Dividing Harddrives

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pi_floyd_nk

New member
Hi everybody. Another guy lacking knowledge here. I'm currently in the process of setting up a daw. I wanted it to also handle internet and maybe a few games. I already know the cardinal rule to separate recording and personal usage on the com. So My question is can I set up 3 harddrives:

os with recording software
os with internet and crap
audio drive

Would this protect my important music stuff from virus,games,etc?

Does this have anything to do with PARTITIONS?

Is there a specific way to set this up on the mobo (msi neo 2)?

Any help would be greatly appreciated
thanks
stu
 
Why the OS on two drives? Is that really necessary?

Use one drive for OS and apps, other drives for data only (such as audio files or whatever).

Partitioning is usually done on the apps drive, but if you have those other drives it's not necessary.

My 2 cents, anyway.
 
Hi, thanks for the reply but excuse the ignorance. Wouldn't I want to have general apps (internet, photoshop,etc) on a seperate drive so it wouldn't interfere with my rec software. And if so wouldn't I need windows on those 2 drives. (and the 3rd for audio)?

thanks
stu
 
pi_floyd_nk said:
Hi, thanks for the reply but excuse the ignorance. Wouldn't I want to have general apps (internet, photoshop,etc) on a seperate drive so it wouldn't interfere with my rec software. And if so wouldn't I need windows on those 2 drives. (and the 3rd for audio)?

thanks
stu
Click to expand...
Where apps are installed matters little. If you wanted to set up a dual boot situation, which would mean you have two copies of your OS installed, one for audio and one for general purposes, that would be fine. Aside from that, I can't really think of a point in installing particular apps on different drives.
 
So, do you already own 3 drives or are you just thinking about this in advance before purchasing? If you already have 3, and if 2 of them are identical, I would run them in RAID 0 and install your apps on that drive, then use the remaining drive for storage. Otherwise, I would run the OS and your bread and butter apps on the same drive, storage on its own, and random apps/etc. on the third.

If you don't own these drives yet, I'd recommend only getting 2 total, unless you would like to do a RAID setup as mentioned above. If you're not familar with RAID - basically, RAID 0 (as opposed to 1, 5 ,etc.) allows 2 harddrives to act as one when transfering data (i.e. alternating input/out) which increases transfer speed significantly. And yes, the storage size will be the same as having them used like a normal setup (as opposed to sharing - RAID 1). And to elaborate more in this setup, I would get Raptor drives to run the RAID with for the best performance (aside from SCSI).
 
Hi, thanks for your time guys. I haven't got the drives yet. And I'm still not exactly sure about this. If I only had two drives (apps/storage) wouldn't my internet usage,games,etc. compromise my recording software. I want to keep these things seperate and thought 3 drives would accomplish this but obviously I don't know what I'm doing.
How would I set this up so those two functions are totally independent of each other?
again, thanks for your patience
stu
 
Best to have only 1 OS, unless you need 2. @ OS's is dual boot. This is generally done if you have certain things that run in older OS's, and you only want to use them sometimes. If everything runs in 1 OS, then you can do just one. You could set up multiple users, if you want. That way you can try and make sure that when you do music stuff, only certain apps load, and a certain way, but then you would have to reboot if you wanted to play a game. If it's a newer, faster pc, you should have no problems just running it as is. Just remember to always back up files after recording them, just in case.

I have 2 drives, and I have games and music on one, and the OS and regular pc stuff like wordprocessor, IE and such on the other.
 
pi_floyd_nk said:
Hi, thanks for your time guys. I haven't got the drives yet. And I'm still not exactly sure about this. If I only had two drives (apps/storage) wouldn't my internet usage,games,etc. compromise my recording software. I want to keep these things seperate and thought 3 drives would accomplish this but obviously I don't know what I'm doing.
How would I set this up so those two functions are totally independent of each other?
again, thanks for your patience
stu
Click to expand...
No. I've had Firefox and Vegas 5 running at the same time without any problem. I once recorded some stuff into Sound Forge off an internet radio station and everything was fine. Programs don't interact the way you seem to think they do.

EDIT: The main thing to do is make sure you've got current anti-virus software and a good firewall. Then keep it up to date and do regular scans of your system. Spyware/adware removers are a good idea, too. You don't need to make it more complicated than it needs to be.

Here's my set-up, just to give you an idea. I have a Dell Dimension 8300 with 2 internal hard drives. the C drive is used for my OS (XP Pro) and all my software. The D drive is dedicated for audio files only. I also have an external Firewire drive that is also dedicated to audio. Simple, and I haven't had a problem yet [knocks on wood].
 
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Why does this sound so familar?

Everything still runs off the same disk. A second disk is as if you partitioned (more storage) a master drive (the one with your OS).


I still don't understand this all completely myself. But what makes sense to me is to do installs on both. I have mine set-up OS on both and nothing at all shares my audio drive except system shit (files). Its like having 2 comps in 1.


To each thier own. If you need help with w/e you deicide. PM (private message) me I'll let ya know wtf to do.





L8er,
livilaNic
 
2 discs are plenty...

I've got two computers, each with 2 harddrives. I found that partitioning the boot drive just complicated things, and, with the newer OS taking up more space, I found myself running into self-inflicted "out of memory" problems that went away when I de-partitioned the first drive. KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid. The simpler your setup, the better it runs (no computer company will ever adopt that as a slogan, however).
 
Would this protect my important music stuff from virus,games,etc?
Click to expand...

If you mean keep it safe from viruses etc, it depends. If you dual boot, but the HD with the audio is visible in both OS's, then it won't help.
 
If you're just messin' around recording at home you don't need your PC to act like the only thing it does is record music. A lot of people here use one PC at home to surf, game, and record.

