I have recently bought a new Tiny Mediabook U64-3700+ of which I am
awaiting delivery. The one drawback on this system that may affect me
using apps such as Reason 2.5 Cool Edit Pro
is the Fujitsu/Toshiba Hard Disk with minimum Ultra ATA/100 interface,
4200rpm speed, 12 ms Access time, 80GB capacity and 1MB Buffer. If I
bought an external drive with 7200rpm and connected it via a usb2
connection would this perform better?

On 17 Feb 2005 10:14:02 -0800, "Paul" wrote:

I have recently bought a new Tiny Mediabook U64-3700+ of which I am
awaiting delivery. The one drawback on this system that may affect me
using apps such as Reason 2.5 Cool Edit Pro
is the Fujitsu/Toshiba Hard Disk with minimum Ultra ATA/100 interface,
4200rpm speed, 12 ms Access time, 80GB capacity and 1MB Buffer. If I
bought an external drive with 7200rpm and connected it via a usb2
connection would this perform better?

Yes, for 2 reasons. First, the drive will be faster, and second, you won't be
trying to use the same drive for the system software and virtual memory that
you are using for storing your audio data. You might want to be careful about
putting additional devices on the same USB port with the drive, though.

"Steve Jorgensen" wrote in message
...
On 17 Feb 2005 10:14:02 -0800, "Paul" wrote:

I have recently bought a new Tiny Mediabook U64-3700+ of which I am
awaiting delivery. The one drawback on this system that may affect me
using apps such as Reason 2.5 Cool Edit Pro
is the Fujitsu/Toshiba Hard Disk with minimum Ultra ATA/100 interface,
4200rpm speed, 12 ms Access time, 80GB capacity and 1MB Buffer. If I
bought an external drive with 7200rpm and connected it via a usb2
connection would this perform better?

Yes, for 2 reasons. First, the drive will be faster, and second, you
won't be
trying to use the same drive for the system software and virtual memory
that
you are using for storing your audio data. You might want to be careful
about
putting additional devices on the same USB port with the drive, though.

Has anybody done this? It would seem to me that the USB port would slow
down data transfer to the point that the difference in rotational speed
would be a wash....

jak

USB 2.0 should be as fast as (if not faster than according to the spec)
Firewire. On the other hand, I tried digitizing some video to a USB 2.0
drive on a G5 the other day and Final Cut would just continually give
up. I tried different USB ports, but none that solved the issue.
Firewire drives worked fine.

Cheers,
Trevor de Clercq

jakdedert wrote:
"Steve Jorgensen" wrote in message
...

On 17 Feb 2005 10:14:02 -0800, "Paul" wrote:


I have recently bought a new Tiny Mediabook U64-3700+ of which I am
awaiting delivery. The one drawback on this system that may affect me
using apps such as Reason 2.5 Cool Edit Pro
is the Fujitsu/Toshiba Hard Disk with minimum Ultra ATA/100 interface,
4200rpm speed, 12 ms Access time, 80GB capacity and 1MB Buffer. If I
bought an external drive with 7200rpm and connected it via a usb2
connection would this perform better?

Yes, for 2 reasons. First, the drive will be faster, and second, you

won't be

trying to use the same drive for the system software and virtual memory

that

you are using for storing your audio data. You might want to be careful

about

putting additional devices on the same USB port with the drive, though.


Has anybody done this? It would seem to me that the USB port would slow
down data transfer to the point that the difference in rotational speed
would be a wash....

jak

"jakdedert" wrote in message
...

Has anybody done this? It would seem to me that the USB port would slow
down data transfer to the point that the difference in rotational speed
would be a wash....

Ultra ATA100 is 100 Megabytes/s
USB 2.0 is 60 Megabytes/s

While neither is likely to achieve its theoretical throughput, all else being
equal, I doubt there will be instances where a USB 2.0 drive will outperform an
ATA133 drive plugged into the IDE channel.

Even if the external drive used the 1394b (Firewire 800) interface, it would
still max out at a theoretical 100 megabytes/s.

