Decisions..decisions...which hard drive?

M

Michael Nadolski

New member
I need to add another hard drive to my PIII 866Mhz. I need the potential to move 16-tracks at a time from ADATs'.

What is better for audio (16+ tracks)? FireWire, IDE, or expensive SCSI?

FireWire is rated at 400MB/s transfer rate but slower access times around 8ms. SCSI is fast at 7200/10K speed and around 5/ms access but only 160MB/s transfer rate.
I currently have an ATA66 5400RPM IDE. Should I add another IDE at 7200?

What to buy????????????????????
 
Hello,

You should at least add a 7200 rpm IDE disc to your system. I suggest that you look into IDE RAID if you want big sustained transfer rates at a resonable price. Search this forum and you'll find plenty of information.

/Ola
 
I've read mixed reviews about whether IDE RAID actually does that much good. Theoretically it should be great, but I've seen some benchmarks and testing that tell a different story.

Anyhoo, I don't think SCSI is worth the money if you're on a budget. Check out this article on the fastest IDE hard drive around: the IBM Deskstar 75 GXP, available in a few different capacities from 15GB to 75GB (woo!). It doesn't win all the benchmarks across the board, but overall it beats everything else out there. That's what I'd buy.
 
Another good one is the Maxtor 40 series DiamondMax Plus drives. The Maxtor 40 series run at 7200 rpm and incorporate high-density platters that allow them to achieve sustained transfer rates of nearly 30 MB/s. Two drives are better than one. One for os and one for audio.
http://www.advanceddesignky.com/

Duck
 
Michael

What soundcard to you plan on using to do these transfers? A MOTU?

If you are using the Alesis PCI card for your ADAT transfers, you will HAVE to use LVD rate SCSI drives to have any success. Their software does not use ANY data buffers and that creates massive problems with DMA functions. Blah blah blah.....

You will probably have the least problems and most life out of LVD drives (SCSI technology). I have heard the the A/V rated 7200 rpm IDE drives are decent and dependable for intensive audio too, but don't know of anybody using them, so I cannot attest to it. But I do know that SCSI LVD drives hold up extremely well, and are best when lots of data needs to be moved without interuptions. Anything having to do with ADAT's requires that the system kick out the data smoothly and without any problems for it all to work.

I am not up on Firewire, so I don't have much to say about it yet. It looks to be potentially great in A/V applications. We will see if it catches on.

Oh. Maxtor drives while having many great benefits, are NOT the drive to get for intensive I/O audio stuff.....:( Don't ask me how I know.....:( They are great drives for anything else, just not audio. Don't go there at all. Look at Quantum or even the IBM's.
Good luck.

Ed
 
Hey Ed (Sonusman)
Prorec recommended the new Maxtor 40 series Diamondmax Plus drives and spoke highly of them. Sustained 30mb/s still short of scsi. The statement that was made was that over 60 24bit audio tracks were being streamed off one of these. If you know something about these drives I really would like to know before I consider buying. Your opinion is highly valued by me.

Duck
 
Well folks, I scrapped the Alesis PCI Card. Its pretty worthless.

I did some research and picked up a Seagate 30GB IDE. Its the fastest IDE I can see on the market at 8.2ms access rate and high transfer rate. I already had a maxtor diamondmax as installed from the pc manufacturer. I added the seagate, but even as a separate audio disk, the ADAT/Edit PCI Card still failed, so back to the store it went.

Now, I am eyeing the MOTU2408mkII. I am using n-track, but I still don't know how many tracks I'll be able to get across. I need sync capabilities also and don't know if the n-track/MOTU solution will get me there.

This is HIGHLY frustrating, trial and error. Thanks everyone for your help!

If anyone has other opinions on ntrack/MOTU, or other solutions, your input will be much appreciated!
 
Boy, a big o' can of worms....

I guess duck I should have qualified my knock on the Maxtor drives. My mistake.

I am actually using a Diamond Max 40 HD on my system. I only need at most 4 tracks of 24/48 at once, and for that it is just fine, except that I needed the Promise Controller to get enough throughput....:(

The Maxtors have some funky ways of going about I/O. With the Alesis PCI card, Alesis claims they are the worst drive on the market for their drivers. It has something to do with the fact that the Alesis drivers use NO data buffers, and the Maxtor drives don't do well without those buffers.

So, I will withdrawl my comment about the Maxtors for most audio applications.

Michael, you may be able to do sync utilizing a Word Clock and SMPTE combination. You would need a BRC for the ADAT's for this to work. I believe the MOTU has enough options to make this fly too.

If you have a dedicated Midi Time Code line running, you could also use that for sync. Don't include ANY other midi information in that line and it should be okay.

ProTools probably had the best ADAT transfer thing I have seen. It actually worked. But that is a spendy proposition. It is too bad that Alesis dropped the ball so bad on their PCI card. It was a wonderful idea that was badly implemented.

Ed
 
Thanks for the info Ed. Got my wheels turning again for more
research on the maxtors. Thanks!

Duck
 
Well, regarding the Maxtor 40GB, I have the same drive. I was able to move 12GB of digital video to it via a firewire card and my camcorder. There was a slight audio sync problem with the video about half-way through.

Ed, during my trial and error period with Alesis, they said exactly the same thing about the maxtor I/O problems. Of course, they never mentioned they didn't have any buffers on their card/software!

Alesis did recommend the seagate barracuda, which is what I got. I did my research on this drive before buying and the access time on the seagate 30GB 7200RPM was 8.2ms compared to Maxtor's 9ms. Not a whole lot, but maybe enough to make a difference. It didn't work with the Alesis PCI card either. We'll just put that in the firewood pile with my 3630 compressor. Actually, I returned the card to get my money back.....

Anyway, I am having difficulty getting any "real-life" spec about the MOTU. I read good things about it but really need that sync with 16-tracks. I am sending my system spec info to a couple of dealers around here and they're going to make some contacts regarding the MOTU's. I'll pass along any info I get back.

Thanks everyone for all your help.
 
Yep, Alesis ADAT PCI - When it syncs it syncs and if it won't it STINKS!! Ed's right , Alesis dropped the ball. But with lo voltage differential ultra scuzzularity the MFer works!!!! Alesis has some great ideas but they just aren't seemingly taking these ideas to completion and further adding salt to the wound by not DISCLOSING the facts to properly fix these apparent mis-Q's. The thing CAN & DOES sync$$$$$$. Good luck tho, my ass is still killing me, BUTT, I can smile when it works. Sorta like that "woman" thing ya know......yada yada yada.....
 
Great news.....

I picked up the MOTU2408mkII and was able to successfully slam ALL 16-tracks from my ADAT's into my PC. The sad part is that I was able to move all the tracks on to my original Maxtor 40GB drive. Unlike using the ADAT Edit PCI Card, No pops, clicks, or anything. Just pure audio! I really didn't need to buy that extra Seagate 30GB drive after all. I am sure it'll come in handy the more I record with the PC.

Now I can hook up my effects and 24ch 8-bus mixer too.

Thanks everyone for you valuable input!

Ed, thanks for making me aware of the MOTU! It works great so far.

Now....if I could only get n-Track to sync with the MOTU's PCI ADAT-sync connection I'd be REALLY happy......

Mike
 
You'll find pretty soon that the second disc is nice to have. Your old disc may have managed to write 16 tracks at once but can it handle to read and write a bunch of tracks? Also, the added conveience when reinstalling Windows or trying different partition etc. will prove worth the cost of an extra drive.

Cheers

/Ola
 
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