should I partition my HD

Slackmaster2K

Slackmaster2K

Gone
It should also be noted that partitioning your drive will NOT improve performance. In fact it will slightly (maybe not noticably) degrade performance because the OS must now access two or more allocation tables on the same disk.

It might make it easier to defrag portions of the drive (which might not be recommended if you're recording interleved audio files!!!) and can provide some "security", but that's about it.

You have to realize that the same physical disk is being accessed, and there's only one data cable on the thing. This whole topic is similar to that of master/slave drive settings. Seperate drives on seperate ports is the only way you'll see no (or little) degradation in file access and transfer times.

Also note that data security might not be a big benefit if you starting to have PHYSICAL disk problems. It is still possible to lose all partitions on a drive simultaneously.

Reinstalling Windows, which I would recommend you do every 6 months to a year, will be easier however, but you'll still have to reinstall your software (though the installation process will be faster since the files are already copied to another partition). However, you could always just delete the windows folder and the hidden files in your root and reinstall. If you do partition, Windows95/98 should require AT MOST 1GB to run properly and maintain a swapfile...that includes installation of a whole buttload of software (which will of course write to \windows, \windows\system and \windows\system32).

So it pretty much boils down, as Emeric said, to organization. It's so tempting to take that huge disk and break it up. I think that this is a result of the speed at which hard drives got larger. 18GB? Shit, last year a 4GB drive was big...and expensive!

Muliple partitions are necessary for running multiple operating systems. They can also ease organization...especially when it comes to data security when running a secure file system NTFS. Not something that you're doing obviously.

Remember, once you partition, you're stuck with it unless you want to spend MORE time working ON your computer than WITH it. You might want to check out Partition Magic which can supposedly repartition drives while maintaining data and operating systems.

Regardless of what you do, make sure you format the drive with FAT32. It won't be visible from NT but that's probably not something you're concerned with. And back up your audio files to another medium! I wish I could :)

You might also want to look into Windows2000 and see what its specs are in regards to file handling. If 2000 is as stable and friendly as they claim, then you'll probably upgrade eventually and don't want to have to reformat and repartition everything!

(BTW, I'm also curious as to how the Athalon works out. My K6-2 was an extremely noticable piece of crap compared to my Celeron at the same internal clock rate)

Bored at work,
Slackmaster 2000
 
I am using 18 gig 7200/66 HD. SHould I partition it for better performace? the computer i'm using has an AMD K7 600 mhz, 128 RAM. any other suggestions for optimizing my system would be great. thanks to anyone who answers.
 
Wow an Athlon user, let us know how it works out. I would partition the drive. Put your operating system on one partition and make a few other partitions for audio data, backup audio data. At least this way if your operating system craps out, you can just format the primary OS partition and reinstall. I tend to copy all of my software (in uninstalled format) to one partition so I don't have to hunt around for CD's. This allows me to get the system back up and running in the event of some catastrophic windows mess up (which will inevitably happen).

Emeric
 
I'll do all that. do you have any suggestion on how big I should make each partition? once I get everything optimized I'll let you know how it works out. It should be pretty great, because I also have a K6-2 400, 64MB RAM and I can play 16 tracks of audio with no problem.

ametth
 
I would go with 4GB for your OS partition and have the other 2 partitions split 50/50. All a matter of preference and how you like to organize your data. Do you have a way of backing up data? If not, CD-RW is an affordable route.

Emeric
 
If you are looking to make this computer a screaming, digi recordin' hunk of honey, you will need to do a few things different.

First, if you are reading this post from the same machine that you are also recording on, well, your recording machine is not optimized simply by the fact that you have installed an internet browser. Can't really give you the specifics on this, but, having used the same computer for audio editing/recording with no browser, then loading the browser, I can tell you that the whole audio deal went to shit once the browser was installed. Seems that internet browsers like to change things for it to run well that takes away from the computers ability to run audio software at it's best. So, you may consider getting a different computer for your internet needs. It really doesn't need to be anything special. If you have a good modem, and a decent video card, you will surf the net as well as you are doing now. You could probably find an "old" P-233 MMX system or something comperable for around $300 complete with modem etc......This $300 investment will go a long way towards optimizing your computer for recording since your "nice" machine can now not have an internet browser. Also, you can take the modem out, which should also ease any hardware conflicts. If you go this route, make sure to erase the hard drive and reinstall your OS. You will have nothing but problems with you computer if you try uninstalling a internet browser. :(

Next. GET ANOTHER HARD DRIVE!!! Don't get rid of the one you have. What I mean is use your current hard drive for actually storing the audio files to. Use your new drive for running the OS and Applications on. An UDMA 33 at 5400rpm with a less then 10ms seek time will work just fine for running your software. If your ATA - 66 is true ATA - 66, meaning that you have the card that makes it ATA - 66, and is running at 7200rpm, you are running nearly as good as state of the art SCSI drives. You should have no problems with it at all.

