cracks and Pops, external HD, buffers and firewire Options

[mortalengines]

This is getting off the main topic a little but now that you mention it. I have been running loops off of a 7200 RPM external HD (Oxford chipset) enclosure & really don't notice ANY change in my CPU load (still pretty high) & also have been known to get "pops & clicks" in my audio (doesn't happen when running from my system drive, but I did increase my sample & plug in buffer rate & it did seem to improve things somewhat). Am I doing something wrong? The drive enclosure is from Tiger Direct & my Mac automatically recognized it as an "Oxford" drive. I have it running into my FW800 port on my 1.5GHZ G4 Powerbook via a 400 to 800 adapter cable. I am also using a Mackie Onyx FW card & mixer on my FW 400 port. Any suggestions?

[mortalengines]

Okay... tried all of the suggestions....increased buffer size, switching cords, freezing ALL tracks (using Ableton Live), repaired disc permissions on the mac & the external HD & I still get the occasional pop/glitch. I am all out of ideas at this point. Ableton's CPU meter (for 12 lousy tracks) reads 30-50 percent, so it may be a CPU issue, I am guessing. I may think about breaking out my MBOX for mixdown (I understand Pro Tools is a little more CPU efficient) but will be giving up quite a bit of flexabilty in the process. The only thing I haven't done is play tracks from RAM - maybe this will help. Am open to any other suggestions. I bought PT a while ago & kind of put it to the side as I was wading thru Ableton's learning curve. I was hoping to avoid another learning curve until after I had put out a finished product (made with Ableton) to push while playing out.