Help quick - firewire drive for samples streams. 911 or 912?

[Not Dudley Simpson]

.....................

[Tim Kiel]

I'd go for the Lacie, i have three of them. A 200GB, 250 and a nice 500gb all running off the same FW400 chain, but with the option of FW800 or USB2 - great drives.

I run VSL Pro off the 500gb, other libs off the 250 and then stream audio and record etc on the 200gb - no problems so far

[stevegoers]

I'm running EWQLSO Gold off a Lacie drive - works great with both my studio computer and my laptop.

[Ivan P]

What is better for streming samples and recording audio? Firewire or Usb?

Thanks,

Iván

[Mike Auty]

I have to make a fast decision about external drives - either a Lacie HD with an Oxford 912 chip bridge or a Carillon HD with a 911 chip bridge. I don't know what the difference is between 911 and 912. I'm not much of a techie. I'll be steaming big VSL etc samples, so performance is crucial. Any advice?

Thanks
Heath

I believe the 912 chip is better performing, even in FW400 mode. And you also have the option of using FW800 if your machine supports it.

[tobyond]

What is better for streming samples and recording audio? Firewire or Usb?

Firewire has a steady stream where as USB 2 is up and down, so firewire is the best.

[Ivan P]

Thks, Tobyond ;)

Just another question: Would it be wise to have two firewire HDs at the same time, one for streaming samples, the other for recording audio, or would I be pushing it too much? ;)

All the best,

Iván

[tobyond]

Would it be wise to have two firewire HDs at the same time, one for streaming samples, the other for recording audio, or would I be pushing it too much? ;)

If both drives are on a separate bus that would be ideal. If they were daisy chained or on the same firewire bus then it would only gain you the extra space (which isn't such a bad thing).

[MDesigner]

Firewire has a steady stream where as USB 2 is up and down, so firewire is the best.

What do you mean USB 2.0 is up & down? Can you explain? Here I thought USB 2.0 was better because it's faster than Firewire.

[tobyond]

Taken from a Google search which yielded http://www.kcgeek.com/archives/features/ask_meanie_usb_vs_firewire_omelettes_and_add/031302.html


FireWire can sustain peak throughput indefinitely, without taxing your CPU, and is inherently peer-to-peer. USB2.0 is not inherently peer-to-peer and requires significantly more CPU to maximize throughput. 1394 is generally regarded to be a superior interface, somewhat analagous to being the SCSI to USB2.0's EIDE.



Firewire is much better for audio and video streaming, although I still prefer internal sata drives.

[MDesigner]

Interesting. Thanks!

[Bela D Media]

Just my 2 pennies.

Everything in this studio is running on USB2.0 HD's. They are faster then my Firewire drive (Digi rig) - they run silent and are more affordable with each passing day.

2.0 Drive 1 = Video
2.0 Drive 2 = Audio
2.0 Drive 3 = Giga/Kontakt <---- never a glitch!

All 120 GB drives.

I do use a USB 2.0 5 port PCI card to connect - instead of directly into the PC.
Not sure if that matters.

[FV]

Hi Frank,

Are you using a Digi002 on the FW bus as well? That could make a difference as well. I haven't done any tests myself but everything that I have read has also stated that USB does not give you as much sustained throughput as FW devices. Are your FW drives FW400 or FW800? Because that is a big difference also.

FV

[FV]

Hi,

I just wanted to add some info that I found at LaCie's website. For their d2 Triple Extreme hard drives here is the breakdown for sustained transfer rate (rather than peak):

FW800: up to 61 MB/s
FW400: up to 40 MB/s
USB 2: up to 34 MB/s

HTH,
FV

[hv]

ADS makes a dual interface (USB2 and FW400) enclosure. I have both FW and USB audio devices and, depending which I'm using, it's handy to use the oposite interface for data. My rough sense is that they have similar performance. Out of curiousity, I'll have to benchmark them when I get a chance.

Howard