SwingDJs

Between work stuff and 40Gb of music my 80Gb Powerbook drive is about full, so I'm looking to offload my deejaying collection to an external drive and just keep some toolin' around music on my main drive.

The recent iTunes release has support for multiple libraries. Has anyone tried this with an external drive with success?

Also, I'm looking for recommendations of reliable external drives. Preferable powered off the bus, if possible. Hoping to find something at least 80Gb.

Or, is it just a bad idea to deejay off an external drive. Anyone doing it with success?

I recommend the firelite drives. You can get them at Best Buy or pretty much anywhere they sell externals.

I'm not sure what the external libraries feature does, but I have been using external drives for a while. I'm not sure which is the best external drive but the SmartDisk drives i have used seem decent. They are bus powered and seem pretty durable. I think they go up to at least 80GB. i would recommend using firewire drives since they seem to have less conflicts. I use the group tag to label the drive location of all my music files. You might want to plug in the drives before loading itunes to reduce the likelihood that the files will be labeled missing.

I haven't seen as many bus-powered firewire drives as usb. It'll be easier to find a usb one, and I've *never* had a conflict with mine, so I'm not sure what that's about. USB is more available than Firewire on computers too...

So ya, I recommend USB. The Smardisk drives are basically the same as the Firelite. I haven't seen larger than 80GB for those yet... the largest bus powered drive i've seen is 120. That's at retail shops. You could also make your own... they sell the bus powered cases, and you can by any size 2.5" drive you can find for it.

GemZombie wrote:I haven't seen as many bus-powered firewire drives as usb. It'll be easier to find a usb one, and I've *never* had a conflict with mine, so I'm not sure what that's about. USB is more available than Firewire on computers too...

So ya, I recommend USB. The Smardisk drives are basically the same as the Firelite. I haven't seen larger than 80GB for those yet... the largest bus powered drive i've seen is 120. That's at retail shops. You could also make your own... they sell the bus powered cases, and you can by any size 2.5" drive you can find for it.

LaCie makes a few dual (and even triple!*) input hard drives, and is a name brand you can trust.
I know of some other drives around that have like 160GB... largest i've seen is 250GB, but that's way out of my price range.

*Note, not many people know about firewire 800, so don't really bother asking around in best buy.

GemZombie wrote:I haven't seen as many bus-powered firewire drives as usb. It'll be easier to find a usb one, and I've *never* had a conflict with mine, so I'm not sure what that's about. USB is more available than Firewire on computers too...

So ya, I recommend USB. The Smardisk drives are basically the same as the Firelite. I haven't seen larger than 80GB for those yet... the largest bus powered drive i've seen is 120. That's at retail shops. You could also make your own... they sell the bus powered cases, and you can by any size 2.5" drive you can find for it.

Not conflict with iTunes but with some DJ software packages. For example, I can't drag and drop from itunes to DJ-1800 if the song is on a usb drive. Also there seems to be better integration into Tracktor DJ if the songs are on a firewire drive. I have one of those Firelite USB 80GB and like it, but would like to get a FW one too. But it could just be a format issue. The FW are mac formatted and the USB is PC formatted. Also it might be a Mac thing too.

CafeSavoy wrote:

GemZombie wrote:I haven't seen as many bus-powered firewire drives as usb. It'll be easier to find a usb one, and I've *never* had a conflict with mine, so I'm not sure what that's about. USB is more available than Firewire on computers too...

Not conflict with iTunes but with some DJ software packages. For example, I can't drag and drop from itunes to DJ-1800 if the song is on a usb drive. Also there seems to be better integration into Tracktor DJ if the songs are on a firewire drive. I have one of those Firelite USB 80GB and like it, but would like to get a FW one too. But it could just be a format issue. The FW are mac formatted and the USB is PC formatted. Also it might be a Mac thing too.

Since I'm using a Mac I might try to go for Firewire 800 if I can find one, since I'm using a USB soundcard and better not to clog up the bus. Also, is there a reason you can't reformat the USB drive for mac?

Rayned, I'm also using DJ-1800. Do you know why you can't drop files from the external drive? Is it an issue with iTunes (and are you running iTunes 7) or DJ-1800?

Jake wrote:
Since I'm using a Mac I might try to go for Firewire 800 if I can find one, since I'm using a USB soundcard and better not to clog up the bus. Also, is there a reason you can't reformat the USB drive for mac?

Rayned, I'm also using DJ-1800. Do you know why you can't drop files from the external drive? Is it an issue with iTunes (and are you running iTunes 7) or DJ-1800?

I could reformat the USB but then my PC wouldn't be able to read it. I can drag from an external drive, I just can't drag from my USB drive. It might be an individual thing but can't tell since i only have one usb drive. And it might work if I reformatted the drive.