Secondary Harddrive Recommendations

B

Blackwiz

New member
Okay, people have told me that I may need to think about getting an additional harddrive. What are recommendations for cheap priced harddrives and what are size recommendations? Im looking to spend no more than maybe $200.


Also, how would the harddrive be used? As additional storage or, I did hear someone say something about a harddrive for VST's.

Someone help me out.

Thanks



Newbie Here......for now.
 
I think people generally refer to having a separate hard drive for audio in regard to the actual access and writing of digital audio information to/from the disk. So, you would have your programs, plugins, operating system, etc., installed on your main hard disk, but then you would set up your software to read and write audio from a secondary hard drive, so that you are using that disk solely for audio access. Your main OS / Programs hard disk is already bombarded with reads/writes from all those other things, so it can slow down your recroding software, introduce clicks and pops, etc., if you can't get access to the space you need in realtime.

As for suggestions, I have had decent luck with Western Digital and Maxtor drives before. You can get a good external for well under 200 these days, although I would recommend it be firewire if at all possible - mine is USB and it works fine, but I've read here from a number of people that USB has had its problems (YMMV tho).

Here is a search on newegg.com for all external hard drives that are 7200rpm and have USB 2.0 & IEEE 1394 (firewire) connections:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...35507776+1035907851&name=USB+2.0+/+IEEE+1394a

You can choose the size you see fit. As for the case that the drive comes in, I would sort by size you want and then read reviews - some hard drive caddies are flimsier than others, and some have better connections than others (I've experienced external drives before where the vibration of the drive inside caused the USB cable to shift enough to cause the damn thing to disconnect from the computer over and over).
 
if you are using alot of softsythns you should definitely consider another drive.

when installing softsynths you usually have the option of choosing the directory of your plugin folder... the plug-in itself has a *.dll file extension and then the large sound files.. I store these files on a separate hard drive to keep the drives r/w process separate from the OS.

i use the WD raptors http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136012 as my boot and main program partiton because it read and writes data fast, which means better program/plug-in performance. if you can afford a second one for the large sound files, thats great.. if not, the new 7200 rpm 16 cache drives work well also

keep your services on your computer managed properly also.. this can also create hidden performance problems
 
I seriously doubt that with a 7200 rpm, 8mb cache hard drive that you will see ANY performance increase by using a seperate drive for audio, especially if you have 1GB of RAM or more. Most everything, OS and application wise, get's loaded into RAM, and once everything is up and going, you are not going to be performing much read/writes from the OS/Application hard drive while you are recording. The data THROUGHPUT of a 7200 rpm 8mb cache drives FAR exceeds the demands of even a 32 track, 24 bit/44.1KHz project would put on it.

This old advice of having a second drive stemmed from the days of Windows 98 KILLING hard drives with it's excessive read/writes and poor memory management. It was PRUDENT to have your audio data (and I would say still is!) on a seperate drive from the OS/Applications because if that drive went to shit, your audio data would be safe and sound.

In the bad ol' days of DAW's on Windows 95 and 98, the OS would just go to hell one day. Something would happen, and it would just be fucked up. Unusable! It is a good idea when doing a OS install to do so on a clean hard drive with a fresh format. Thus, if you had your audio on that drive too, you would need to get that audio transferred to another drive before you could re-format it. PAIN IN THE ASS!

Anyway, ANY modern HD drive is going to be excellent for audio. Data throughput is so high now that you needn't concern yourself with specs on hard drives anymore, unless you plan on doing some MEGA projects (let's say 64 full time tracks or more).

I recommend Seagate drives. Not only do they have very QUIET drives, but most of their drives have a 5 YEAR WARRENTY. No other hard drive manufacture goes over 3 as far as I know. Seagate HONORS that warranty too. They sent me a replacement drive for one that failed one month before the warranty was up. I got a better drive than the one that was being replaced! :D

I know a guy here who is running BIG projects all from the same drive as his OS.
 
I have two drives myself, but that's because I do swapping of the drive(s) I use for audio. One Western Digital 7200, 8 MB cache drive with the OS and all software, and Western Digital 7200, 8 MB cache drives used for audio.

I just like having the audio on it's own drive. Can't really speak of performance differences from using one drive to multiple drives, but with the way things are today, I'd tend to agree with Ford on his philosphy.