The deal is that with trying to run your apps, and record/edit/mix on the same drive, the poor drive is losing all sorts of performance by having to do all these things at once. You will get these little glitch's while working that you won't ever really get by having a dedicated hard drive for audio storage, and one for apps.

Now, a few may choose to respond to this with differing advice, and claim that two hard drives, and having no modem and internet browser is totally unnecessary, that you can just do this, or do that. But I am giving this advice to you via several peers of mine who build/sell DAW's, own Mastering suites, etc..... Some are PC based, some are Mac. It really doesn't matter. Also, if you were to go to most manufactures sites of audio hardware/software, you will find this same advice. So, if you are looking to have a mostly glitch free system for recording, this IS the way to do it. You may have a few weird problems to sort out with getting the system to work right in the beginning, but once that is all taken care of, it will run really good.

As far as Partitioning, if you run dual hard drives, you would not need to partition the drive dedicated for audio storage. But the drive with OS and App's on it, the advice of at least having 2 partitions is a good idea just for the simple fact that if the OS starts getting freaky, you can just reload, then load App's from the other partition which will be much faster than from the CD ROM's that they are on.

Remember this too, the less software and services you have loaded, the better success you will have with your OS running well. Especially in the case of 95/98 (what's the difference huh? I like to call them 96 1/2.... :) where the OS is easily "hurt" with new software being loaded.

Optimally, you may consider running NT-4. You will have a tougher time getting hardware/software that you need for it, but you can be assured that an NT system will be FAR MORE reliable than even 98! This is a fact! I doubt though that if you are looking for good hardware/software, you will have any trouble finding stuff that runs on NT. The professional stuff all does. Then again, you may just want to wait for 2000 to come out. But, it may be a while before 2000 device drivers come out. In that case, the upgrade from NT-4 to 2000 would probably work better than a 98 to 2000 upgrade beings that 2000 is in the NT line as opposed to 98 being from the 95 line. In either case, the upgrade route is not usually as good as installing full versions. So, maybe an NT system, which currently has drivers available, and is a proven stable system would be the way to go untill 2000 proves itself, and drivers are available for it for most devices.

You asked for the best way to optimize your system for recording. This is the way to do it. Anything else will be a compromise. You are only looking at a $500 investment to get another computer to use online (which you will want so you can hunt down all those pesky little problems any Windows system will have) and to purchase another hard drive. Of course this doesn't include any software/soundcards for recording, but that is a cost you have probably already considered anyway.

Good luck.
Ed Rei
Echo Star Studio www.echostarstudio.com
 
sonusman,

I'm very experienced with computers, but not so much recording software and such.

My question is this: if you have a boatload of memory, is HD speed REALLY that important? It's not like your hard drive is a tape. I guess it would depend on the efficiency of the recording software as well.

What I've noticed while recording is that HD access is minimal and appears to be mostly swapfile oriented (judging from its frequency). If you have enough memory (128MB+) is it really necessary to have a blazing hard disk if you're reducing swapfile usage (by adding memory)? Of course wavs will load and save faster with a faster drive.

Could you shed some light on this topic for me? Thanks!

I also agree that as of IE4, the "web browser" took on a whole new meaning and is now an intrusive disaster of a windows "application". I'm running Windows98 now and am hating it.

I would suggest running Win95 OSR/2 (C) on the recording machine. It's very stable and fast! I don't think its possible to install 98 without installing the IE4/5 controls which do take some of the "purity" from the system. NT4 is a great OS, but fast file access is not its strongpoint (unless you're judging from a client-server standpoint). NTFS is slow and NT doesn't support FAT32.

Good points all around. I wish I could afford a machine that was only used for recording!

Slackmaster 2000
 
Slackmaster2K, You can!

