Seeking advice regarding the purchase of an external hard drive for audio

Hi,
Two questions:
1. I have 2 firewire ports on my iMac. Currently I have an Edirol FA-66 plugged into one of these and the other is free. These ports appear to be identical. Can I plug a firewire 800 hard drive into these or am I limited to firewire 400?
2. Is there any practical difference between a firewire 400 aud a USB 2 hard drive?
Thanks

rainguitar wrote:
I'm assuming, by your response, that there is little point in getting a FW800 drive so I will get a FW400 drive.
That's a toss-up, depending on your future plans and current budget. My iMac is FW400-only, but I just ordered a USB/FW800 external enclosure. A little future-proofing, and the price difference didn't break my budget. OTOH, an essentially identical unit with USB/FW400 costs $30 less, and will have exactly the same performance on a FW400 machine (or on any iMac connected to an FA-66).
USB/FW400 @ $50: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817198004
USB/FW800 @ $80: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817198006
That FA-66 might be just what I'm looking for -- not a pro, just a hobbyist, like yourself. Any recommendations on vendors? I've had good luck in the past with MusiciansFriend -- but I haven't shopped for musical electronics in years.
Looby

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giftshopgurl wrote:
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Ummals wrote:
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I am looking to buy an external hard drive for my macbook pro urgently.
I was intending to purchase a time capsule but am really concerned with the reliability concerns of the time capsules where they stop working after 6 months to 18 months as posted on various forums.
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Can i use the time capsule as just an external hard drive for music or does it have to be used soley as a backe up?? im thinking for music and photos

Can I use the time capsule as just an external hard drive for music or does it have to be used soley as a back up? I'm thinking for music and photos

Nickles96 wrote:
Hello friends.. I have a similar question, in that I would like to purchase the 2TB TC for use as a NAS device, in addition to taking advantage of the Air Port extreme.. Then I could dump my Linksys router.
I was originally looking at a Synology NAS solution, but the TC seems like it can meet my needs.
I have a Synology NAS as well as the Time Capsule. If you look at the 3.2 beta program, the Synology actually attempts to replicate TC functionality in that you can use it with Time Machine on your Mac.
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Nickles96 wrote:
In addition to the obvious feature of the backup, can I indeed also use the TC as a NAS drive to access from remote locations (example from the office)?
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I am looking to buy an external hard drive for my macbook pro urgently.
I was intending to purchase a time capsule but am really concerned with the reliability concerns of the time capsules where they stop working after 6 months to 18 months as posted on various forums.
I was considering purchasing a western digital external hard drive but they also receive a lot of negative feedback.
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Opinions vary and people have different experiences ...
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Hello,
I have a Macbook Pro, with Itunes. I already know how to set-up HOME SHARING with the APPLE TV that allows me to view my Itunes library from my TV.
But on my laptop, with the FRONT ROW feature, I set-up a ALIAS in the movie folder on my computer so that the files from my external hard drive were viewable from the movies folder in FRONT ROW. This great feature now allows me to view my content on my laptop (on Itunes) and the movies on my external hard drive, all on FRONT ROW on the Macbook Pro.
When I opened and set-up the Apple TV (Gen 2), I was surprised that it isn't like FRONT ROW. Instead, it only allows the content on my Itunes to be viewed.
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Another question I have is what is the USB port on the back of the APPLE TV for? Can it be used for the external hard drive or no?
Basically, I want to watch all the movies from my external hard drive on my TV.
Can I set this up to happen and how?
If not, what should I do to be able to watch the movies from my computer/external hard drive on my TV?
*Please share as much information as you all can because I need to view all my options (if any) in this situation and I value all the advice....THANK YOU SOOO MUCH!*
EQUIPMENT:
Laptop: MACBOOK PRO 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 4GB 1067 MHZ DDR3 MAC OS X 10.6.6
Apple TV: Gen 2
TV: Vizio 37" HDTV HMDI LCD
External Hard Drive: Western Digital MY BOOK (USB 2.0 + Firewire)

I followed exactly what you advised, and it all worked. I did convert the files first that were .AVI ---> .MP4 (the audio and video came out beautifully when viewed). I organized my files around a bit, and then I went into Itunes---> Preferences---> Advanced---> Changed where I want to grab my movies from. It keep all my previous music, tv, movies, podcasts files that I had in ITunes, and just "added" the new content without disrupting anything in my Itunes at all. I LOVED IT...so simple in the end.
The files did take a while to convert, but I only had to do the ones that I had that were labeled ".AVI". The program, HAND BRAKE, allowed me to set up a "batch" and I had them converting during the afternoon and into the evening.
All in all....THANK YOU/___sbsstatic___/migration-images/migration-img-not-avail.png/___sbsstatic__ _/migration-images/migration-img-not-avail.png/___sbsstatic___/migration-images/ migration-img-not-avail.png/___sbsstatic___/migration-images/migration-img-not-a vail.png/___sbsstatic___/migration-images/migration-img-not-avail.png/___sbsstat ic___/migration-images/migration-img-not-avail.png/___sbsstatic___/migration-ima ges/migration-img-not-avail.png
Since whenever I open my Itunes, all the movies display well, and so my APPLE TV can now view all my "content" in Itunes. I thought I was going to have to return that APPLE TV since I couldn't figure a way around it, and all in all, it wasn't all that bad of a process to convert and then change file location in preferences.
MANY THANKS and HAVE A GREAT WEEK

I accidentally deleted my media files from iTunes and Trash when I was trying to move the files to an external hard drive. Is there a way to restore the media files from a Time Machine backup or from iTunes Match? What are the steps to do this?

I accidentally deleted my media files from iTunes and Trash when I was trying to move the files to an external hard drive. Is there a way to restore the media files from a Time Machine backup or from iTunes Match? What are the steps to do this?

If you have been backing up on Timemachine.
All you need to do is enter time machine... Then the rest is obvious.
Find the iTunes folder and hit 'Restor'.
If not the only way to get all your iTunes music back is to enter iTunes Store.
On the right hand side you should see 'Purchased'.
Click 'purchased' and there you have it.

Is there a way we can change the path of the songs to an external hard drive when we move the songs over? also, is there a way to delete multiple songs easily?

is there a way we can change the path of the songs to an external hard drive when we move the songs over? also, is there a way to delete multiple songs easily?
I recently moved my songs over for hard drive space. Really don't want to have to go back through each album, etc... to get that to work.
Last time I tried making a "library" that didn't work either.
On the topic of deleting multiple songs that are the same, is there an easier way then to select each one?
Seems to me apple isn't user friendly

Welcome to the world of digital media. Your can't really transfer it. I don't know what the rules are about transferring to your spouse but I do know that in some cases when you die, your heirs cannot inherit your digital media. This is why there is still an advantage to buying the CD since the usage rights belong to whomever holds the physical media.
A possible workaround is to burn the songs to a music CD with yout account (tracks only without song titles) and then having your wife upload it as a regular music CD onto her account. It's been a while since i've done this so I'm not sure if it would work now.
Please note that I'm not advocating copyright and/or TOS violations. I'm only suggesting ways to copy music for your own personal use which has traditonally been permitted. I only did this because I wanted to convert iTunes songs to mp3 files so I could burn them onto a data CD for use in my car. It would make sense that since married couples are a joint entity, this would be personal use.
Also, I'm not a lawyer so don't take this as legal advice.

Seeking advice regarding the purchase of an external hard drive for audio

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