I am about to massivley upgrade to a protools rack digi002 system and have a question about what kind of external drive I should buy. I am going to buy a new g5 dual processor mac. I am also craving an Ipod for selfish reasons. Can I kill two birds with one stone? Has anyone used a 30gig or 60 gog ipod as there audio hard drive with any success? Is there a better solution? Andy help is appreciated.

Andy

This is a VERY VERY bad idea!

iPods drive are made to be used sparingly with accesses once in a while (in fact, the system loads a few minutes of music each time it spins the drive, it save batteries. With such a special use in mind, it's optimized to work that way, if you try to use it a a drive for you audio files you'll find first it's a slow drive, not suitable, it'll wear off fast, it'll die.

Invest in a second SATA drive for your G5 instead, it'll be a much better idea and they are cheap.

Keep your iPod for your mp3s and don't set the volume too high if you want to hear the music you'll make with your G5

Thanks for the quick reply. Perhaps you could give me some advice on my overall upgrade which I have posted in the "Studio Hardware" section.

Thanks again,

Andy

New, enormous SATA hard drives cost less than an iPod Shuffle and are designed for the task you specify - it's a no-brainer.

I just found out that when you buy a Digi 002 through musicians friend they include a Fantom Titanium IEEE 1394 FireWire 80GB Hard Drive. Is this an up to snuff external drive for working with protools?

Andy