A sneaky solution for my Lenovo FW issues?

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LJB
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2011/06/06 11:28:03 (permalink)

A sneaky solution for my Lenovo FW issues?

I'd like to ask the experts: 

I have had an ongoing saga with my Yamaha i88x FW units and my Lenovo SL500 laptop. The FW slot is unreliable (no TI chip) and the PCMCIA slot is damaged. Fixing it might be a waste of money as it does not guarantee I can disable the internal FW set and eliminate the latency and dropout issues.

So, if I were to dump the Yamaha's (hate to, but I am willing) get a really decent USB audio unit (RME UFX, actually) - could I replace the internal DVD ROM with a second HDD for audio, or will that not solve the bandwidth issues? We're talking 24+ track recordings here. Or is the SL500 dual USB bus and I can run the RME and an external HDD side-by-side?
Your help would be much appreciated!

Best,

Ludwig


Ludwig Bouwer, One Big Room Studios.
--------------------
Cakewalk with all the trimmings / Win 10Pro 64 / Intel i7-7700 / Asus Prime Z270k / 16GB DDR4 / RME HDSP9652 / RME UFX / Black Lion Audio ADA8000 / ART MPA & ART Pro Channel / Focusrite Voicemaster Pro / Aphex 107

Check out my work at www.onebigroom.co.za
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    Beagle
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    Re:A sneaky solution for my Lenovo FW issues? 2011/06/06 11:50:54 (permalink)
    FWIW, I saw a post by Jim Roseberry (whom I respect his advice highly) state that a 7200rpm external USB 2 hard drive would give better/faster results as an audio drive than trying to use a laptop 2.5" internal hard drive (he may have said 5400rpm only, but I don't remember for certain).

    but, no, you can't replace the DVD ROM drive with a hard drive in a laptop.  not to my knowledge anyway, they're not the same physical format.  there are no 2.5" hard drives in a "carrier case" shaped like the DVD drive that I'm aware of anyway.

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    Jim Roseberry
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    Re:A sneaky solution for my Lenovo FW issues? 2011/06/06 12:00:34 (permalink)
    If you had eSATA, that would be the best HD option for speed/bandwidth.
    Second option would be an express-card to eSATA controller (but the express-card controller is damaged).
    Third option would be to use the onboard Firewire to connect an external "Audio" HD.
    Fourth option would be using USB 2.0 to connect an external "Audio" HD.
     
    If you have a Firewire external HD, I'd give that a whirl.
     
    If you connect to a well configured machine, the Fireface UFX, Fireface UC, and Babyface all perform great.
    I run a Babyface at the smallest 48-sample ASIO buffer size (when playing soft-synths live).

    Best Regards,

    Jim Roseberry
    jim@studiocat.com
    www.studiocat.com
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    Jim Roseberry
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    Re:A sneaky solution for my Lenovo FW issues? 2011/06/06 12:05:25 (permalink)
    FWIW, I saw a post by Jim Roseberry (whom I respect his advice highly) state that a 7200rpm external USB 2 hard drive would give better/faster results as an audio drive than trying to use a laptop 2.5" internal hard drive (he may have said 5400rpm only, but I don't remember for certain).

     
    FWIW, We were talking about USB 3.0 external HDs.  
    With a fast 7200RPM HD in a USB 3.0 enclosure, you can achieve well over 100MB/Sec sustained.
    That's faster than any conventional 2.5" HD.
    USB 2.0 would probably top up in the high 30s MB/Sec.
     

    Best Regards,

    Jim Roseberry
    jim@studiocat.com
    www.studiocat.com
    #4
    LJB
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    Re:A sneaky solution for my Lenovo FW issues? 2011/06/06 12:23:58 (permalink)
    Jim, thanks for the info!

    Let me understand though - the internal FW card is not good enough to run the audio interfaces on - it drops out. Will the same issue not happen if I run a FW HD for audio and a USB audio device? I don't have an eSata on the Lenovo.
    Otherwise,  is there enough bandwidth to run both HD and RME on the USB bus (2.0)? How can I check if the laptop has a dual usb bus (I believe that's the term)?


    Aprreciated!

    Ludwig Bouwer, One Big Room Studios.
    --------------------
    Cakewalk     with all the trimmings / Win 10Pro 64 / Intel i7-7700 / Asus Prime Z270k / 16GB DDR4 / RME HDSP9652 / RME UFX / Black Lion Audio ADA8000 / ART MPA & ART Pro Channel / Focusrite Voicemaster Pro / Aphex 107

    Check out my work at www.onebigroom.co.za
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    Beagle
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    Re:A sneaky solution for my Lenovo FW issues? 2011/06/06 14:49:23 (permalink)
    Jim Roseberry



    FWIW, I saw a post by Jim Roseberry (whom I respect his advice highly) state that a 7200rpm external USB 2 hard drive would give better/faster results as an audio drive than trying to use a laptop 2.5" internal hard drive (he may have said 5400rpm only, but I don't remember for certain).

     
    FWIW, We were talking about USB 3.0 external HDs.  
    With a fast 7200RPM HD in a USB 3.0 enclosure, you can achieve well over 100MB/Sec sustained.
    That's faster than any conventional 2.5" HD.
    USB 2.0 would probably top up in the high 30s MB/Sec.
     

    ah - thanks Jim - didn't mean to misquote you!
     

    http://soundcloud.com/beaglesound/sets/featured-songs-1
    i7, 16G DDR3, Win10x64, MOTU Ultralite Hybrid MK3
    Yamaha MOXF6, Hammond XK3c, other stuff.
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