I offer an alternative which is just as good as having a dedicated machine for recording.

Having 2 hard drives is an excellent idea as Sonusman says. I use an 8 gig 5400 IDE for Windows and a 6.4GB 7200 Quantum for Audio data only.

Using a little program (60K) called Mr. Booter, I've partitioned my 8 gig into 3 partitions. #1 partition has windows 98 on it, which I load up with entertainment (half-life, NFS4 :)) word processors, data base stuff, in otherwords, the day to day type app's.

On partition #2 I have windows 95 (personal preference) which I use only for recording. I have Cubase VST, soundforge, cd burning software etc. But only audio related software. All unused devices are disabled in Device Manager. (the 3rd partition is software backup for quick reinstall)

When my machine boots up it shows a menu which allows me to choose:

1: Windows 98
2: Cubase

It's just like having 2 machines. The OS's are totally isolated.

Worth considering for anyone who has one machine.

Cant remember the link for mr booter, but if interested, do a yahoo search on it and it will come up. It's semi-tricky to set up for the non-computer savvy, have to understand partitions as well as the physical layout of hard drives. Not a user friendly program, but it's not that tough to figure out.

Emeric




[This message has been edited by Emeric (edited 10-05-1999).]
 
I already have two machines the one I just bought is the athlon K7 with the 18 gig 7200/66 HD specifically for recording, it doesnt have a modem or anything. just the 2 wave 8*24 soundcards, a floppy, zip, and a cd burner.. and the motherboard does support the 66 thing. whatever that is. . I will definitly do everything sonusman said, and will take more suggestions if you have them, as I would like to optimize this machine as much as possible for recording. Thank you everybody for your help.
 
What a waste of a perfectly good hard drive system!!! I can't believe that your mother board can't support the ATA-66 card!!! I would think about taking it back. Basically, you paid too much for a hard drive that won't realize it's potential untill you can run the pci card that makes it a true ATA-66 hard drive. Basically, you have a overpriced UDMA-33.

On other matters.

Slackmaster 2k,

I would say that you may have a bit more insight into the whole computer thing than I. But, I happen to have a slew of friends in seems that are pretty deep into this stuff. I will inquire as to the hard drive rpm issue. But I would venture a guess that it might have something to do with possibly buffering or something like that. Also, when recording and playing back, the hard drive needs to continuously spin to avoid drop outs in the wave files. It is my understanding that until you get into SCSI, and 7200rpm IDE's that a UDMA will stop spinning every once in a while then start up again. Now with enough buffer, this would not be much of a problem if say you had only 4 or 8 tracks running. But if you were to have 24, 32, 48 tracks going, well, you can see that there might be a problem with the buffer if the hard drive stops spinning. Clitch's!!!

As far as OS is concerned. I would venture to say that the reason high-end recording dudes favor the NT OS may have something to do with the fact that the OS does not allow direct access to the hardware from software without going through the OS to do it. With all the little things that Windows likes to do in the background, maybe the fact that the OS has the ability to keep other things from happening while an important take is being recorded, or a intensive edit is being done that could corrupt the file. I will not dispute the speed issue. It is a fact that I have never heard that before, but I can imagine it is true. But, I think the idea is a stable system. If a little speed is lost for the sake of stability, why I am there..... :) I have tried 95 OSR/2 (b) and found it to be quite unstable the second any software was installed. This is of course in comparison to NT 4. Is (c) a more stable OS??? Maybe that is the key.

I don't really do a whole lot in regards with computer recording in the studio. I really don't have time while billing clients anywhere from $25 - $40 an hour to have some little error screen pop up telling me that I have to not bill the next hour why I try to fix it..... :( I am just going on some pretty hard won experience from peers who do mastering, DAW building, LAN's managers, etc...I WILL NOT consider the 95/98 route for a professional recording environment no matter what anyone else's experience is, unless they can show me that they can effectively record 24 tracks at once, with full EQ, aux send, sub-mixing, dynamic processing all at once without any problems, and that this system can run for up to 14 hours straight, for over a week straight. When I see a system like that, and, it sounds really good, why, I will consider hard drive recording in the studio. For some mastering work where only a stereo source is used, well, I guess that a sub-par system will surfice. Even for some play around 4 or 8 track recording. I don't think though that I would use anything less than what I described above for an editing environment. Not when I have to bill clients for it.

