External drive question: 5400 vs 7200

My question is: is there much of a diff between a 7200 and 5400 rpm drive for these apps?

Well, about 1800 rpm ... 🙂

Seriously: If you want to use the drive not only for backup purposes and for iTunes (which only streams 1 stereo audio file at a time), but actually run GB projects with a lot of tracks from it, I would strongly recommend the faster drive. The higher speed is noticable.

If you plan to do a lot of audio recording, then yes, there is a big difference, get a faster drive.

And if you search around, drives can be had at very good prices.

I like to "Roll my own", which can definitely save some money, but let me see what's floating around today...

I don't see any FW800 enclosures today, nor do I think I've ever seen a 7200RPM drive in an enclosure that was bus powered (if you have a link, please post it, I'd like to see), but Staples is having a pretty awesome looking sale for the next few days.

250GB for $80 A/R

http://www.staples.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/StaplesCategoryDisplay?PID=5521 79&ddkey=StaplesBeFree&jspStoreDir=Staples&catalogId=10051&interceptedCatEntryId =154649&identifier=BI9826&SID=260321-1-0-ARTICLE-0&AID=10422268&storeId=10001&dd key=StaplesProductDisplay

For the record my FW400 enclosures work flawlessly (I think there's around 8), and the one I dedicated to GB has had GB projects with over 50 tracks on it (YMMV, everyone else's does)

~~HangTime V1.9.9.9.7 [Will Compute for Food] B-)>

i just bought a Western Digital MyBook- the lower version- 250GB, 7200RPM, USB 2 (NOT FireWire), for under $85.00 from NewEgg. They also carry the versions that have FireWire. Might want to check them out. I'm just going to be using mine for backup.

Good Luck!

Mike

Check out OWC great prices.

And the only bus powered drives use laptop drives. I have had problems with these when using them with a laptop.

What kind of problems did you have? I have a pocket sized, bus powered FireWire drive that I use exclusively on an old iBook, works great (5400, though. I used a full sized, externally powered, 7200 drive for GB)

It works just fine when I transfer files but if I use it for garageband or imovie for a long time sometimes it will unmount and I get one of those errors that say something about not disconnecting.

I guess it's a power problem because it won't happen if I use a separate power supply.

Oh yea, it's usb 2.0 drive, that may have a bearing on it.