USB CD-ROM installations.

[John Wilson]

On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 22:34:32 -0500
Chuck Swiger <cswiger at mac.com> wrote:
[...]
> I've gotten the impression that USB2 under FreeBSD 5.3 will support 4x well 
> and be OK at 8x DVD burning speeds, although I've seen some reports of 
> problems (failing every third or forth burn) at high speeds, too.
>
> If it is possible, consider using Firewire instead: FreeBSD works very well 
> with FW/1394, and FW was designed for that kind of usage (specificly, 
> reserving dedicated I/O channels to guarantee bandwidth for realtime 
> multimedia tasks).
[...]

Well, I'm sort of limited in one specific way in this regard - it will be
the only optical solution available to this particular machine, which
unfortunately means that it would -have- to be USB in order to boot off of.
As long as I can install FreeBSD 5.3 with this unit, all would be well.

I've been looking at Macally external enclosures today and came across one
variety that includes both a USB 2.0 and Firewire interface.  This really
proves to be the best way to go, I believe - if I need to boot off of a
CD, slap it on the USB port, otherwise, it'll pretty much stay on the
firewire port the remainder of the time for general use which will allow
full speed operation.

Thankfully, my Audigy 2 sound card has a firewire interface on it.  Never
thought I'd use it prior to this, but glad that it's there for use now. : )

Thank you for your time, Chuck, and your reply.  It was most appreciated.

- John.