What external hard drive for recording?

Michael Haselman · Post by **Michael Haselman** » 26 Mar 2008 6:41 am

I'm about to start doing some recording in earnest. I'd like about an 80GB external drive dedicated to recording. I went on E-bay and was overwhelmed. What do I need to make sure it has/needs to do? I know it's a USB connection.

John Macy · Post by **John Macy** » 26 Mar 2008 6:54 am

We use the drives put together by Pacific Pro Audio at our studios...

http://www.pacificproaudio.com/

They use Seagate drives (the best) in a Firewire/USB combo case that uses the correct chip set for fastest audio transfers. The also run very cool with no fan noise, and priced very fairly. I have a dozen of them and have had zero problems...

Michael Haselman · Post by **Michael Haselman** » 26 Mar 2008 7:02 am

Thanks, John. I guess I need to know what not to buy also. This is not going to be used for anything except my personal recordings, so I don't need state of the art stuff. I just saw so many different kinds on Ebay with different prices, that I don't want to get something then find out later it won't work for my application. Standard PC, with USB.

Chris Tarrow · Post by **Chris Tarrow** » 26 Mar 2008 9:02 am

+1 for the Pacific Pro Audio Drives, they are great.

Be aware you won't be able to record and play back over USB, are you sure your machine doesn't have a firewire port?

Your other alternative is to install a second internal hard drive that's dedicated to recording, if you're relatively handy it's very easy and cheaper than an external drive.

Michael Haselman · Post by **Michael Haselman** » 26 Mar 2008 9:06 am

Thanks for that info, Chris. I don't believe I have a firewire port, actually don't know what it would look like. Standard Dell PC. The internal drive sounds interesting. I'm sure I could install it, if I have room.

Chris Tarrow · Post by **Chris Tarrow** » 26 Mar 2008 9:22 am

Look for this symbol:

But the internal drive may be the cheaper option, and if you can tune a steel, installing a hard drive should be no problem.

John Macy · Post by **John Macy** » 26 Mar 2008 9:27 am

Ditto for what Chris said--be sure it's a 7200RPM drive and make sure it's a Seagate

...I buy a lot of internal drives from www.newegg.com...

Justin Douglas · Post by **Justin Douglas** » 24 Apr 2008 7:40 am

i'm a professional freelance audio engineer by day (and a steel playing super-villain by night). brand-wise, LaCie is the only thing i'll buy in external hard-drive land as it's the only brand that after 100's of albums and films has never faulted on myself of any of my colleagues.

firewire is great, but USB 2.0 is terrific as well. dell's online store is selling external drives for pretty cheap these days. it astounds me how cheap disc space has gotten in the last 5 years!

cheers and good luck!