When capturing to my external Firewire 200 gb drive, I find the audio is often a couple of frames off. If I capture directly to the hard drive (Mac G3) and move the file to the external drive, it works fine. That's one solution, but very inconvenient and time consuming. I don't recall the actual speed of the drive but it's new and fast (Lacie). After hitting the capture record button, it takes a up to ten seconds before recording begins and I always drop 2-3 frames early. I have an older Lacie drive that's not as fast and it doesn't do this. Does it make any difference if it hooks directly to the computer vs. daisy chained through another Firewire drive? Every other aspect of this drive seems to function perfectly and quickly.
Thanks!

Daisy chaining could be a problem. What OS are you using? Some of the early versions of 10.2.x have FireWire issues, you might want to upgrade to 10.2.8 Capture can sometimes be problematic on larger drives. You might consider partitioning the drive into two or three parts.

OS 9.1 actually. I'm reluctant to upgrade to 10 on this box with hopes of a G5 before too long. It seems to me with every OS upgrade, there is another can of worms to sort through.

I think the partioning might be a good place to start. I'll also try a direct FireWire line to the big drive first.

Thanks for the tips.