From page 45 Volume 1 of the FCP 4 manual
FireWire Drives While not recommended for all users, FireWire drives can be effectively used to capture and edit projects using low data rate video clips, such as those captured using the DV codec. However, most FireWire drives lack the performance of internal Ultra ATA drives, or of internal or external SCSI drives. One example of the difference this can make in performance is that a FireWire drive may not be able to support real-time playback on as many simultaneous audio and video tracks as an internal Ultra ATA drive can. This can also affect the number of simultaneous real-time effects that can be played back.
Important: FireWire drives are not recommended for capturing high data rate material such as uncompressed standard definition or high definition video.
If the performance limitations of FireWire drives are acceptable for your application, FireWire drives do have many advantages:
• Although they cost more than internal Ultra ATA drives, FireWire drives are still relatively inexpensive when compared to SCSI drives.
• FireWire drives are a good way to attach additional hard disk storage to a PowerBook or iBook.
• Unlike SCSI drives, FireWire drives have no drive addresses that need to be assigned, and no drive termination is required.
• FireWire drives are hot-swappable, meaning that you can connect and disconnect them from a computer without having to shut down first.
Note: You should never physically disconnect a FireWire drive prior to unmounting it from the desktop. Important FireWire drives are not recommended for capturing high data rate material such as uncompressed standard definition or high definition video.
Important: All FireWire drives can be daisy-chained, meaning that you can connect multiple drives using a single FireWire port. However, daisy-chaining FireWire drives that you plan to use as scratch disks is not recommended. Knowledge at the point of Need.
FWIW
Thanks
Charles F. McConathy
http://www.promax.com
