|
Imac 24" 2.93ghz (pg. 3)
|
View this Thread in Original format
| Energy_3 |
| quote: | Originally posted by DJ RANN
Excellent advice from Eric
I stonrgly suggest anyone reading this that what he has described about drive configuation:
1. Internal - Runs OS.
2. External 1 - Data (Logic projects and Audio data)
3. External 2 - Backup - Data from both Drive 1 and 2 backed up to this drive
is the ideal setup for any small studio - at the studio I work at we do exactly the same setup apart from go to quantum DLT tape backup for stage three, then wipe the external backup drive after project delivery for reuse later.
Energy - the only main difference between USB (2.0) and firewire is FW has a faster sustained rate of transfer (even though peak speeds are basically equal) and it is a peer to peer system where USB is master slave. Therefore Firewire is better for interfaces where a large bandwidth of date is transmitted and received over a sustained period.
You got the last egenration of imac, which i think means you have both a FW400 socket, a FW800 socket and several USBs.
Get a FW400 audio interface, a FW800 drive for your data, and everything else including the timemachine backup on the USB.
I can recommend the Echo audiofire range - they are incredibly good sounding and good value interfaces, which use the same chips as much more expensive interfaces such as RME.
Couple of things with FW devices:
1,Always, eject the FW device before removing - it's not like USB where most times you can just pull it out.
2, NEVER, (and I mean NEVER), use them without the power supply, even if they manual says it's ok. You would not believe the amount of times I've seen a FW drive or interface go pop from hotswapping without the power supply. The other thing is that 99% of times, the FW bridge is the thing that is the weakness with FW, not the device itself. If you accidently trip over or pull out the FW cable with the PSU plugged in, you are far less likely to have damage to the FW device - without the PSU plugged in, you've got a very good chance of killing the device.
Just ask Palm ;) |
thanks thanks thanks :tongue3 really appreciate it. Rann and from memory it only has one firewire 800 port :nervous: im pretty certain as well. |
|
|
| RichieV |
| it is important to remember that firewire 400 and 800 will generally use the same bus. It best to not have anything else on firewire. I would get a used pro desktop from 2008. More powerful and more options. |
|
|
| Energy_3 |
| quote: | Originally posted by RichieV
it is important to remember that firewire 400 and 800 will generally use the same bus. It best to not have anything else on firewire. I would get a used pro desktop from 2008. More powerful and more options. |
too late now )-; its one of those things. Im going to use this imac for my learning curve which i think is a damm good starting point. if i get to the point where im producing quality music then upgrade i will. I have got some good monitors so thats them out of the way.
I gathered that 400 / 800 could do that so thanks for clarifying it.
But, it sucks that I only have one FW port.
and, are you saying that I can run two FW items from a single bus? |
|
|
| DJ RANN |
| quote: | Originally posted by Energy_3
too late now )-; its one of those things. Im going to use this imac for my learning curve which i think is a damm good starting point. if i get to the point where im producing quality music then upgrade i will. I have got some good monitors so thats them out of the way.
I gathered that 400 / 800 could do that so thanks for clarifying it.
But, it sucks that I only have one FW port.
and, are you saying that I can run two FW items from a single bus? |
No, you can actually run 64 on one bus, but not really a good idea to use high bandwidth intensive devices such as hard drives and audio interfaces on a shared bus. Also, some audio devices don't like to share.
On my Imac, I have both a FW400 and a FW800 and found they don't seem to share the same bus.
Now to be honest you could daisy chain two FW drives together, making the first your data drive and the second one your timemachine drive, and just only do time machine whe you're not using audio, that way the bandwidth will not be affected during crucial times.
Then you could get a USB audio interface.
Personally I wouldn't worry about it though. Get a firewire interface and a couple of USB drives - you should have a load of USB interfaces and you can always fee one up by getting the bluetooth mouse and keyboard combo. |
|
|
| RichieV |
| quote: | Originally posted by Energy_3
too late now )-; its one of those things. Im going to use this imac for my learning curve which i think is a damm good starting point. if i get to the point where im producing quality music then upgrade i will. I have got some good monitors so thats them out of the way.
I gathered that 400 / 800 could do that so thanks for clarifying it.
But, it sucks that I only have one FW port.
and, are you saying that I can run two FW items from a single bus? |
some interfaces allow you to connect a hardrive to it, The reason is that the mac doesn't understand that the sound card should get more priority so some interfaces such as motu take care of this issue for you.
