Using my "New" X31 For Music (Pro-Tools) and need

[epu]

Hi, I bought my X31 off of eBay five months ago and love the machine. I'm bought it so I could mix and master my music while on the go instead of waiting until I get home to my studio. I'm a teacher and am in grad school and want to use any breaks I have productively.

First some questions:

#1) What kind of CF Cards can be used?

I read that the CF card will show up as an actual disk drive (read: hard drive). Pro-Tools (the program I'm using, heavy overhead and very picky about drives) won't let me record to USB drives because they are listed as removable media in its browser. I tried formatting my USB to NTFS, and while it worked, Pro-Tools still didn't want to use it.

#2) What are the data transfer speeds with the CF slot?

Are they A LOT worse than USB? I read somewhere that read speeds were something like 800 kb/sec. Horrible!!!!


#3) On another note, has anyone tried the new FireWire (not really new) Flash Drives? Do they show up as removable media?



I've read about the solid state drives. Apparently, many of them were available as PC cards a few years ago in the 1GB-5GB range. The read/write speeds of those are supposed to be horrible too. Anyone use them?

They fit into the PC Card port, of which is occupied by my Sprint/Nextel Internet card at the moment.

I realize this is A LOT of information, but I'd appreciate any answers if any.

In case any of you want to check out my awful music, here's a link: http:/www.myspace.com/HaroldEverton


Thanks and Happy New Year!!

[mazzinia]

Hi,

I can only give info about the CF slot speed... and it's slow. A lot slower than using an adapter to put the CF inside the pcmcia slot.
A CF in the slot is seen as "disk drive" but removable (but the ones I have are formatted in FAT since I use them in a digital camera).

Maybe your best bet would be a microdrive (they are real hd , up to 6 or 8 GB)

[epu]

This is why I'm glad there's forums like these. Thanks a lot for the information! These MicroDrives lack in the performance area, but they might just be able to get me by.

Pro-Tools likes 7200 rpm drives. These Microdrives are about half that at 3600 (and rightfully so as small as they are). I just picked up a 8GB for $20 off of eBay just now.

Microstar makes one that runs at 4200 rpm!! However, those are only 2.2gb and about $250.

We live in exciting times. Who knows, maybe a 7200 rpm one may come out some day. Our X31s are going to be pretty useable for a while . . .

[dubwise]

The X31 CF slot is particularly slow.
So is the PCMCIA slot.
Same CF drive in a USB2 reader is much faster.

[proaudioguy]

I'm guessing you want to record to a separate drive. Why not get the media slice dock thing and just use a 100GB 7200RPM Seagate drive?

That is NOT seen as a removable drive, but it IS removable.

I hope that helps.

[epu]

Lmao. I have the mediaslice, but despite the fact that it's small, it's not small enough. Lol. It makes the X3 heavy as hell!

I've just decided to use a 2.5' drive in a USB enclosure. It's a lot lighter.