What's the best type of hard drive for audio?
- Thread starter karambos2
- Start date
bennychico11
...
i think SATA is still one of the most requested hard drives for audio. Mainly 'cause I think it has one of the fastest transfer rates.
SATA tranfers at 150MBps minimum
USB 2.0 is 480Mbps
Firewire is 400-800Mbps (depending on if you're using 1394a or 1394b)
and Wide Ultra2 SCSI is about 80MBps
so, if you're wanting your data to move fast, i'd say go with the SATA. Of course, SATA can get a little pricey. But if you get ATA/100 you can get up to 100MBps and will save you some money. I think they have ATA/133 now too.
SATA tranfers at 150MBps minimum
USB 2.0 is 480Mbps
Firewire is 400-800Mbps (depending on if you're using 1394a or 1394b)
and Wide Ultra2 SCSI is about 80MBps
so, if you're wanting your data to move fast, i'd say go with the SATA. Of course, SATA can get a little pricey. But if you get ATA/100 you can get up to 100MBps and will save you some money. I think they have ATA/133 now too.
Stealthtech
LOGIC ABUSER
SCSI is rather costly
look into the WD Raptor drives 10,000 rpm SATA
look into the WD Raptor drives 10,000 rpm SATA
bennychico11
...
Stealthtech said:
10,000 rpm SATA??? that's pretty darn costly too. I'm looking right now at a 36GB one for $123???? You can get a 10,000rpm 73.4GB SCSI for that price. I'd say knock your SATA down to 7200 and you'll be fine.
ChadNuttall
New member
SATA and RAID
Correct me if I'm wrong ... but I'm pretty sure that SATA is not only super fast ... it is also serial so you can write/read from two drive simultaneously.
So you could toss your OS on one drive and write audio data to the other ... avoiding drive lag. And avoiding using a slower Firewire drive for audio data.
That is my understanding anyway ... which is why I'm just about to jump into the SATA world.
Correct me if I'm wrong ... but I'm pretty sure that SATA is not only super fast ... it is also serial so you can write/read from two drive simultaneously.
So you could toss your OS on one drive and write audio data to the other ... avoiding drive lag. And avoiding using a slower Firewire drive for audio data.
That is my understanding anyway ... which is why I'm just about to jump into the SATA world.
So many hard drives out there are up to the task...
You should check out places like Storage Review if you really want to look at numbers for individual drives.
Also, note that SCSI drives don't have the performance advantage that they used to years ago.
Also, note that USB 2.0 requires more CPU over head than firewire or IDE or SCSI.
For me, personally, I look at sound and reliability above all things. Since Seagate recently upped all their hard drive warranties to _5_ years, unless other manufacturers match that, Seagate is going to be my choice for my next hard drive. The fact that they have a reputation for quiet puts them a notch above the competition as well. Samsung was also one of the few hard drive manufacturers to stick to three year warranties when practically everyone else went down to one year. They're not bleeding-edge performance oriented, but they've always been consistently quiet running and low-temperature.
I've actually been using a 5400 RPM Fujitsu for some audio tasks for the last few years and it's done me no problems. That doesn't keep me from using the latest Seagates, Hitachis, and Maxtors in my setup, though...
I'm still on regular ATA 133, and I'm not going to get an SATA hard drive until my motherboards require me to get one...
You should check out places like Storage Review if you really want to look at numbers for individual drives.
Also, note that SCSI drives don't have the performance advantage that they used to years ago.
Also, note that USB 2.0 requires more CPU over head than firewire or IDE or SCSI.
For me, personally, I look at sound and reliability above all things. Since Seagate recently upped all their hard drive warranties to _5_ years, unless other manufacturers match that, Seagate is going to be my choice for my next hard drive. The fact that they have a reputation for quiet puts them a notch above the competition as well. Samsung was also one of the few hard drive manufacturers to stick to three year warranties when practically everyone else went down to one year. They're not bleeding-edge performance oriented, but they've always been consistently quiet running and low-temperature.
I've actually been using a 5400 RPM Fujitsu for some audio tasks for the last few years and it's done me no problems. That doesn't keep me from using the latest Seagates, Hitachis, and Maxtors in my setup, though...
