It's easy. The
installation will take less than 10 minutes. I run firewire rather than USB.
That's just me. The new USB is faster, but not significantly.

You just need to have the discipline to back stuff up regularly. Using the
firewire drive in combination with archiving to DVD should have you covered. If
you still get ****ed then the universe hates you. Nothing you can do about it.
There's no need to make this more complicated than it really is.

Tim

cheers Tim
Bob

"tferrell" schreef in bericht
...
Bob:

Buy any drive you feel comfortable with, but I'd go with a newer drive
with 8mb
cache. I run a 7200 RPM drive in a firewire enclosure from Bason
Computers.
Google them. They are online. Their enclosures support any size drive.
I'm
running 160GB. Buy the drive and enclosure separately. It's easy. The
installation will take less than 10 minutes. I run firewire rather than
USB.
That's just me. The new USB is faster, but not significantly.

You just need to have the discipline to back stuff up regularly. Using
the
firewire drive in combination with archiving to DVD should have you
covered. If
you still get ****ed then the universe hates you. Nothing you can do
about it.
There's no need to make this more complicated than it really is.

Tim