additional hard drive on IMac

[linseed]

I just bought the East West Complete Composer's edition which is a software bundle on a high performance terabyte drive (it came in a Western SATA). I am running on an iMAC. How should I be using this drive ? Please help.

[hughvane]

Unless you want to exchange (swap out) the existing drive in the iMac for the WD drive with the Composer software on it, then an external firewire external enclosure is probably the best idea. Does your iMac have Firewire 800?

[harryb2448]

Hope the drive was formatted Mac OS Extended (Journalled).

[linseed]

hughvane - I do not want to exchange the HD, the OS and the Cubase will be in the internal HD, just the sounds would be in this Western Digital HD. Would Firewire 800 be faster than USB? Could you please tell me the specifications of what I have to buy? Do I need an additional external power source for the HD?

harryb2448 - confused... formatted Mac OS Extended - I have no idea. How can I tell? What does that mean?

Thank you both =)

[linseed]

Yikes!! Forgot to say thay I do have Firewire 800. It is a MC808E, Intel core i3 / 3.2 Ghz, 500GB, 2GB RAM. Would Firewire 800 be extremely slow compared to the internal HD?

[MacDude121]

Yikes!! Forgot to say thay I do have Firewire 800. It is a MC808E, Intel core i3 / 3.2 Ghz, 500GB, 2GB RAM. Would Firewire 800 be extremely slow compared to the internal HD?

It might not be quite as fast as the internal HD, but I seriously doubt it will be noticeable. Firewire 800 definitely isn't categorized as "extremely slow" by any standards.

[hughvane]

Would Firewire 800 be faster than USB? Could you please tell me the specifications of what I have to buy? Do I need an additional external power source for the HD?

harryb2448 - confused... formatted Mac OS Extended - I have no idea. How can I tell? What does that mean?

Not wishing to butt in on Harry's post, but 'Extended' means formatted so that you can boot (start) your iMac from it if it has a MacOS.

Because you don't want to swap the drives, then a firewire enclosure (e/e) is the way to go. There are several brands, but the best place to start looking is at OWC Performance Upgrades; FireWire USB SATA Storage; Memory, more at OWC (I'm on very slow dialup at present, otherwise I'd provide a more direct link, but check External Storage).

One thing you should look for is firewire (or firewire/usb combo) e/e's with an Oxford chipset. OWC nearly always tells you if an e/e has Oxford. If it doesn't say so, it's unlikely to be so. Oxford is very reliable, and works well with the Mac hardware. Look carefully at diagrams of enclosures to see that they have a FW800 port. Some have both FW 800 and 400 ports, but 800 is backwards compatible with 400 anyway.

Yes, you should use an externally powered enclosure, USB power from your iMac is inadequate.

As MacDude says, Firewire 800 is fast - you'll be satisfied with its performance. Forget USB, except for plain data transfer.

[linseed]

Thanks a lot for your help!!!