Using external drive for Logic recording

Apologies if this has been answered in previous threads, but I'm after a bit of info on using an external drive for multitrack recording.

I'm in the process of setting up a studio for my band. Currently using my 1.83 macbook (will have 2 gig of ram once I'm up and running) with Logic Express installed.

Am also going to be purchasing a multichannel, firewire mixer such as the Alesis MultiMix 16

Straight away I'm sure that the laptops 60 gig drive isn't going to be enough, so I'm looking at getting a 200+ gig external drive. My questions are:

1. Will an external drive be fast enough at all, to cope with multichannel recordings?

2. Will a USB drive suffice, or should I be looking at firewire interface only? In which case will I be able to get an additional firewire hub, since the macbooks existing sole firewire port will be used up by the mixer/interface?

3. Would formatting the drive to NTFS result in performance issues/slowdown? Ideally I'd like the drive to be readable by XP so all band members can access and use it on their PC systems, however if this is not advisable I would format the drive to Mac format.

Appreciate any advice! :spook:

jleef,
first off, looks like a decent system you are setting up here. i have a 1.83 macbook and a 1.83 imac i run both logic express and pro tools on, with 1 gig of ram in each, and have no problems, even after quite a few plug ins are added. i am using a 200 gig Maxtor USB 2.0 external HD with no problems in file transfer etc. Becaues you are doing this on a macbook, and there is only one firewire hub, i would suggest just going to a USB HD. that firewire port is gonna be a hassle, and might give you transfer issues. My external is written in NTFS so i can access it on a PC, so you should have no issues there. that Alesis interface looks pretty sweet. id be intreasted to see what kind of pres it has built in, or if youre gonna need to go out and buy some. once you get something recorded on this system id be intreasted in hearing it. hope i helped you out, and good luck!

If the external is NTFS, you won't be able to access it with OS X, so forget recording directly using logic to it.

You'd have to stick to FAT32 to be compatible with both OS's.

Thanks for the info peeps
Just splashed out on a full set of drum mics, plus a couple of SM57s for micing up the guitar cabs. Hopefully won't be too long until we get the mixing desk, will let you know how things go!