Q for computer boffins re. HDD

D

Dr_simon

New member
OK so Im interested in optimal disk usage.

Is it better, when over dubbing, to play back of one disk and record onto another, or to play and record onto the same disk ?

I would have thought it would be: to read one and write to another however in this crazy technologiifieracatious world, appearances can be deceiving !!

Is it all down to bus speed and access time ? Or is their more to it than that ? I have been using external USB2 drives plugged directly into my Mac lately to play stuff back (whilst recording onto and empty internal SATA drive) and, well, Im just not that impressed.

Any thoughts ?

Thanks

Simon
 
and, well, Im just not that impressed.
Click to expand...

are you getting errors when doing it?
what is it not doing that you expected it to do?

i guess maybe if you are playing back 35 tracks and recording 35 tracks at the same time...and maybe at 96-192kHz....yeah, two separate drives might be beneficial.
But if you're just playing back a handful and recording 1 or 2...one drive will handle it fine.
 
Im working at both 24/44.1 and 24/96 on separate projects. I have a couple of firewire as well as USB drives and Im using Logic Pro 7.2. I have had huge problems using firewire (spp. transferring large quantities of data (like 40 GB) - the whole thing works for a while and then just crashes) and that really makes me nervous using them for recording.

Recently the problems I have had have been during overdubs using an external USB drive. When I play back I get disk too slow errors and sometimes garbled scratchy audio. I make a point of de-fragmenting disks regularly. Typically Im playing back less then 10 tracks and recording less than 4 at a time.

I shifted everything onto an empty SATA internal drive last night and the whole thing behaved perfectly !

So, if Im doing something glaringly stupid please don't hesitate to tell me !!
 
I believe the problems you experienced are caused not so much by how you were reading and writing but by the limitations of USB. USB can be very convenient but it is not built for speed. Firewire may be better, but you're still going to get better performance from internal drives.
 
yep, that seems to be the take home message !

I think I will keep the external drives for backing things up and leave it at that !

Thanks
 
Dr_simon said:
Im working at both 24/44.1 and 24/96 on separate projects. I have a couple of firewire as well as USB drives and Im using Logic Pro 7.2. I have had huge problems using firewire (spp. transferring large quantities of data (like 40 GB) - the whole thing works for a while and then just crashes) and that really makes me nervous using them for recording.

Recently the problems I have had have been during overdubs using an external USB drive. When I play back I get disk too slow errors and sometimes garbled scratchy audio. I make a point of de-fragmenting disks regularly. Typically Im playing back less then 10 tracks and recording less than 4 at a time.
Click to expand...

If you're only working with 14 tracks and you're getting performance problems and crashes, I'd check your hardware for problems. I ran twice that many tracks (easily) on a PowerBook G3 Series Wallstreet off a 6MB/sec. external SCSI drive. (6MB/sec. was the bus speed. The drive was probably slower than that. :D)

If the FireWire bus is the problem, you should be able to tell, as you should see warnings/errors in the system log. Run /Applications/Utilities/Console.app and see if the system log shows communication errors with the FireWire device (like a large number of disconnects or whatever). If so, you probably have a defective cable.

I saw this with a Zip Linq cable (retractable). They made a FireWire cable that wasn't a twisted pair! I took one look at it and said "this can't possibly work reliably," then plugged it in and confirmed my suspicious. My iBook spewed device disconnect errors to the console constantly during data transfer, and I got a kernel panic within minutes from all the read failures. I never got around to returning it. Would cost more in gasoline to drive to Fry's.

That said, the most likely candidate is bad RAM, followed by a faulty FireWire cable, followed by a bad case, followed by a bad port/logic board. If all else fails, replace in that order.

Oh, and of course, "software bug" is always a possibility.
 
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