New system

[rharv]

I have plain old IDE ATA drives that record 6 tracks of audio while playing 20 other tracks...with no problems.  I don't think drive spedd is the issue it once was.
 I was more implying that a drive of the 750GB size may have so many sectors that it actually slows it down in seek time, and sustained transfer time.
 However I have no idea if this is true, which is why I asked.
 Good ol' 7200RPM ATA with 8mb built in buffer is the minimum standard here.  I use lots of them; as long as they meet that spec I trust them. Usually WD or Seagate brand. Stacks of them in the 'storage' desk with different projects on them.
 The only 'true' reason I've heard for seperate drives is to keep the 'temp audio input' directed to a drive that is not the main windows drive.  By this I mean the drive that the *incoming* recorded audio is getting written to should be seperate from the windows drive and the drive the audio program is on.  Keeps things transferring without interruption, glitches, or hangups.
 Works for me!  YMMV
 

[Wyatt]

I was more implying that a drive of the 750GB size may have so many sectors that it actually slows it down in seek time, and sustained transfer time.

I see..as I understand it, the seek time is faster than I have now.

The only 'true' reason I've heard for seperate drives is to keep the 'temp audio input' directed to a drive that is not the main windows drive.  By this I mean the drive that the *incoming* recorded audio is getting written to should be seperate from the windows drive and the drive the audio program is on.  Keeps things transferring without interruption, glitches, or hangups.

Yeah, that is how Audition wants to handle it.

Wyatt

[Wyatt]

It is actually the way I work. I have one windows partition with nothing else on it, one data partition with the installed software on it. On the data partition there are mostly just one or two songs on which I currently working, from the moment the song is finished it goes to the external drive with a backup on CD.

Does the partitioning make the seek time faster?

..and BTW, I forgot to list my sound card..I'm keeping my tried and true EMU 1212M..great sound.

Wyatt

[kara]

Does the partitioning make the seek time faster?

I don't think so, but it keeps it organised; for me anyway 

k

[rharv]

Partitioning actually has the potential to take the seek time down a hair, but often gives the drive a big blank area to write to if the partitions are used correctly..  An easy way to keep the drive somewhat consolidated, which is why the defrag program is still useful to recording artists.  It creates a big empty area on the drive to work with. This has the potential of keeping the head from jumping around during the writing process.

[folderol]

One of the greatest assets of partitioning is disaster recovery. If the OS goes wild and starts barfing all over the hard drive, it can't go over the partition boundaries. It's usually the OS partition that gets screwed (crap drivers with root access) so that is the least painful to deal, with provided all your user files are on different partitions.

[Wyatt]

Does the partitioning make the seek time faster?

I don't think so, but it keeps it organised; for me anyway 
k

Thanks Kara..organization is also important. I have a terrible time going back on sessions I did last year and then have to spend a half an hour figuring out which tracks are which...problem solved now, but every now and then I want to go back and re-mix an old song and it's a disaster to try to sort things out!

Wyatt

[Wyatt]

Partitioning actually has the potential to take the seek time down a hair, but often gives the drive a big blank area to write to if the partitions are used correctly..  An easy way to keep the drive somewhat consolidated, which is why the defrag program is still useful to recording artists.  It creates a big empty area on the drive to work with. This has the potential of keeping the head from jumping around during the writing process.

OK..I get you..so it sounds to me like it is still worth doing..I can use that big blank area.

Wyatt

[Wyatt]

One of the greatest assets of partitioning is disaster recovery. If the OS goes wild and starts barfing all over the hard drive, it can't go over the partition boundaries. It's usually the OS partition that gets screwed (crap drivers with root access) so that is the least painful to deal, with provided all your user files are on different partitions.

OK..whoao doggies..that sounds like another benefit.

WHen Partition Magic came out, I got a copy..hmm..it wasn't exactly magic! 

Can anyone recommend a partitioning program..or is it really necessary to have one?

Thanks,

Wyatt

[Oren]

One more note...

2 1/2 years ago a gentleman in the computer business built a unit very much like the one we're discussing here. About every 18 months he builds a new one and uses all the latest technology, employing it as his demonstration/sales computer. A very significant focus is on gaming.

I bought his most recent "discard" - fast dual core pentium chip, high performance Asus board, 2 gigs of fast R.A.M., latest Nvidea card, and two 10,000 rpm WD drives.

 After working with it for over a year, now, I've come to see it as a good gaming computer, but not much for digital audio processing. During digital audio tasks, the second drive would frequently not be recognized,  the system would bog down, then require a re-start.

The cure? Remove the second drive. It now handles digital audio very nicely, everything on one drive. Important files backed up to an external USB2 hard drive. (the other drive sits in a closet)

[Wyatt]

Oren,

Interesting..

..what functions was that secondary drive performing whilst you were processing audio?

..what was it actively doing, maybe I should say? ( I am trying to understand why your system was bogging down, which seems like a progressive, cumulative event)

Audition, by default wants to ask you to select a secondary temp file to use for processing audio. It has not seemed to help anything to use a secondary temp file..but then, it didn't seem to hurt either.

On my last previous mobo, the secondary HD had a slower access time even though it was as fast of faster than the primary drive..it was a bus thing, if I am remembering correctly.

I have heard of folks using a small capacity drive for the primary drive for faster seek time, but perpendicular drives are really fast, so in theory, things may be different now. In practice, however, it remains to be seen.

My 750 Gig drives have a latency of 4.3 ms..that seems like the system ought to be fast enough, but I am still collecting clues.  If I have to stripe them in a RAID configuration, that would be an efficient method of increasing the percieved speed of the system..and hope I don't have to resort to it..that set-up has drawbacks of its own.   

The ironic thing is that by the time I am all finished with this project, I will finally know all the stuff I wish I had known going into it..c'est la cr@p.



Wyatt

[Oren]

Wyatt,

The man who builds these demo units puts the o/s on drive one with all the accessory software, and the video games on drive two. Very fast game-play - very good video performance.

Dump all the video games and install my music processing software on drive one, then store the individual projects on drive two (like they tell ya to  ).....then the silly little problems start. Move the individual projects back to drive one and just let drive 2 idle - same quirky problems. Remove drive two,,,,all problems solved.

I thought I'd speak up, because it appears that your builder is actually putting together what amounts to a gaming computer for you, and my unfortunate experience could save you some grief.

Oren.

[Wyatt]

Wyatt,

The man who builds these demo units puts the o/s on drive one with all the accessory software, and the video games on drive two. Very fast game-play - very good video performance.

Dump all the video games and install my music processing software on drive one, then store the individual projects on drive two (like they tell ya to  ).....then the silly little problems start. Move the individual projects back to drive one and just let drive 2 idle - same quirky problems. Remove drive two,,,,all problems solved.

I thought I'd speak up, because it appears that your builder is actually putting together what amounts to a gaming computer for you, and my unfortunate experience could save you some grief.

Oren.

Thanks Oren..I am keeping this firmly in mind..I wish I could get my head around the why of it..but I will be watching this like a hawk.

What sorts of problems did yours start exhibiting before the HD-ectomy??

Wyatt

[Oren]

The most pronounced symptom was an unwillingness/inability to recognize the second hard drive.

Glitchy performance in general characterizes the rest...including something called an "Intel u-code loading error", which occurs at every start-up, but no longer affects performance.

[Wyatt]

Thanks..I will keep my eyes peeled for probs..
..wish I didn't need so much live-storage, but
I can't avoid that for another year or so.

Wyatt