Hi,
This is a bump of my previous post that nobody replied to :"Mac single G5 bus : PCI or Firewire" I thought maybe a better subject title might get a better response.
I have a single processor Mac 1.6 GHZ G5 tower with 2.56 GB of RAM. I'm currently running 2 internal hard drives (one for audio and one for system). I need more space though. I use a MOTU firewire interface (896HD) which I want to add a second 896HD to for 16 i/o at 24/192kHz. The easiest solution would be to buy an external firewire drive. However what would be the impact on stability or track count. Would I do better to run a firewire800 drive (is that the same bus as firewire 400)? Should I get a firewire PCI card and run the hard drive (or 896HD's) off of the PCI bus? Any suggestions? Warnings? Words of wisdom?
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space is an issue in the g5's. I have two 250 GB drives in my d
space is an issue in the g5's. I have two 250 GB drives in my dual G5 2.0 and I'm also running out of real state. the problem is that the Virtual Instruments nowdays come with huge libraries- just the DFHS libary is over 30 GB!- I have my main drive and I/3 of my second drive dedicated to programs, sample and loop libraries. How i've gotten around the program is by using firewire external hard drives for all the files am not currently working on (but may again in the near future) and archiving everything else on DVD- the current projects get the precious internal real stae in the G5- The only thing I miss of my old dual 867 G4 is that it held 4 internal hard drives.
those now reside in an unit such as this:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=11149&item=5206328991&rd=1
its great to keep those files handy, just not as fast as the internal-
Why don't you buy a firewire drive and just copy the stuff your
Why don't you buy a firewire drive and just copy the stuff your not working on onto it from the internal drive. You'll get the best performance from the internal drive so keep that for current projects. The firewire drive would be just to backup projects you're not working on anymore. You can then clear them off of your internal drive to free up space. Firewire is fine for backup but it doesn't have the performance of IDE or SATA internal.
Another option and this is what I do is once the internal drive is full remove it from your system and replace it with a new internal drive. That way you have a fresh drive and your old stuff is safely stored on the old drive. I use removable drive carriers for this to make it easy if I want to go back to an old project. Alot of MAC's don't allow the use of this kind of carrier so you may have to do it the old fashioned way ie. mount and unmount them from the case.
Either way is fine and sure beats using firewire as you main audio drive.
Hope this helps.