emusonacid!

not sure why this always seems to be a bounce back and forth thing but heh why stop now...

Packrat is right about the convenience of cf but not about mo being scsi only.

ide mo for my pc cost me 7 ukp

less convenient than a go anywhere usb card reader for sure though..

But then I never go anywhere

Well not with my sampler disks anyway

And Mac users are probably screwed, firewire -> ide I guess...

Oh no another new thread

Actually I bet Lacie or someone do a firewire/usb2 version...

Just a note: MO drives are the kind of thing design companies have kicking around from before they had DVD ram/dvd burners/non scsi Macs so illinformed's recycle link may be a good bet for free ones if you want to give it a trial.

http://www.emusonacid.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1500

If you are lucky there might be some firewire ones kicking about too

usb2 version on ebay for you "go anywhere" types

http://cgi.ebay.com/Fujitsu-DynaMO-Magneto-Optical-Drive-Part-1300U2_W0QQitemZ8819895487QQihZ005QQcategoryZ167QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

scratch that, it's not usb powered so it's sort of "go somewhere"

I'll leave you to search for the usb powered "pocket" versions but rest assured they are there...

I considered the MO route, I even scrounged a SCSI zip drive and bought a cheap USB zip drive from ebay, but then I considered the relative scarcity and expense of media/drives for ZIP and MO, particularly if you're after new media. To say nothing of the relative fragility or issues of subtlely misaligned drives generating media unreadable in any replacement drives.

In the end, I decided to go with the CF.

B>

ps. I'm trying to remain portable with a USB/firewire mac here. I don't want to turn the PC under the desk on.

Some good points, whatever you do dont pay a lot as there are some good solutions for next to nothing. Check out the vulnerabilities of any chosen format (google "magneto optical misalignment" for example) before parting with cash. Make sure you backup/archive to an alternate media and also get enough mo/cf/whatever to manage projects and last out your emu if you think the media is rare (I bought 5 but I now see there are some great deals on bulk purchases). Thankfully Fujitsu still make the MO drives so the media shouldn't completely disappear too soon. Again bear in mind my decision was influenced by wanting an internal solution. If that doesn't matter to you then you can consider some of the 5 1/4 inch formats - DVD Ram being a good option I believe -external scsi ones can be picked up second hand for less than a new external burner. Budget for a second device that will connect to your PC/Mac and perhaps even some spares if your time is money or the drives are cheap.

I plan to share the external Adtron thing between the Emu and a K2500. I figure that backups are as easy as ripping the images off the cards periodically onto one of my hard drives, and I don't expect to fill any of those up with stuff.

I've seen folks bitten by the misalignment thing before, so I figure for what I do, I've got a good solution. Again, YMMV.

ps. How much are you shipping that internal card drive to AU for? :)

B>

Packrat:

Just for clarity I've not been suggesting that you personally should use MO instead of CF.

My posts have been aimed at a wider audience to give them a complete picture and to hopefully be informative, I'm not even suggesting they should use MO (other than potentially try it for free). In fact this page (3) only exists to clarify the scsi issue for anyone reading and to find MO options for all brands of computer user. The benefits for CF are clear, I thought it would be an ideal format for me and have put some time and effort into getting it to work and documenting the attempts for the benefit of others as anyone can read in these forums.

Any hard information you have on the misalignment issue would be equally beneficial to readers. Links to forum threads, articles etc. would be particularly welcome.

Not sure on postage to AU but I guess it will be more than US -> AU.

No! Clearly you are an infidel of the MO camp! You must be punished! :)

I thought I'd point out some of the advantages of CF while we were on the topic. My experience of MO problems predate internet forums.

B>

Thought I would give this a bit of bump. Until recently have been posting very little over last couple of years. Any updates or can anyone summarize?

we`ve had a pcd 47b in our studio e4xtultra for a couple of years now with no problems;i even have a compact flash card of 9gb,and a pcmcia 1gb inside my own esynth.good to see the rest of the world catching up.try using industrial velcro on the inside of the emu racks to fasten the floppy to the case.we also do dvd ram archiving from our emus.any questions,just email me.