On 1 Jun 2006, at 02:23, Aviad wrote: > Hi. > > I'm trying to decide between the MacBook and MacBook Pro. My > biggest issue is with the > FireWire bus. I'll be using a Metric Halo 2882 +dsp on the FireWire > bus so my only options for > external drive on the MacBook would be if it's daisy-chained to the > sound card or connected > through USB 2.0. I understand that the USB 2.0 is not implemented > well enough on Macs (it is > slower than FW400 on my PowerBook) and I'm wondering whether the > FireWire bus won't be > "too busy" with the Metric Halo box connected to it directly, to > perform well in situations > where the external hard drive is working "hard". Can anybody shed > more light on this? > > Also, how important are the graphics card and video memory, in > which the MB Pro is > superiour, to someone who will only use his machine for Logic Pro > and other audio-only > applications? > > ::: ::: ::: > Thanks, > Aviad Hi Aviad, This has recently been discussed on the MH forum (mobileio@music.vt.edu) BJ (one of the geezers from MH, full post at end) says that the USB2 bus on the MacBooks works quite well in connection with MH Hardware. If you need high disk usage then its probably advisable to get the MB pro, due to its ExpressCard 3/4 slot. With the advent of SATA and the ExpressCard slot it would seem prudent to look at an SATA setup as these are significantly faster (have much higher throughput) than FW systems. Essentially for FW you have a PATA Drive (parallel ATA) connected to a PATA->FW 'converter' which then connects to a FW bus on the mac, which in turn connects to the PCI architecture. With SATA, the connector on the back of the external box is the connector on the back of the drive itself, which will connect to an SATA ExpressCard directly which sits on the PCI bus. Which means the throughput is limited only by the drive itself (faster drive, faster throughput) and not by the speed of the FW bus (which is what limits all but the slowest external FW drives). The only thing that still aces SATA is SCSI, but with the cost of SCSI drives and the increasing speed of SATA (10,000 rpm drives are readily available) its scarcely worth it anymore. Hope this helps, Mike PS admin, sorry for the long quote, but I think its pertinent Post from MH forum; > Hi, > > So, as I said, our understanding of this question has evolved over > time. > > Basically, it is not a problem to use a Firewire drive on the same > bus with > one or two MIOs (or even three), but there are caveats. > > One is that it is very important that any other devices on the > firewire bus > do not cause random bus resets. Generally, this is not an issue, > but there > are some drives that have caused problems in the past. Also bad > cables can > cause problems. > > The second is that some apps are more sensitive to variations in > timing than > others (Logic is particularly sensitive to this). It turns out that > earlier > versions of MIO Console would interact with disk accesses in a way > that > Metering activity would distort the timing periodically and this > would cause > problems for Logic. We have since identified this issue and > resolved it. > > If the bus is heavily loaded with hard-disk activity, this could cause > timing distortions that will make Logic unhappy. However, this will > not > happen with other apps (including the record panel). It also will > not happen > with normal levels of disk activity (like playing 24 tracks or > something > like that). > > Now, that all being said, in a perfect world your best bet is to > have the > disk on a separate bus from the MIO(s). Practically this means: > > 1) Have a slot and use a Firewire card or SATA card to add an > additional bus > for either the MIOs or the Hard Drive > > 2) If you don't have a slot, use the internal drive for audio. > This is OK, > but often you find that System and VM accesses to the drive can > interfere > with audio access to the drive. > > 3) Utilize a different bus for the drive. For desktop machines this > means a > second internal drive with SATA. For laptops or iMacs, it means use > a USB-2 > drive on the USB bus. This is actually a very good solution and > applies to > the MB and MBP. > > 4) If you are going to utilize a FireWire drive on the same bus as the > MIO(s) and the computer supports FW800, it is definitely better to > use a > FW800 drive on the FW800 port -- even though it is the same bus. > > To put the foregoing into context, we routinely record 24 channels > @ 96k to > a FW800 drive on one FW bus on the Al17". > > I don't foresee any problems with the MB, and if you do run into any > difficulties, they should be easily circumvented with the use of a > USB-2 > drive for audio. > > Best regards, > > B.J. Buchalter ----------------------------------------------------------------- LUG Group Buy for Serato's Pitch n' Time LE until June 14th! See http://logic-users.org/groupbuy/serato for full details