I have seen some NT 4 systems run with like a Celeron 400, 128 SDRAM, 4 MB video card, 7200rpm IDE drive, and a UDMA 33 5400rpm drive, with just about nothing else on it. I have heard over 30 tracks played back at once on these systems with lots of processing, and it worked flawlessly. Very stable, and everything came right up and worked the way it was supposed to. Mind you though, I see plenty of posts from people that seem to be having all sorts of problems running app's that were doing nowhere as much. Sooooooooo, IMHO, NT 4, two hard drives one being a 7200rpm, at least 128MB SDRAM, at least 4MB Viper video card, and no other software except recording/mixing related is the way to go for a optimized system. Preferrably though, a SCSI system will really rock! Just not going to have stuff messing up there.

I hope you don't think that I am trying to step on your obvious superiour knowledge of computers here Slackmaster 2k. I just ask alot of questions of people that are professionals in the biz of recording, and I have pretty good retention skills. I also understand systems well, even though I may not have all the specs memorized, I have been around this stuff long enough to know the snow jobs from the real deals. It would seem that mostly there are snow jobs going on with computer recordings. Everybody has jumped into the game, and as a result, the proper methods for doing it are largely being ignored. And then everyone gets all bent out of shape because their little computer didn't turn out a recording that sounds like something Bob Clearwater recorded/mixed/produced! Is it not clear to all by now that there really is no substitute for quality? Especially in the computer field, overkill is the name of the game if you want it to be worry free. And music is an art. And recording is an art. How can you create art when you are worrying whether your stupid computer is going to function or not???

Anyway, just rambling here. Hell, what do I know?? :)

Ed Rei
Echo Star Studio www.echostarstudio.com
 
I think you misread sonusman, my mother board DOES support ATA-66. I hope this system will work for me. all I really want to do is record demos. if it turns out not to be very reliable, I may switch to ADAT or analog system. thanks for the help.

matthew
 
oops!!! :)

Okay, well, now you have to determine if you have the ATA-66 card. If not, you basically still have a UDMA-33. Hopefully, you have the card though. Often, these systems have the drive, but not the card.

Anyway, I hope that it works out for you. I am sure that you will be able to record something with a certain amount of success. My post mainly dealt with "optimizing" a computer for recording. You can get away with much less if you are prepared to deal with a few clitch's and a slower system.

Good luck.
Ed
 
sonusman,

Dude, I'm sorry if I came across like a jerk, it was not my intention. Communicating like this can be difficult!

The reason I asked about memory vs. hard drive speed is that when you open any file, including a large wav, a portion of it is loaded into memory and used, then the next portion, etc,etc,etc. That means that with enough memory your HD is not going to be constantly accessed, but when it is, it should be fast. Higher RPM's should improve both access time and data transfer rates...but if a 5400RPM drive is capable of bursting 66MB/second, and is only accessed in short bursts, I'm wondering if it's going to be just as good as the much more expensive 7200RPM drives. Basically, I don't know. That's why I asked. (especially since I have a 5400RPM ATA/66 drive and I want it to be good) :)

About the drive spinning down...this should really only happen, as far as I know, if you're using "energy saving" functions. Personally I disable them on the mobo and in windows because I can't stand em! You can hear your hard drive spin up and down, and I've never heard this happen while a hard drive was being used except when one was dying on me.

Yes NT4 is a very stable OS. I use it at work, in fact. The only reason I don't use it at home is because it doesn't have directx capability yet. I play games because I'm a geek. :)

I have found Windows95 OSR/2 to be stable "enough", however. Plus I have found it to be quite a bit quicker for what I do (until you get up in the neighborhood of 128MB when NT4 really starts to shine!).

What a lot of people don't understand is that a large percentage of program crashes are caused by applications (including device drivers!!), not the operating system itself. The big benefit to NT is that when an application crashes, it's not going to take everything out with it. Not that this doesn't happen on occasion. A blue screen in NT is a VERY scary thing!

NT4 is a much better operating system than Windows95/98 will ever be. I will definately be moving to Windows 2000 when it is released (or maybe I'll wait for the second release). I just can't use NT until it gets some directX support and I get some more memory. (damn manufacturers blaming the price hike on the earthquakes in Taiwan. I guess oil companies aren't the only crooks in the game)

Slackmaster 2000
 
Emeric:

Killer idea. I can't believe I didn't think of that! I used Mr. Booter (I think) about a year or two ago when I was triple booting Windows95, WindowsNT4, and Sun Solaris 2.6. At that time I wasn't into recording so I had a bit of extra hard drive space.