But even if you have a 800 and a 400 firewire port, it might cause issues using both. |
|
|
| palm |
| quote: | Originally posted by DJ RANN
Just ask Palm ;) |
id avoid that as my experiences are infected by the evil personal-computer-crashing god. everything that can go wrong has, and more. also my opinions about stuff isnt based on reality as their are extremely influenced by my mood and feel. im not sure i remember right but i think my firewire problems where related to my homemade computer and not the mac mini? atleast the first time but im unsure about the second time it blew off. i dont remember anymore though, but i dont think ive had any problems after switching to mac (im guessing the god previously mentioned doesnt have the same control over apple, while drunk i dropped an iPod in the hot tub once and it still works, if my old PC even saw water or steam it would shut down in fear). i even run it (Echo Audiofire 4) without power now and drag that plug in and out like a mofo careless idiot. mostly because i want a new interface lol. if you want to see what i wrote about firewire at the time do a search in this section a year ago or something and see how influented it was by my mood lol. think the title was "firewire sucks ass". btw i connect my timemachine firewire maxtor backup into the soundcards second firewire-plug and it shows up in the computer through the soundcard. nice touch imo and i have faith in firewire again haha. timemachine runs alot better now too in OS 10.6. BTW those of u who have split your harddisk to have data on one partition and OS on the other one i dont really see any point at all for this. Keep everything in one partition works great for me. Then i plug in timemachine every week or so (it tells me when and im like OH damn, thank you very much reminding, then smiles about how happy I am with my macbook when getting the external disk for backup). |
|
|
| Energy_3 |
| quote: | Originally posted by palm
id avoid that as my experiences are infected by the evil personal-computer-crashing god. everything that can go wrong has, and more. also my opinions about stuff isnt based on reality as their are extremely influenced by my mood and feel. im not sure i remember right but i think my firewire problems where related to my homemade computer and not the mac mini? atleast the first time but im unsure about the second time it blew off. i dont remember anymore though, but i dont think ive had any problems after switching to mac (im guessing the god previously mentioned doesnt have the same control over apple, while drunk i dropped an iPod in the hot tub once and it still works, if my old PC even saw water or steam it would shut down in fear). i even run it (Echo Audiofire 4) without power now and drag that plug in and out like a mofo careless idiot. mostly because i want a new interface lol. if you want to see what i wrote about firewire at the time do a search in this section a year ago or something and see how influented it was by my mood lol. think the title was "firewire sucks ass". btw i connect my timemachine firewire maxtor backup into the soundcards second firewire-plug and it shows up in the computer through the soundcard. nice touch imo and i have faith in firewire again haha. timemachine runs alot better now too in OS 10.6. BTW those of u who have split your harddisk to have data on one partition and OS on the other one i dont really see any point at all for this. Keep everything in one partition works great for me. Then i plug in timemachine every week or so (it tells me when and im like OH damn, thank you very much reminding, then smiles about how happy I am with my macbook when getting the external disk for backup). |
ha nice Palm thanks for sharing your wisdom...:tongue2 note taken! |
|
|
| DJ RANN |
| quote: | Originally posted by palm
id avoid that as my experiences are infected by the evil personal-computer-crashing god. everything that can go wrong has, and more. also my opinions about stuff isnt based on reality as their are extremely influenced by my mood and feel. im not sure i remember right but i think my firewire problems where related to my homemade computer and not the mac mini? atleast the first time but im unsure about the second time it blew off. i dont remember anymore though, but i dont think ive had any problems after switching to mac (im guessing the god previously mentioned doesnt have the same control over apple, while drunk i dropped an iPod in the hot tub once and it still works, if my old PC even saw water or steam it would shut down in fear). i even run it (Echo Audiofire 4) without power now and drag that plug in and out like a mofo careless idiot. mostly because i want a new interface lol. if you want to see what i wrote about firewire at the time do a search in this section a year ago or something and see how influented it was by my mood lol. think the title was "firewire sucks ass". btw i connect my timemachine firewire maxtor backup into the soundcards second firewire-plug and it shows up in the computer through the soundcard. nice touch imo and i have faith in firewire again haha. timemachine runs alot better now too in OS 10.6. BTW those of u who have split your harddisk to have data on one partition and OS on the other one i dont really see any point at all for this. Keep everything in one partition works great for me. Then i plug in timemachine every week or so (it tells me when and im like OH damn, thank you very much reminding, then smiles about how happy I am with my macbook when getting the external disk for backup). |
As I remember, the problem (at least the latter time) was the fact you were using it without the PSU and trying to bus power it, but there was some weird thing with the echo audiofire 2 (unlike the rest of the range) has to be psu powered, and when you pooped out the FW cable, it fried the unit.