I'm still on regular ATA 133, and I'm not going to get an SATA hard drive until my motherboards require me to get one...
While were on the topic, I just picked up a Western Digital 120G at Circuit City for $40, after rebate. I believe its ATA-100, and 7200 RPM. Maybe not the best, but its a killer deal.
http://www.circuitcity.com/detail.jsp?c=1&b=g&u=c&catoid=-10263&qp=0052136220516&oid=71459&m=0
Hopefully that link works...
-k
http://www.circuitcity.com/detail.jsp?c=1&b=g&u=c&catoid=-10263&qp=0052136220516&oid=71459&m=0
Hopefully that link works...
-k
Maybe not the best you say?
The current generation of Western Digital drives with the 8 meg buffers currently rock performance wise. In terms of pure performance, every one else is catching up to WD this generation...
But like I said above, there are so many factors in a good audio drive...and WD's DO sacrifice sound and running temperature more than their competitors...
The current generation of Western Digital drives with the 8 meg buffers currently rock performance wise. In terms of pure performance, every one else is catching up to WD this generation...
But like I said above, there are so many factors in a good audio drive...and WD's DO sacrifice sound and running temperature more than their competitors...
bennychico11
...
whoa, that's a damn good deal. thanks!
Hi,
I'm new to digital audio and am in the process of researching the factors to take into consiration in assembling my DAW, so I have a couple of questions about this.
It sounds like the issues to take into account with hard drives are the following: temperature, noise, hard disk access time (RPM), CPU usage (USB 2.0 being more of a hog for this than Firewire), and transfer rates.
Are there any other considerations that I should take into account? Do certain hard drives work better/worse with certain motherboards/chipsets? I've seen things like the ASUS and Intel mobo's/chipsets used in things like Carillon computers (which are specifically built for audio www.carillonusa.com ), and so presume that these are good benchmarks of quality components. Am I correct in this assumption?
I must admit that I find the whole learning curve fairly steep, and wonder if I'd be best ordering a system like the Carillon ones, rather than trying to put something together myself.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated,
Geert, in Toronto
I'm new to digital audio and am in the process of researching the factors to take into consiration in assembling my DAW, so I have a couple of questions about this.
It sounds like the issues to take into account with hard drives are the following: temperature, noise, hard disk access time (RPM), CPU usage (USB 2.0 being more of a hog for this than Firewire), and transfer rates.
Are there any other considerations that I should take into account? Do certain hard drives work better/worse with certain motherboards/chipsets? I've seen things like the ASUS and Intel mobo's/chipsets used in things like Carillon computers (which are specifically built for audio www.carillonusa.com ), and so presume that these are good benchmarks of quality components. Am I correct in this assumption?
I must admit that I find the whole learning curve fairly steep, and wonder if I'd be best ordering a system like the Carillon ones, rather than trying to put something together myself.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated,
Geert, in Toronto
SuperSkyrocket
New member
DigiDesign supports ATA, SCSI, Firewire & recommends 7200+ rpm with avg seek time of less than 10ms. Apparently SCSI will begin recording sooner where there may be a 2-sec delay with ATA. They claim 32 tracks of 24/48 with all of these drive types.
You should probably format your drive with the OS's native system (i.e. NTFS for XP) and dedicate the drive to audio data. And of course enable DMA.
The difference in performance between PATA (ATA/IDE) and SATA is negligible until the 2nd generation SATA appears (should be soon though). But it will likely be expensive as hype and why would you need it if your ATA 100 works fine?
The point is it all works so why not just focus on what's quiet and reliable*
A quiet good deal:
http://dealmac.com/articles/70467.html
*paraphrased from Sklathill
You should probably format your drive with the OS's native system (i.e. NTFS for XP) and dedicate the drive to audio data. And of course enable DMA.
The difference in performance between PATA (ATA/IDE) and SATA is negligible until the 2nd generation SATA appears (should be soon though). But it will likely be expensive as hype and why would you need it if your ATA 100 works fine?
The point is it all works so why not just focus on what's quiet and reliable*
A quiet good deal:
http://dealmac.com/articles/70467.html
*paraphrased from Sklathill