John LeBlanc
Houston, TX

On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 13:56:16 -0600, "John_LeBlanc"
wrote:


"jakdedert" wrote in message
...

Has anybody done this? It would seem to me that the USB port would slow
down data transfer to the point that the difference in rotational speed
would be a wash....

Ultra ATA100 is 100 Megabytes/s
USB 2.0 is 60 Megabytes/s

While neither is likely to achieve its theoretical throughput, all else being
equal, I doubt there will be instances where a USB 2.0 drive will outperform an
ATA133 drive plugged into the IDE channel.

Even if the external drive used the 1394b (Firewire 800) interface, it would
still max out at a theoretical 100 megabytes/s.

Hard drives never max out the Ultra ATA even in bursts unless reading from a
cache, and that's pretty much never the case with audio. The highest bursts
you do get are pretty short because the head must seek to the next track,
giving the USB or firewire bus time to catch up. I think USB 2 has very
little impact on hard drive read/write speed, though I'm sure it adds a tiny
bit of latency.

Thanks for all your advice. I was thinking of trying a 160GB Maxtor
7000 "One Touch" 7200rpm USB2 HDD with 8mb cache, 9.3ms access time and
a sustained transfer rate USB 2.0 - 34 MB/sec selling at =A392.81 inc
vat. Does anyone have any opinions re this choice?

Paul

"Paul" wrote in message
ups.com
Thanks for all your advice. I was thinking of trying a 160GB Maxtor
7000 "One Touch" 7200rpm USB2 HDD with 8mb cache, 9.3ms access time
and a sustained transfer rate USB 2.0 - 34 MB/sec selling at £92.81
inc vat. Does anyone have any opinions re this choice?

My experiences with USB-2 hard drives in the XP context has been positive.

Paul wrote:
Thanks for all your advice. I was thinking of trying a 160GB Maxtor
7000 "One Touch" 7200rpm USB2 HDD with 8mb cache, 9.3ms access time
and
a sustained transfer rate USB 2.0 - 34 MB/sec selling at =A392.81 inc
vat. Does anyone have any opinions re this choice?

Paul


I've had a lot of bad luck with the internal Maxtor drives. They work
for awhile and then on startup one day the drive is no longer seen by
the computer. I've had this problem in a PC, a Mac and in a stand alone
hard drive recorder. It happened twice with two 80GB drives and once
with a 160GB drive. I switched to Western Digital and no longer have
these problems.=20

Peter

On 18 Feb 2005 05:27:17 -0800, "Paul" wrote:

Thanks for all your advice. I was thinking of trying a 160GB Maxtor
7000 "One Touch" 7200rpm USB2 HDD with 8mb cache, 9.3ms access time and
a sustained transfer rate USB 2.0 - 34 MB/sec selling at £92.81 inc
vat. Does anyone have any opinions re this choice?

I'm gonna reiterate the suggestion I make for all posts along these
lines: take a look at the LaCie triple interface drives. They have
USB2.0, Firewire 400 & Firewire 800, in a pretty compact package.

I use one at work to back up servers and workstations, and they work
beautifully.

It also gives you the added benefit of not being able to try out
different transfer protocols without trying out different drives. :-)


jtougas

listen- there's a hell of a good universe next door
let's go

e.e. cummings

On Sat, 19 Feb 2005 00:13:12 -0500, jtougas
wrote:

I'm gonna reiterate the suggestion I make for all posts along these
lines: take a look at the LaCie triple interface drives. They have
USB2.0, Firewire 400 & Firewire 800, in a pretty compact package.

It also gives you the added benefit of not being able to try out
different transfer protocols without trying out different drives. :-)

What I get for posting too late... brain snooze, active fingers...

That's supposed to read 'It gives you the added benefit of being able
to try out different transfer protocols without trying out different
drives'.

But I'm sure y'all figures that out... :-)
jtougas

listen- there's a hell of a good universe next door
let's go

e.e. cummings