Powerbook: Firewire Port/external Hard Drive, One Firewire Port--What to do? Options

[Tripper]

Hi,
I use an M-audio Firewire 410 to record on my computer.
I wanted to buy a Maxtor External Hard drive to record audio as I am running out of space on my built-in drive.

I only have one firewire port though--So I can't use the Maxtor and M-Audio at the same time.
Should I use the USB 2.0 cord for the Maxtor or can I get a hub to use both Firewires at the same time.

How important is the firewire vs. USB when it comes to me recording live audio onto an external harddrive?

Please help me out,
Thanks!

Ce message a été modifié par Tripper - dim. 26 sept. 2004, 09:18.

[PristineRec]

USB is designed to write to a drive in chunks, while Firewire was designed write in a constant stream, like the way audio or video is reorded and sent to be written to a drive. Firewire was developed specifically for audio/video applications. When recording audio, you'll get better performance from a firewire drive.

If your powerbook is an Aluminum, then you would have a Firewire 800 port in addition to the Firewire 400 port. If you got a firewire 800 drive, you could use that port for the drive and the Firewire 400 port for the 410 interface.

If you have a Titanium or older Powerbook, then you will have to daisy-chain. As far as I know, all Firewire drives have 2 Firewire ports on them. This allows you to plug the drive into your Powerbook, then plug your interface into the spare port on the Firewire drive. The signal will be passed through the drive into the Powerbook. If the 410 has 2 Firewire ports on it, and I don't know if it does, an even better option would be to plug the 410 into your Powerbook, then plug the Firewire drive into the 410. Some interfaces specify that they should be connected directly to the computer without being daisy-chained through another device.