I can't find the thread because you deleted it for some reason(?), which is kind of annoying as there was some good stuff in there :whip:
Thanks fro the info on the daisy chain FW drive through the audiofire
@Energy, you could plug the time machine drive into that (or other FW) interface as I doubt you'll be using them both at the same time.
@palm You really should be careful hotplugging that Audiofire4 - it's wicked, got one myself now - why'd you want to get a different one out of interest? |
|
|
| Alekos |
Here's a list of what I've been using to "maintain" my Mac
- Diskwarrior (Keep an eye on my HD's structures since Disk Utility is too simple for it)
- iDefrag (mostly use it for internal HD once a month over-night)
- Cocktail (mostly for cache cleaning and the odd symbolic link I create)
- Leopard Cache Cleaner (Mostly for the "root' commands I'm too lazy to type into Terminal)
- TinkerTool System (For the man pages since I'm too lazy to manually open them from Terminal)
- CleanMyMac (Mostly for cleaning logs)
- Xslimmer (Removing un-needed languages from updated apps)
- MacPilot (mostly for the hidden tweaks for 3rd party software)
- iPartition (rarely use it, but I like re-partitioning my external HD with it when I working on Leo 911)
If you are looking for an audio interface I'd only use Firewire - I highly recommend the MOTU Ultralite mk3!
Do not buy any Lacie hard-drive- they are just junk! LaCie has always been known to make cheap quality stuff, that's why their prices are so much lower than others. Never Lacie products in my life.
To prevent problems, if you plan to work with large files or use that particular drive to capture audio, don't go for less than FW 400 or 800 port or SATA and avoid any HDD under 7200 rpm.
Build your own and save tons of money ->
*Buy a enclosure - I highly recommend Macally (Macally uses Oxford chips not generic or the Initio chips which have major problems.)
*SATA HD
You will be good to go for a long time!
Hope it helps :) |
|
|
| DJ RANN |
| quote: | Originally posted by palm
lol
u have seriously overcomplicated something thats not complicated at all, whats the point going with mac if ur introducing everything that makes PC suck?. just use timemachine to an external disk every second week. everythings solved. if u get problems after a few years, just reinstall everything, it takes a few hours. If theres some files really important then just burn them out on DVD in addition to the timemachine backup. |
+1.
That list is simply overkill.
Even though i get the feeling Alekos knows OSX rather well, it's completely uneeded.
The performance decrease caused by those things you're trying to fix is so minor that just simply not worth it.
I have put my imac through hell (I mean everything you could imgagine) over 18 months I've had it, and it's only now beginning to get a tiny bit ty with me, and even then it's really not noticeable.
I'm just going to backup, format it and be happy with a full power machine again.
No need for all that windows maintenance bull.
I do agree with the enclosure idea, but last time I looked, it ended up only marginally cheaper than buying a LaCie drive.
As for LaCie - you must be joking Alekos - we've been
through every brand at work and as mentioned we use probably nearly 100 LaCie drives across the whole studio facility and no other brand comes close in terms of reliability or lifespan. PERIOD.
Also, LaCie aren't cheap (do a price comparison with every other brand and you'll find them at the top of the scale. If they are, please show me where so I can buy a few dozen!! |
|
|
| Alekos |
I wasnt joking - someone asked for opinions, hence I shared what I know - I recommend the same things for everyone who's asked, I don't intend to make it tooo overwhelming but if someone wants to keep the computer at its best performance, those tools will make your life easier.
No one has to use them but sooner or later one will realize how handy those tools really are.
DJ RANN - Lacie External are just a piece of junk. |
|
|
| DJ RANN |
| quote: | Originally posted by Alekos
I wasnt joking - someone asked for opinions, hence I shared what I know - I recommend the same things for everyone who's asked, I don't intend to make it tooo overwhelming but if someone wants to keep the computer at its best performance, those tools will make your life easier.
No one has to use them but sooner or later one will realize how handy those tools really are.
DJ RANN - Lacie External are just a piece of junk. |
Well, I beg to differ - we don;t do any of that stuff and we use macs and LaCie drives everyday in a pro environment. |
|
|
|
|
