External hard drive help

[BruceBrown]

I'm shopping for a new Hard Drive to record to. I'm using Pro Tools LE version 8 and an iMac.
I record in the same room with my computer and drives, so it's important that it be very quiet.
Are some drives better than others for recording? Remember. Quiet please.
Any help is welcome.
Thanks
Bruce

[mazz]

I would consider a solid state drive. You can get a 60 g drive for about 100 bucks. No moving parts means no noise. Just back up regularly and archive older projects to keep space open on the drive. You can use "regular" drives for that since you only need to turn them on when backing up..

Mac Sales has drive kits to convert a bare drive to an external. SSD is the wave of the future.

[mojobone]

If you're looking to conventional dives or for a RAID solution, consider Glyph drives; they're rugged, reasonably quiet, and tend to hold up better than vanilla drives that aren't spec'ed for A/V.

[eeoo]

The last hard drive I bought and am currently using with great satisfaction is from these guys:

http://www.pacificproaudio.com/drives.asp

Worth a look if you're going with external/firewire.

eo

[kitchensinkmusic]

Bruce I have a Glyph GT050q terrabyte drive. I partitioned it in half - put my sample libraries on one side and record to the other side. 3 years old...no issues. not cheap tho'
Best,

[andygabrys]

If you want to make sure you don't lose your data you need a mirror RAID setup. a single drive can go down at any time.

I think Mazz is on point with the SSD for quietness.

Bruce, depending on the age of your iMac, you might be able to get a modification done via Macsales.com that adds more internal drives (SATA or SSD) and memory:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/turnkey/iMac

[andygabrys]

Bruce I have a Glyph GT050q terrabyte drive. I partitioned it in half - put my sample libraries on one side and record to the other side. 3 years old...no issues. not cheap tho'
Best,

do you guys know if the actual drives that are spec'd in these Glyph enclosures are better than the run of the mill?

I had looked at some a while back that were just using the same Seagate drives that I have bought at Macsales. Are they using more robust drives? like Enterprise class or whatever they call it?

[mojobone]

Bruce I have a Glyph GT050q terrabyte drive. I partitioned it in half - put my sample libraries on one side and record to the other side. 3 years old...no issues. not cheap tho'
Best,

do you guys know if the actual drives that are spec'd in these Glyph enclosures are better than the run of the mill?

I had looked at some a while back that were just using the same Seagate drives that I have bought at Macsales. Are they using more robust drives? like Enterprise class or whatever they call it?

Don't know if they even make the drives themselves; it's more about the roadability/gigworthiness of the enclosures, the warranty, the disc-management software, return policy, etc.

[manninghollow]

Hey Bruce I just got anther Glyph, and I;m happy with them. They are somewhat noisy but they are reliable.Peace Brother

[shanegrla]

Bruce,
I've got pretty much the same setup as you (ProTools, iMac) and I've got 3 externals: a Glyph GT050Q 500gb (about 4 years old, still running great) and 2 G Drives (2 TB each) that are about 2 years old, and that setup has worked out pretty well for me. With all 3 of them on, I've found them surprisingly quiet. Yes, I can hear them a little, but it hasn't been bad enough for me to really consider a problem.

For those recommending the solid state drives, I'm not sure that ProTools is qualified for those yet. Or at least for the version he's on. I know there were some discussions about that awhile back on the ProTools forums and I remember some people saying that. Though I'm not an expert on the area.

Shane