If you get serious enough that you need a dedicated PC then you'll probably buy one because you'll have a dedicated room in the house for recording.
 
I think I've got it. I was just worried because I've heard people freak out when they hear a daw being used for something other then recording. But I don't really have any choice. So I'll just get a good virus scanner and defragment often I guess.
Thanks a million for your time everybody.
stu
 
Wow, there has been a lot of advice given in this thread. Sadly, my experience shows me that all of it is fairly useless. I think the original poster who asked the questions already had the best set up for his needs.

Having multiple drives for different OS's and for audio storage will certainly help a system run smoother. On the internet/gaming/non audio drive you could even set the OS up to not recognize the audio and the audio OS drive. This will reduce the chances of getting a virus, and other people screwing it up. I would even make that drive the default bootable for one added layer of protection. Multiple OS installs will certainly be less risky then constantly installing and uninstalling on one drive as well as make the 2 OS's much easier to setup appropriately for the different uses. It will also increase speed and throughput of the system.

As far as RAID goes. Someone above reccomended you set your system up with a striped raid array. I would HIGHLY recommend that you NOT set up a striped array. Modern hard drives are generally fast enough to handle much more than what people throw at them. On paper there are plenty of reaons why a striped raid array would be useful, but in real life there is one giant reason that in my opinion outweighs them all. Stability! First, the speed increase of your porgrams and recordings will be faster, but by a much smaller amount than what the paper specs would leave you to believe. However, if you lose a drive due to hardware failure (which is pretty inevitable in this day and age), than you will lose all of your data. Sometimes expensive hardware recovery is possible, but if that drive happens to be the "master" of the two striped drives than even that hardware recovery (which could easily cost hundreds) could be useless. If you are lookng into a mirrored array, thats a whole different story. A mirrored array increases your chances of NOT losing data:)

Sure they may be better ways of doing what you need Stu, but given your stated resources and goals, I think you already had the best way possible:)
 
xstatic said:
Wow, there has been a lot of advice given in this thread. Sadly, my experience shows me that all of it is fairly useless. I think the original poster who asked the questions already had the best set up for his needs.

Having multiple drives for different OS's and for audio storage will certainly help a system run smoother. On the internet/gaming/non audio drive you could even set the OS up to not recognize the audio and the audio OS drive. This will reduce the chances of getting a virus, and other people screwing it up. I would even make that drive the default bootable for one added layer of protection. Multiple OS installs will certainly be less risky then constantly installing and uninstalling on one drive as well as make the 2 OS's much easier to setup appropriately for the different uses. It will also increase speed and throughput of the system.

As far as RAID goes. Someone above reccomended you set your system up with a striped raid array. I would HIGHLY recommend that you NOT set up a striped array. Modern hard drives are generally fast enough to handle much more than what people throw at them. On paper there are plenty of reaons why a striped raid array would be useful, but in real life there is one giant reason that in my opinion outweighs them all. Stability! First, the speed increase of your porgrams and recordings will be faster, but by a much smaller amount than what the paper specs would leave you to believe. However, if you lose a drive due to hardware failure (which is pretty inevitable in this day and age), than you will lose all of your data. Sometimes expensive hardware recovery is possible, but if that drive happens to be the "master" of the two striped drives than even that hardware recovery (which could easily cost hundreds) could be useless. If you are lookng into a mirrored array, thats a whole different story. A mirrored array increases your chances of NOT losing data:)

Sure they may be better ways of doing what you need Stu, but given your stated resources and goals, I think you already had the best way possible:)
Click to expand...

w00t! Thx for stating this info. :P
 
I argue that it is optimal to have your audio and data on a seperate disk installed on a IDE controller other than your system disk.

Partition a disk, with a few specific exceptions not related to DAWs, is generally done for organizational purposes.

Note, that here I am talking about audio and data files, not program files or applications or OSs.

I have emprically proven to myself and a few others that using a seperate disk and IDE controller improves throughput. Your mileage will vary, and this may not be an issue for you if your audio demands are not large, but for those of us who have a lot of audio tracks, it is.

I also argue that ensuring that the drive is on a seperate controller from the system disk helps immeasurably.

I also only have the single OS installed on my DAW. (I have dual boots on other systems). I have been on the internet from day 1, been doing this for well over 10 years, and have never had any problems. I can understand the argument for a seperate OS install, but I don't see a significant payoff.

As for raid, as Xstatic said, they are not generally installed for performance reasons, they are installed for redundancy and reliability. In fact, last time I used RAID (a few years back admittedly), I recall there being a significant performance hit. Maybe this has changed, but I personally would still not consider installing one for an DAW. Regular backups and archival are still your best weapon against data loss.

my $0.02.
 
xstatic said:
As far as RAID goes. Someone above reccomended you set your system up with a striped raid array. I would HIGHLY recommend that you NOT set up a striped array. Modern hard drives are generally fast enough to handle much more than what people throw at them. On paper there are plenty of reaons why a striped raid array would be useful, but in real life there is one giant reason that in my opinion outweighs them all. Stability! First, the speed increase of your porgrams and recordings will be faster, but by a much smaller amount than what the paper specs would leave you to believe. However, if you lose a drive due to hardware failure (which is pretty inevitable in this day and age), than you will lose all of your data. Sometimes expensive hardware recovery is possible, but if that drive happens to be the "master" of the two striped drives than even that hardware recovery (which could easily cost hundreds) could be useless. If you are lookng into a mirrored array, thats a whole different story. A mirrored array increases your chances of NOT losing data:)
Click to expand...

Notice I advised putting storage on the non-RAID drive in my previous post, not the RAID.
 
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