More importantly, I'd focus on running your system "lean". By lean I mean watch what's running in regards to OS services, startup apps, etc. There are a couple good tweak sites on the net about tweaking Windows for best audio performance. Not to say you won't be able to get good performance without tweaking, but if you have the time and want to understand what's going on with your system, it doesn't hurt to do a little tweaking.

Anyway, I've had great luck with Western Digital drives over the last 6+ years. I've been buying the "SE" OEM drives with the 8 MB cache (my system is still ATA133), and they've been running quiet and like a top. Use them for client PC builds or replacement drives as well with success thus far. New WD 320 GB drives are going for about $85-90, with 500 GB drives still in your budget (I think).
 
Ford Van said:
I seriously doubt that with a 7200 rpm, 8mb cache hard drive that you will see ANY performance increase by using a seperate drive for audio
Click to expand...


the idea is to have more efficient overall throughput.. the OS partition is doing alot more than just reading and writing audio app data to the hard drive, its controlling i/o's to all buses, managing services, along with many other tasks.these requests require the heads to move erratically across the platters finding the data.. when a second disk is used you have a second head reading and writing on a different set platters, thus having the OS head doing less work finding the data along with a decrease in i/o errors 'increase in overall data throughput'... less pops, crackles, sudden freezes in a heavy plug-in environment

in todays demand of using more and more plug-ings.. its important to use best practices to get optimal performance
 
JMarcomb said:
the idea is to have more efficient overall throughput.. the OS partition is doing alot more than just reading and writing audio app data to the hard drive, its controlling i/o's to all buses, managing services, along with many other tasks.these requests require the heads to move erratically across the platters finding the data.. when a second disk is used you have a second head reading and writing on a different set platters, thus having the OS head doing less work finding the data along with a decrease in i/o errors 'increase in overall data throughput'... less pops, crackles, sudden freezes in a heavy plug-in environment

in todays demand of using more and more plug-ings.. its important to use best practices to get optimal performance
Click to expand...

Sorry, that is just not how it works in audio apps.

A majority of the OS is stored into RAM. There is left over for your apps to run. Once your system is loaded up and working, there is relatively little else going on these days because you have so much stored in RAM that the swap file is hardly used.

Now, if you are a dimwit, and are chatting, checking email, surfing the net, running Excel, and are editing in Photoshop while trying to record too, THEN you might have some read/write problems.

Otherwise, little is being done with the disk, and with such HUGE buffer and cache's being used now, and the HUGE throughput of modern drives, any problems encountered have little if anything to do with the fact that you have audio on your OS disk! :rolleyes: I get this from much smarter guys about software than you or I! ;)

I can think of a few really good reasons to have a separate audio disk, but NONE of them has to do with performance issues.
 
It seems like Im getting two different ideas on this? I appreciate all the responses. So, basically, i should get an extra hard drive to just backup audio? Im not quite understanding all the posts...maybe Im just thinking too hard.
 
Blackwiz said:
It seems like Im getting two different ideas on this? I appreciate all the responses. So, basically, i should get an extra hard drive to just backup audio? Im not quite understanding all the posts...maybe Im just thinking too hard.
Click to expand...

No, it is a great idea to have your audio on a separate drive from the OS.

We are "discussing" the "why".
 
yes, alot of os services are stored in memory

constant streams of audio and/or video being written to a disk are very resource intensive to the disk.. high priority to write to the disk. meaning all other application 0's and 1's have lower priority in line

now say youre not only recording audio to disk, but youre also using a bosendorfer piano vst that requires streaming from disk. (not even including the other little tasks the OS forgot to stuff into its memory capsule)

so now, your disk head has to position the head over the disk sector it needs to write to while simutaniously streaming audio from the samples on the disk... having a second drive takes some of the load and buffer delay off that disk.
 
JMarcomb said:
yes, alot of os services are stored in memory

constant streams of audio and/or video being written to a disk are very resource intensive to the disk.. high priority to write to the disk. meaning all other application 0's and 1's have lower priority in line

now say youre not only recording audio to disk, but youre also using a bosendorfer piano vst that requires streaming from disk. (not even including the other little tasks the OS forgot to stuff into its memory capsule)

so now, your disk head has to position the head over the disk sector it needs to write to while simutaniously streaming audio from the samples on the disk... having a second drive takes some of the load and buffer delay off that disk.
Click to expand...

That is the purpose of the cache, to pick up the load when the disk is busy.

