Definitely consider the FWI card or not using an external FW hard drive–this is where most (probably all) problems stem from. When I first got mine–few weeks ago, was having drop outs. I put a fw 400-800 adapter on and used an 800 slot. No more dropouts. However, many times after startup, the mr816 hasn’t been recognized. There is a new update that just came out, supposed to fix that. I know these hassles are from my ext HD. We’ll see if it’s gone, otherwise I’ll get a card.
Other than that, amazing! Really delighted with the box, though the GUI mixer is the ugliest I’ve ever seen, ever. Like 1980 Atari style. Lol
Edit–If I don’t use the 400-800 adapter, the mr816 is unusable on my system. I tried without after the “update,” and performance was worse than ever (using fw400 on mac front). Put the adapter on, fw 800 on back–appears to be all good, no droupouts thus far and device was recognized immediately.