5400 RPM drive

Armistice

Armistice

Son of Yoda
Hi

About time for a new laptop. It's just to replace my basic around-the-house machine that I do all my general computing, browsing, emailing etc.

I have a very powerful / fast separate desktop for audio recording / mixing etc.

Question is whether, for occasional offsite recording tasks (which would probably run to no more than two tracks at a time seeing that's all my interface supports, via microphone anyway), the 5400 rpm drive on the one I'm looking at will be an issue. I'm not going to mix on it, just track, occasionally.

I can get very good deals via the employee program (via my cousin) for this particular manufacturer so I tend to stick with them.

It's an i7 / 8MB RAM / 1TB 5400rpm SATA in terms of its main specs.

I ask only because the poor old beast it's replacing is an i3 4MB RAM 7200rpm 500GB drive machine which seemed to perform occasional recording duties well enough.
 
IMHO that machine will be fine for quite heavy duty recording work.

The experts seem to rank processor speed first, then memory and HDD speed last in terms of tracking capability (yes! I have read all the guff about SSDs! They give you much faster boot times and jodrelling about but once things are running they run mostly from ram AFAIK?)

In fact you probably don't need an i7? The i5 processor would be cheaper and I would think run cooler and for longer on battery?

My own HP i3 laptop records two tracks fine and plays back 20 tracks of Cubase with a few VSTis perfectly.

Dave.
 
I purchased a laptop to do mobile recording. Tascam 1800 for the interface, I plan on using all 14 tracks. The laptop has a duo core processor. I feel confident for tracking and some light EQ and compressor work it will get the job done. If you look at those portastudios, there is no way they can have that powerful of a processor in them for $500.

I know SDDs are the rage, and 7200 is the spec for the hard drives, but I really think that an i5 quad (I would go AMD, but that is just me) with 8 gigs of RAM and 5200 RPM HD should be plenty. And on those occasions when it isn't, freeze the track or bounce it to pull out those tracks that are sucking the processing power.

Most of the computers are really getting at the point, for audio, majority can handle the task.
 
I found the limit of my old dell (2.2ghz c2d/4gb667/5400 drive) at uni.I replaced the drive with an SSD by cloning and was able to take the session much farther, but it was a very heavy session.

I can't remember exactly what was going on, but I'd say there were at least 50 tracks with several effects on each. Maybe 10 tracks had intensive VSTS.

If you don't think you're going to get that deep, your 5400 will be fine.


Just as an extra though...The people who simply must be on the cutting edge seem to bang on about boot times but, take my word for it, SSDs do have a massive impact on day to day computing.
Pretty much everything just happens faster.
 
If you need more hard drive bandwidth, which I don't think you will for two tracks, you can always pull the 7200RPM drive from your old computer. Buy a hard drive caddy to have two hard drives. The caddy replaces the dvd drive.
 
Chili said:
If you need more hard drive bandwidth, which I don't think you will for two tracks, you can always pull the 7200RPM drive from your old computer. Buy a hard drive caddy to have two hard drives. The caddy replaces the dvd drive.
Click to expand...

Yeah but I want to keep the DVD drive!

Won't be necessary... it's more of a "just in case" thing... I'm more concerned now about how much of a pain in the arse learning to peacfully co-exist with Windows 8.1 is going to be.:D
 
You should be fine I've been known to track...and mix...a lot more than two at a time on a 5400 RPM HDD in my laptop. I do have a faster Firewire drive I can bring out as required but, frankly, I've never had an issue.
 
Armistice said:
Yeah but I want to keep the DVD drive!

Won't be necessary... it's more of a "just in case" thing... I'm more concerned now about how much of a pain in the arse learning to peacfully co-exist with Windows 8.1 is going to be.:D
Click to expand...

Ah now! That is interesting! A few weeks ago I bought grandson a usb DVD burner because I was misled into buying a Lenovo "thinkpad". Great notebook and GS loves it but no optical drive.

However if you can replace the DVD drive with a caddy and fir a second HDD (SSD?) that could have a boot of Win 7 on it?

I too would not like to lose my optical drive on my HP but the external ones seem fine and "we" don't use them that often these days?

Dave.
 
I'm also interested in the concept of caddies for HDDs. I have a couple of old lap tops that probably have some gems on the hard drives that I never got round to backing up to external drive. I keep looking at caddies and wondering how well they work but never get around to going any farther. Some user experiences would be helpful!
 
ecc83 said:
I too would not like to lose my optical drive on my HP but the external ones seem fine and "we" don't use them that often these days?

Dave.
Click to expand...

True enough. They're definitely dying out for most people. My Father insisted on backing up photos to CD/DVD until I persuaded him it wasn't the way to go.
Upon going and getting all his backup discs he discovered that 3 or 4 of them were 'dead' somehow....
They way hard drive prices are going I'd rather have a few TB drives kicking around for double backup.

The Dvd caddy/hdd thing can be useful, but I guess availability is model dependent. Any modern laptops I've used have standard Sata/II dvd drives, but over, what seems to be, a proprietary connection. Just something to be aware of.

I did this with my MBP and popped the original optical drive in a usb caddy. To be fair the only time I use it is when I burn promo copies for radio and that's come to an end too! I think it'll gather dust now.
 
Armistice said:
I'm more concerned now about how much of a pain in the arse learning to peacfully co-exist with Windows 8.1 is going to be.:D
Click to expand...

It will take some getting use to, but it is minor and you should be acclimated within a week. Most of 8 runs like 7 with the exceptions of charms and a few other functional arrangements. I use the charms to put all of my major apps on launch screen. Since the laptop has only one function I don't have much on the charm screen.

Old war dog like you will have your new machine and OS mastered in no time.
 
HDDCaddy.jpg

Here's my HDD caddy. It has the original laptop drive in it and is now the data drive. I put an SSD in the hard drive bay as the O/S drive. The caddy is swappable, though maybe not Hot-Swappable and you can put the dvd drive back in if you need it.

It is for a Dell laptop and cost me $14usd off Amazon. Definitely worth the money. Well, I guess you have to buy the 2nd drive too. Still worth the money.
 
Armistice said:
I'm more concerned now about how much of a pain in the arse learning to peacfully co-exist with Windows 8.1 is going to be.:D
Click to expand...

My wife's computer has Win8 and I h8 it. (See what I did there?) I guess the newer version is more like Win7 with the start button. If that's what you get then maybe it's okay. If you get the version with Tiles or whatever they call it, run, don't walk, to buy a Win7 liecnse.
 
I'm still finding the only way to install some things is via the original CD. Tried to get my AI software installed on the current around the house laptop and just couldn't do it. Had to get the CD and then upgrade the drivers online. Now that I know that of course I should rip the files off the CD (and all the others) and put them somewhere else so I don't need the actual disk any more. Will add that to the list of tasks for this set up.

Plus I want to re-rip large chunks of my CD collection at 320, so while I could buy a separate optical drive, it's just (still) easier this way.

Maybe next time.

I'm dealing with Win 8 on my GF's Surface.... urrrggh... and that's a touch screen. I could have bought a touch screen laptop but I'm too used to mousing etc. and I want things to work the way I want them to work. I'll leave the swiping and gesturing for the phone and tablet...

Still, not looking forward to that part and no doubt the first step will be to disable / delete all the crap that Windows and/or the manufacturer load it up with...
 
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