I'm going to be using cakewalk and gigasampler. I'm planning on using one hard drive for cakewalk and other system files, one for gigasampler, and one for recording data onto. Should I get an extra IDE card so that each device can be a primary drive or will that really matter?
Multiple Hard Drives
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Inside the Cakewalk Pro Suite package, they recommended that Cakewalk and Gigasampler use seperate drives. I also want to use a seperate drive for my recorded data. Since primary and slave drives use the same IDE port, I don't know if my system would run smoother if I bought an additional IDE controller. This would give me four distinct IDE ports with the possibility of connecting eight devices. I'm just not familiar enough to know whether of not this would streamline the process or if it might create problems with interrupts. I'm building a system from scratch, so I'm just trying to decide the best route to take. I am planning on getting the 7200rpm drives ( 3 30.7 gig drives).
Actually Ola, you bring up a good point. If I were to get say an 80 gig drive and partition it into two seperate drives, I wonder if Cakewalk and Gigasampler could work effectively together. They'd share the same IDE port, but being on the same drive might be beneficial. I'll have to look into that a little more. Thanks for the input. I'd love any other input that others have.
Actually Ola, you bring up a good point. If I were to get say an 80 gig drive and partition it into two seperate drives, I wonder if Cakewalk and Gigasampler could work effectively together. They'd share the same IDE port, but being on the same drive might be beneficial. I'll have to look into that a little more. Thanks for the input. I'd love any other input that others have.
DigitalDon
New member
As far as I know you can't connect more than 4 IDE devices at one time. The problem is limited number of IRQ's. Each IDE device is assigned an IRQ. I don't think adding controller cards would change this. That's one of the benefits of SCSI devices. The IRQ is assigned to the SCSI controller card. From there, quite a few SCSI devices can be connected depending on whether you are using wide or narrow SCSI.
If your building from scratch a new MB may be in order.
Abit be6-2. BX chipset board. I quote.
The BE6-II incorporates an on-board UDMA/ATA 66 controller, as well as standard IDE controllers. Not only will this allow you to use up to eight IDE devices, but will also allow the use of future hard drives that will soon exceed the 33 Mbs limit of the standard ATA 33 controllers, an important point. Another nice feature of all ATX boards is that all external connectors (i.e. parallel, serial, USB, mouse, etc.) are directly mounted on the motherboard itself, thus eliminating the need for cables and one more source of confusion when assembling the computer. The ABIT BE6-II is widely available around the web for about $110 to $130
dollars.
Duck
Abit be6-2. BX chipset board. I quote.
The BE6-II incorporates an on-board UDMA/ATA 66 controller, as well as standard IDE controllers. Not only will this allow you to use up to eight IDE devices, but will also allow the use of future hard drives that will soon exceed the 33 Mbs limit of the standard ATA 33 controllers, an important point. Another nice feature of all ATX boards is that all external connectors (i.e. parallel, serial, USB, mouse, etc.) are directly mounted on the motherboard itself, thus eliminating the need for cables and one more source of confusion when assembling the computer. The ABIT BE6-II is widely available around the web for about $110 to $130
dollars.
Duck
sonusman
Banned
Promise....
I might not be too bad of an idea to keep I/O intensive stuff seperate from each other on different drives. And definately, keeping your app's and OS seperate from the drives you use for recording music too is a great idea.
The Promise Ultra ATA controller is a great way to expand you IDE capabilities. Even better, their IDE RAID controller may be the ticket for you also. At least the Ultra ATA controller though. You gain 4 more IDE channels to play with. Only about $30 now. Works good.
All that you will need is one PCI slow available.
Good luck.
Ed
I might not be too bad of an idea to keep I/O intensive stuff seperate from each other on different drives. And definately, keeping your app's and OS seperate from the drives you use for recording music too is a great idea.
The Promise Ultra ATA controller is a great way to expand you IDE capabilities. Even better, their IDE RAID controller may be the ticket for you also. At least the Ultra ATA controller though. You gain 4 more IDE channels to play with. Only about $30 now. Works good.
All that you will need is one PCI slow available.
Good luck.
Ed
Actually, I did order one of those Promise cards sonusman. I think I had seen something about them in another post as well. I originally ordered an Abit SE6 motherboard. I'm thinking about putting that in my wife's computer and ordering a Abit SA6R. It's got the two standard IDE ports as well as the two RAID ports. We'll see. I'll be getting all of my computer components today and then I'll know if I need to change anything a little. I'm really looking forward to it.
I'll probably see how it works with the Promise card first, and then if I'm not happy, I'll get the other motherboard. I'll probably have five devices to start out with, so I figure all three hard drives and the CDRW will all be primaries. Then I'll put the CD-ROM on as a slave one of the three hard drives. It won't typically be used when I'm doing any recording, so I shouldn't have to worry about it competing with another device for the IDE port.
I sure am glad I found this site. You guys are really helpful. I'll let you know how it turns out in a few days. I'm so glad to finally have a machine that can handle recording. This is something I've wanted to do for a very long time. Thanks again for all of the help.
I'll probably see how it works with the Promise card first, and then if I'm not happy, I'll get the other motherboard. I'll probably have five devices to start out with, so I figure all three hard drives and the CDRW will all be primaries. Then I'll put the CD-ROM on as a slave one of the three hard drives. It won't typically be used when I'm doing any recording, so I shouldn't have to worry about it competing with another device for the IDE port.
I sure am glad I found this site. You guys are really helpful. I'll let you know how it turns out in a few days. I'm so glad to finally have a machine that can handle recording. This is something I've wanted to do for a very long time. Thanks again for all of the help.