hard drive setup

I

icarus

New member
I've finally bought everything i think i need to run my pc DAW.
Here's my setup:

-dell 8100 pentium 4 1.3 gig running windows me
-384 mb ram
-1 7200 rpm 20 gig hard drive and one 7200 rpm 40 gig hard drive
-echo mia soundcard
-roland xv-88 keyboard with srx-02 acoustic piano expansion card.

Now my question is:
I plan to devote the 40 gig hard drive to audio only, as i have read i should do. But do i install my operating system and cakewalk onto the second harddrive and run all my digital audio production from there or do i use the second hard drive only to store audio data but not install my os or cakewalk on it? thanks for any response, recommendations or suggestions.

Also, if anyone could link me to any good updated articles on the subject i would appreciate it.
 
icarus said:
Now my question is:
I plan to devote the 40 gig hard drive to audio only, as i have read i should do. But do i install my operating system and cakewalk onto the second harddrive and run all my digital audio production from there or do i use the second hard drive only to store audio data but not install my os or cakewalk on it? thanks for any response, recommendations or suggestions.

Also, if anyone could link me to any good updated articles on the subject i would appreciate it.
Click to expand...

Install your operating system on the 20 gig, along with all your recording software.

Use your 40GB drive for audio data only. Format using the format x: /z:64

Also consider using a dual boot setup for your 20GB drive, one boot for internet games etc. Another boot for recording applications only. If you only intend to use your machine for recording, then this may not apply.

Here are some instructions on dual boot:

www.sigmacomputers.on.ca/dualboot.html
 
thanks, emeric. so all i'm doing then is saving data into my second hard drive, but when i want to work on it i open it back up into cakewalk on my first hard drive, right? i think i've got it.
 
Yes. Cakewalk should allow you to set the path for where the audio data is going to be recorded. In your case, direct it to your 40GB. Also, you should create seperate folders on the 40GB - a folder for each song. Everytime you start a new song, make sure Cakewalk is writing to the corresponding folder on your 40GB. Makes for easier data organization, backup and avoiding overwriting data.
 
what is format x: /z:64? right now i just have it formatted using format x: and partitioned in FAT32. what does the /z:64 do?
 
Icarus,

Formatting using this switch will give you larger cluster sizes, 32K. Audio files are generally large, single files so the larger cluster size would allow for some performance increase in data transfer (how much of a performance increase I don't know, I've never benchmarked it). I wouldn't be to concerned if you did it just the standard format x: I ran drives with out the /z:64 for audio data and it worked fine. Every tweak counts though in computer audio.



redCashion,

If your using your computer for internet, games, word processing, downloading various shareware software, ICQ, MIRC, YM etc etc., then your machine is going to be under a performance hit, even if these programs are not running.

So, if you use your computer for things outside of audio, you can:

Setup two different, isolated instances of the same operating system, on the same hard drive. Load all your games, internet, wordprocessing, graphics, internet plug-ins etc onto the first OS boot. For the second OS boot, load up only audio software.

When you boot your machine up you are presented with a menu, with twp choices, boot to your internet OS, or your recording OS.

It's just another level of optimization. I find it helps me a lot, because I can let my internet OS boot deteriorate as much as I like. Millions of Icons across the desktop, junk loading up. I install and uninstall various games, photo software etc. But I can always just go start, shutdown. Hit the power button , choose 'option 2' for recording and it's back to a lean fast recording machine.

Another advantage. I triple boot mine (3 instances of win98, use to be two win 98 and one windows 2000) One boot is for internet, games etc. the other two are for recording. But they are redundant. The 3rd boot is only there in the event something goes funky in boot two. Just a bit of extra security. Excluding a total hard drive failure, I should always be able to boot to at least ONE operating system.. :)

Oh yeah. Another great thing are removable hard drive brackets. Very useful for swapping drives out of your machine without the hassles of opening it up, screwdriver etc. My OS drive with the three OS's is internally mounted. With two removable brackets, each with it's own audio data drive. If you run out of space, buy another drive, throw it in the bracket and your ready to roll. Taking this one step furthur. If you put your OS drive in a removable bracket, you could dodge the hard drive failure by having seperate redundant OS drives. Or, you could avoid the dual boot all together. Just pull the drive out of the bracket when your off the internet, slam in the recording drive and hit the power! Lots of fun.
 
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Emeric, that's really interesting. I didn't know that software that wasn't in use could have an effect on recording. How is that exactly? If I run a program like TaskInfo and it says that 98% of my CPU is free, then isn't it as simple as that? I have a TON of graphics programs on my C drive, and do my recording to my D drive. I am still having problems with warble and clicks when recording, so I am chasing down every possible optimization. But if I have a bit of software indicating that the vast majority of my CPU and RAM is free, aren't I ok?
 
Sorry to kinda change the subject- but how can I add another IDE HD to my computer? It appears only to have the one IDE bus for HD's... the other for the floppy. I can't use the floppy drive one, can I?

What are my other options? I don't want to spend much money.

Thanks
 
If your running at 98% your probably doing ok. I've found that the more software you load on windows 98 computer, the slower it runs. The registry gets bloated, and overall performance decreases. But it does depend on how many tracks you need, a clean OS for recording helps (in my case). Your warbles and clicks may or may not be related to your operating system. Could be drivers for the card, or a multitude of other settings for your software etc. If you haven't already done so, turn off all screen savers and virus scanners. Press CTRL ALT DELETE and End Task everything but explorer and systray. Do this before launching your audio software. Try recording something and see if it improved. The easier organization of dual or tripleboot is worth it for me.

matt_the_rat

I'd be surprised if you only had one IDE channel, unless it's an older machine or very stripped down E-Machine. If you look on the motherboard you should have two 40 pin connectors for IDE 1 (primary), IDE 2(secondary). And a connector for the floppy. You can't connect a hard drive to your floppy ribbon.

On IDE 1 - you can have 2 hard drives or 2 CD-ROMS or a CD-ROM and a Hard Drive.
On IDE 2 - Same thing.

Typically you would put your Operating System hard drive as the Primary Master. There are jumpers on Hard Drives and CD-ROM's that determine whether they are the 'Master' or the 'Slave' on each IDE channel.

So a common setup would be:

IDE 1 (primary):

Harddrive - jumpered as master
CD-ROM - jumpered as slave

IDE 2 (secondary)

Harddrive - jumpered as secondary master
CD-ROM - jumpered as secondary slave

If your computer really only has one IDE channel, the only option I see for adding second hard drive is to disconnect your CD-ROM and slave it with your master hard drive.

BTW, some ribbons only have one connector, if this is the case, you need to get one with two IDE connectors. Two devices per ribbon, per IDE channel.
 
Emeric:

Does dual boot work with Win2000 and Linux? Ideally, could I have two OS boots with Win2000 and one with Linux?
 
Thanks for the link. It seems rather similar to a software you may know called Vmware. However, Vmware seems to allow you to run all OSs at the same time. You only need to boot once. It's a bit expensive though.
 
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