Need Hardware Advice On Powerbook & External Hd Options

[kevin808]

Hi everyone,

Could you please help me make an informed decision? I am about to throw my PC out a frickin' window in favor of a nice new Mac. Ultimately I would like to get a Powerbook and run Logic Audio, but I am apprehensive about this setup thinking that maybe the Powerbook would be under-powered due to its slower Hard Drive RPM speeds (4,500, or 5,500), or mabey even the g4 processor. (I would like to get at least a 1.25Ghz or above)

I did a little research here and found that people are using external hard drives with their Powerbooks. This coupled with the fact that I have my wife’s 1Ghz iMac, and the new Logic Audio 7 Package uses other networked computers to help process effects plug-ins and other jobs within logic - is making me think a Powerbook is not a bad choice.

My main question is: Are Firewire 800 drives faster at delivering information than the Powerbooks own internal Hard Drive? I'm looking at a 200 GB LaCie FW 800 drive.

And what are some of your experiences with how your Powerbooks perform playing your tracks? Lag issues? No probelms - runs great?

I also just got a Roland MV-8000 Sampler/Workstation which will be synced up to the Powerbook via midi, and will be doing some of the sound rendering and effects.

Any advise or thoughts would be helpful and appreciated. Like everyone I'm just trying to have my cake and eat it too...

Thanks,
Kevin808

[CanadaRAM]

i heared, that the controllers inside the hd can´t transfer more than 250mbit/s, so it´s kind of useless buying fw800 drives by now, because they´re no faster than old 400s.

Well, that simply isn't correct.

www.barefeats.com has done extensive testing and Firewire 800 in real world use is signuificantly faster then Firewire 400 with the same 7200 RPM drive mechanism.

Under ideal conditions, Firewire 800 at a theoretical 100 MB/sec actually approaches the bandwidth of an internal IDE ATA/133 connection -- which is theoretically 133 MB/sec. SATA is 150 MB/sec.

http://www.barefeats.com/fire35.html
Finder duplicate: Hitachi 7200 RPM 3.5" 180GXP
ATA/133 46 MB per second
FireWire 800 built in 46 MB per second
FireWire 400 built in 32 MB per second

The limitations of a drive system are a combination of the drive's rotational and access capabilities, the drive interface, the bridge board (if Firewire) and the host computer's circuitry (Firewire, IDE or SATA)