I'm running my samples off a 7200 rpm external hard drive. If I go longer than a minute or two without accessing the samples, it's like the drive goes to sleep or something and I have to wait for it to start spinning again. Is there anyway to stop it from doing that?

Ralph - I'm not certain this will solve your problem, but try going into System Preferences (for your Mac), then select [b]Energy Saver[/b] and de-select the checkbox that says ";put hard disk(s) to sleep when possible.";

It wasn't on to begin with, oh well:)
It's a Maxtor drive, should I step up to a better brand?

I would guess that's a ";feature"; of the drive, it saves energy that way. Check Maxtor's site or the owner's manual, see if there's a way to disable it. What's the drive model?

How's that perform, anyway?  Just curious.

I ran into this problem long ago.  The energy settings in OS X are only for internal drives.  Here are two ways to do it:

";CHUD"; tools
http://lowendmac.com/musings/06/0217.html

";Cron"; job
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20011024160033481

Also- I've mentioned this several times on this forum: putting a fast drive in an external enclosure limits the speed of the drive.  Firewire and USB 2.0 are limited to 400/480 mbits/sec.  This ends up being around 40 MB/sec in the real world.  My bargain Dell with 5,400rpm seagate HD gets about 48-50 MB/sec sustained with a burst speed of 120 MB/sec.  So you can see that buying a fast drive (even a 10,000 Raptor) in an external case is usually going to be slower than the internal drive of a laptop, and definitely slower than a desktop.  There is a new spec out now, eSATA I and II, which is on higher-end PCs and hopefully Macs will have it soon.  It's basically an external SATA port that is the same is the new internal HDs- 1,500 or 3,000 mbit/sec.  I got a eSATA/USB 2.0 case from Newegg.com for $30 and put a $99 500GB drive in it and it's [i]extremely[/i] fast compared to my firewire drive.

[quote author=Cadet311 link=topic=1973.msg9930#msg9930 date=1189134251]
How's that perform, anyway?�� Just curious.
[/quote]

The Maxtor drive is great other than the going to sleep thing:)

Jedi, you are the man!

I'm filling up my hard drive with all my DVD's (I highly recommend you guys pick up an Apple TV when you got the cash!). I want to get an external drive only for samples so I guess it doesn't need to be all that big. I use the K2 library, Garritan Personal Orchestra, Garritan Concert and Marching Band, and of course VDL 2.5. I don't plan on getting more samples, but I'm sure that will change.
So, Jedi, hook me up! I'm ingorant on the SATA thing, shoot me some model numbers you think I should get (that enclosure thing sounds like the way to go).
Thanks for all the help!

[quote author=Lydian9 link=topic=1973.msg9946#msg9946 date=1189218255]I'm filling up my hard drive with all my DVD's (I highly recommend you guys pick up an Apple TV when you got the cash!). [/quote]

I actually just use http://handbrake.m0k.org/ to rip DVDs and my MacMini lives on the HDTV.  AppleTV was tempting, but this setup works really well plus it's nice to pull up a web browser really quick without walking over to the desktop.

[quote author=Lydian9 link=topic=1973.msg9946#msg9946 date=1189218255]
I'm ingorant on the SATA thing, shoot me some model numbers you think I should get (that enclosure thing sounds like the way to go).
Thanks for all the help!
[/quote]

Unfortunately [i]very few[/i] computers have an eSATA port.  I'm sure it will be more common in '08/'09.  My Abit mainboard has one built-in.  If you have a desktop with a free PCI slot you can add a card with the port on it.  If you have a laptop or iMac this is [i]not[/i] an option.  For those interested in a setup, you could purchase the following:

[url=http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815280005]PCI Card with eSATA part[/url] - $18
[url=http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822101030This drive]This drive[/url] is 500GB at the 3Gbit/sec speed - $122
[url=http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817392002]This case will work[/url] if you already have a SATA drive you want to make external - $30

Awesome information, Jesse.�� I am going to check that out!�� I�� wish I had [b][i]your[/i][/b] brain.�� :)

new iMacs have  firewire 800 port, would this be a good option?

I've noticed my firewire (400) drive is VERY slow when working with video files on it, probably the write speed is killing me.

Yes firewire 800 is better.  I'm surprised it hasn't caught on more on the PC side.  Here's a graphic showing real-world performance benchmarks using the same drive with different interfaces.  It used an older/slower (2 years) 120 GB 7,200rpm drive.

[img]http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/sli%20roundup_02240550222/6469.png[/img]