Computer Upgrade Question

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DigitalMassacre

New member
Hi I am setting up a laptop to record, I have a desktop but I want my laptop for portable recording. It has 4 gigs of ram, windows 7 64bit service pack one. My problem is that when I record about 17+ tracks and put plugins on them the vst time overloads...I optimised windows 7 for audio recording, increased the buffer on the interface and the out come was better but not good enough to fix the prob. My question is that if I switched my internal hardrive (currently 5400rpm) to a 7200rpm hard drive with 32mb buffer will this fix my problem?
 
could help or use a solid state drive but a better option might be just to render or freeze your tracks when you get into higher track counts
 
Well, there's a good chance that upgrading hdd would do it, but a better option would be to have a dedicated external hdd for audio.

For a start, you'd be able to move stuff between laptop and desktop (if that's useful to you),
but more importantly, you wouldn't be running an operating system and reading/writing audio on the same slow disk.

I know my old dell laptop hit it's limit pretty quick when i had the 5400 drive, but when i used an ssd for audio it was like a whole new machine.
 
Steenamaroo said:
Well, there's a good chance that upgrading hdd would do it, but a better option would be to have a dedicated external hdd for audio.

For a start, you'd be able to move stuff between laptop and desktop (if that's useful to you),
but more importantly, you wouldn't be running an operating system and reading/writing audio on the same slow disk.

I know my old dell laptop hit it's limit pretty quick when i had the 5400 drive, but when i used an ssd for audio it was like a whole new machine.
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This is the best advice^^^!
 
I have been looking at the solid state internal hard drives, I dont know too much about them, how do you tell the speed of the hard drive, is it by the read and write speeds? I basically have about $250 to spend I would really like to spend about $200 will this get me the speeds I need for a Solid State?
 
DigitalMassacre said:
I have been looking at the solid state internal hard drives, I dont know too much about them, how do you tell the speed of the hard drive, is it by the read and write speeds? I basically have about $250 to spend I would really like to spend about $200 will this get me the speeds I need for a Solid State?
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If you read what was said, they actually suggested a separate drive. As in, you would have 2 drives. It doesn't need to be solid state. If anything, your main drive would be better off as the solid state if you did get one. A 7200rpm external will do you fine. You can get 1TB for nowhere near $200 easily. But hard drive prices are probably still pretty high right now, so you still won't be getting the most for your money. For the kind of space you'll need with solid state, you'll be looking way over budget for somthing just to store plugins and files on.
 
DigitalMassacre said:
Im sorry for my confusion, I have never messed with hard drives my desktop was built for audio recording so I have never had to mess with it, so will this work:
LG - 1TB External USB 2.0/SATA II Network Storage System - White - N1A1DD1W

then I would have to install a OS on it right? If this is not right can someone please send me a link to what I need?
Thanks everyone for all your help, I am pulling my hair out with this computer
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Your OS is already installed on the hard drive you have INSIDE the laptop. the only things you would need to put on an external would be your plugins and files. Your OS and programmes can stay on your main drive. With that drive being USB 2.0, it's really not going to be all that fast, so you may not have much of a difference. You'd be better off looking into firewire/1394 connection instead. You'd also be able to get something cheaper and more reliable than a standard LG thing if you buy separate drive and external case. You should be able to find a good case with USB AND firewire connection somewhere, if you really need to have both connections... and there are plenty of good drives to choose from. I use Samsung Spinpoint F3s myself, The Seagate Barracudas are pretty good and even perhaps Western Digital Caviar. I'm sure many more, but those 3 get a lot of good mention.
 
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