VIDEO streams are indeed throughput intensive, but audio? LOL Not even!

Chris Harris is running some pretty big projects off the same hard drive as his OS is on, on a fairly modest computer. I know of others who are doing just find and dandy with one disk.
 
A seperate drive for audio may not be necessary in todays environment, but there is absolutely no doubt that it is more efficient and better practice. Regardless of the cahces and RAM, in an audio intense 24 bit environment with plugins, vsti's etc... a couple gigs of ram is not even close to holding all necessary data. Adding the second hard drive increses the efficiency of how things run on BOTH drives. It also keeps files in a better order on the disk itself. It reduces fragmenting, which admittedly is not as big a problem today as it was a few years ago.
 
the performance improvement might not be noticeable, but it sure is also convenient if you ever want to transfer to another computer.

I bought a firewire 320 gig mybook from a local best buy for $160, im sure you can find it online for much less. pretty much silent, easy to install, and hasnt given me any problems.

just remember, if you do get one, dont forget to partition it.
 
All I can say is that a page file used for virtual memory gets accessed a considerable amount, regardless of how much memory you have - the thing is active whether you need it or not... at least in Windows - don't know about the Mac OS.

For the original poster, go with firewire over USB - I tried running audio off my USB external last night and it was pops and clicks city. Ran the same app with the same plugs using audio stored on my internal drive, and it worked fine.

I'd recommend an external anyway, for either backup or permanent storage of most of your documents and media, etc., simply because the main disk drive IS getting used by everthing else as well - so it is more prone to dying simply because it is used more. Having everything backed up will save you the aggravation of a dead main disk, and it will also save main disk space if you store everything on the external, in the event that you do use your internal disk for audio work (like I am doing now :))
 
Chris H generally only records 1-2 tracks at a time though I believe. If you're reading 24 tracks and writing an additional 16 you're going to run out of disk resource very quickly. On my MADI systems I have to split projects between two disks even at 24/48 because each disk will only handle 64 i/o effectively.
 
xstatic said:
A seperate drive for audio may not be necessary in todays environment, but there is absolutely no doubt that it is more efficient and better practice. Regardless of the cahces and RAM, in an audio intense 24 bit environment with plugins, vsti's etc... a couple gigs of ram is not even close to holding all necessary data. Adding the second hard drive increses the efficiency of how things run on BOTH drives. It also keeps files in a better order on the disk itself. It reduces fragmenting, which admittedly is not as big a problem today as it was a few years ago.
Click to expand...

Fragmentation is almost a non-issue. Sorry man, it was a poor reason to give.

And again, the efficiency is almost a non-issue too.

You guys are giving audio files WAY too much credit of taxing a hard drive. Audio files are FAR from taxing a hard drives ability to read/write efficiently.
 
Pitseleh said:
the performance improvement might not be noticeable, but it sure is also convenient if you ever want to transfer to another computer.

I bought a firewire 320 gig mybook from a local best buy for $160, im sure you can find it online for much less. pretty much silent, easy to install, and hasnt given me any problems.

just remember, if you do get one, dont forget to partition it.
Click to expand...

Yes, mobility is a great reason to add an external drive!

But if you don't need mobility, then you can save a lot of bucks by installing an internal drive.
 
Hard2Hear said:
Chris H generally only records 1-2 tracks at a time though I believe. If you're reading 24 tracks and writing an additional 16 you're going to run out of disk resource very quickly. On my MADI systems I have to split projects between two disks even at 24/48 because each disk will only handle 64 i/o effectively.
Click to expand...

Correct, but Chris Harris PLAYS BACK MANY audio files while recording the 1-2 tracks at a time. While reads are not quite as hard as writes for the drive, it is STILL throughput.

I have done my own benchmarks on recording/playing back "x" amount of tracks at a time. pipelineaudio has done similar tests. We both found that it was almost impossibly to tax a 8mb cache disk. The "easy to handle" numbers were WAY higher than the average interface provides.

I will use your argument back at you though. ;) This guy is recording at home. Just like Chris Harris. ;)

You guys, MUCH of the information you are spouting off about hard drive performance and system performance is ANCIENT by computer standards. This is the XP with FAST hard drives era. Welcome to the year 2007. It is a far cry different than it was in 2000. ;) Look elsewhere for performance bottlenecks than the hard drive.
 
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