My current drive, however, is only a 10GB and I'm concerned that I'll fill it up with this recording stuff. I guess creating a second partition that only contained Win95 would only eat up a couple hundered megs....maybe I'll have a go at it after all...thanks.

Slackmaster 2000
 
Ametth,

Dont get hung up on this ATA/33 ATA/66 bunk.

You have a 7200 rpm drive, that is an important spec. ATA/66 is not implemented yet. Not well enough to worry about anyway, the difference you would see if your motherboard supports it would be negligable. You can buy cards from ABIT and Promise, but none of these offer any real world performance increase. Remember, it took years before ATA/33 took off. ATA/66 is new technology and it will no doubt be implemented in the near future, but at the moment, it is not.

You will get great performance out of your 7200 UDMA Drive (btw, who is the manufacturer?)

Anyway.. best of luck and keep recording.

Emeric
 
I think that Emeric hit the nail on the head here. A 7200rpm drive IS the most important aspect here. Patitioning is a good idea too. Defraging the drive is really important, and doing it often!!!

Slackman(had to give you a blues nickname :)

I did not think for a second that you came across like a jerk. I was maybe more worried that I did. I agree that writing posts can sometimes lead to gross misunderstandings. I always try to keep that in mind while reading stuff on here. I hope that I did not come across in any adverse way either though. It is very apperent that you possess a good deal of knowledge about computers that I don't, and your questions and suggestions have been very good in this thread. So, don't worry about me thinking anything bad.

Ed
 
Hate to inflate this thread again but you guys seem to know what you're talking about.

When you get your second HD(7500rpm) while your first being a 5700rpm, whats the case with the first partition being the fastest?
While the first HD(shitty one) with the OS and having partitions from C: to I:, C: is going to be the most fastest.
Now, bringing in a 2nd HD which is the blazing fast new one, having maybe a few partions made (C: to E: )
If I plug it in correctly, will the 1st HD's C: still be the fastest? Or will plugging in the 2nd HD (it having a new C: or maybe the continuing letter after where the 1st HD left off)
make the it's own 1st partition to be the fastest one and completely isolating it self from the 1st HD?
am i making sense?
Cuz i don't want my 1st HD lagging the processing down since I want everything to be as blazing as I think the new fast HD is supposed to be.
 
William,

As long as you plug the new 7200 drive onto the secondary controller on your motherboard, you will have no problems. It's not like SCSI. Set the 7200rpm as the master on the secondary IDE, and put your CD-ROM slaved with the 5400 Primary IDE drive. If you have a cd-r as well, slave it with the 7200RPM.

Emeric
 
Holy crap man! Don't let this happen! Over thinking your optimization process will cause severe headaches and diareha!

Partitioning can be an "ok" thing. It can reduce the amount of wasted space if you have lots of files (which may have been "fixed" with FAT32? Anyone?) and can add better organization to your system...etc etc as everyone stated above.

But don't overdue it! Folders! Directories! Whatever you want to call em, organizing one partition properly will probably still be easier than remembering whether your nudie picture collection is on F: or K:...I mean football pictures (sorry if I got you in trouble there)!

Here's what I'd do personally:

1) Install the second drive on the SECOND IDE PORT (e.g. IDE2)

2) Leave Windows installed on your current "crappy" drive, but move the swapfile over to your fast drive. (see Virtual Memory)

3) Do all your recording to the new drive.

4) Now experiment by moving the swapfile back to the "crappy" drive.

Why the experiment? Well, having a swapfile on a seperate drive that resides on a seperate port will allow access to the OS drive and the swapfile drive "at the same time" (so to speak)...thereby improving performance under many common conditions. However, since you're using the second drive to record on and need files to load from it as quickly as possible, the swapfile might interfere a bit and actually degrade performance.

Too many variables...but you'll get it right. A good thing would be to have a whole bunch of wav files already prepared...each time you experiment, see how many you can get to play while recording (with normal buffering).

Remember, as soon as the system seems to be running well to you, leave it alone. A suggestion from someone who's wasted countless hours "tweeking" just to get tiny little improvements in meaningless benchmarks. Music is more important.

Slackmaster 2000
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top