3 harddrive set-up..

  • Thread starter Thread starter Altruist
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Altruist

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Hi there,

I read somewhere that its best to use 3 harddrives while recording music. But I forget where I read this. I know one harddrive to install and run the apps. Store on the 2nd but what is the third for?? Anyone know what I am talking about cause I am starting to doubt myself.

Geoff
 
Your theory of 2 is right...I dont see where you would need a 3rd.
 
1 - OS, program files...

2 - Audio files

3 - ??


I dont know what you would want a third unless you want to back up everything on another drive.
 
1 - OS, program files...

2 - Audio files

3 - SWAP FILE

Even with a lot of ram, you still hit the windoes swap file on occation. I would seperate data first, then pull the swap file to another drive.
I have no direct experience with audio, but in rendering it is a big help, and audio has similar needs.

Gordon
 
Perhaps it was in the context of a Raid 0 setup.

Drive 1 for OS & Apps.
Drives 2 & 3 configured as a single logical Raid 0 drive for audio.

This gives you the best possible performance because

1. Application & audio data are on physically seperate drives accessed via their own disk controllers, and

2. Raid 0 striping effectively doubles read/write throughput by splitting the work across 2 physical drives
 
A third Drive is VERY useful for those of us who use samples. I nice big drive can hold a LOT and its nice to be able to stream audio, and Halion samples from different disks :)
 
If I was gonna build a DAW and was flexible on the budget I'd get 3 drives. First drive Seagate 120 GB PATA. This would be the bootable drive with all my software and would function as a backup for a RAID-0 array.
2 other drives would each be 60 GB Maxtor SATA drives (not sure if I can get 60 GB 8MB Seagates and Maxtors are almost as quiet)
Use the RAID array as data drive for music stuff, and anything else (like games) where speed could benefit.
Then buy Handy Backup for $30 and configure it to backup at a time when the computer will be on and I'm not using it heavily. Can also be manually started. Set it to freshen files so it doesn't have to backup the whole array every time.
I built a friend a DAW with a similar setup and one of the raid drives did fail, but he only lost about an hour of work that he did the day it died.

I probably don't need the speed of the raid but if I had some extra money to build a DAW, the more speed the better...
 
Raid 0 setup, swap files..haha I am in over my head here. Thanks for the reply's looks like I got a bit of research ahead of me.


Geoff
 
I use 2 drives with 4 partitions.

Drive 1, both partitions are around 80 GB. Partition 1 is the OS and applications. Partition 2 is a data partition. This stores my samples and related files. Needs to be big because some of the sample sets out there are massive. For example, BFD (a drum sampler/sample set) is over 9GB.

Drive 2, first partition is 100 GB, second partition is 60 GB. Partition 1 is my main audio recording space. Partition 2 is a backup recording space, which I haven't really used yet. The majority of my projects are 24 tracks or less, but I've done a couple complex tunes going with 40+ tracks and I haven't had any problems with the drive speed.
 
Cerddwyr said:
3 - SWAP FILE
Click to expand...
IF SWAP {
Buy more RAM;}

Really, nowadays RAM is so cheap and so plenty that you have no reason to hit the point where the swap file kicks in. So forget about that 3rd drive.
 
#1 O/S
#2 Primary audio (removable optional
#3 B/U audio (removable
 
How do you set up a 3rd HD when you have only two IDE channels?

My mobo is an ASUS P4T533-C (no SATA capability)

My current set-up is:

IDE1: HD1 (40G), CDRW

IDE2: HD2 (60G), DVD

I was thinking of swapping out one of them with a larger drive, but it would be even better if I can just add the 3rd drive.

Thanks.
 
whattaguy said:
How do you set up a 3rd HD when you have only two IDE channels?
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Each has a 'master' and a 'secondary.
You can record on/with ether.
 
fldrummer said:
One of these

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=16-102-026&depa=0
Click to expand...

I'm not too familiar with these, so I have a couple questions.

If I add one of these cards, will I be able to just add 2 more IDE's with a device on each one?
Will I be able to use these in conjunction with my 2 current HD's?
Will this have any performance effect to my recording PC?
Does a PCI IDE controller have less/more/same performance as the MOBO IDE?

Sorry, that was more than a couple of questions. :D
 
You have four devices on the original two available channels, correct? This would add four more?
 
whattaguy said:
mixsit,

Yes, I have 4 on the original 2 available.

I don't know, would it add 4 more?
Click to expand...

Sorry, you need GOOD help here. This is fringe stuff for me. 'Wanna do.. verbs, comps...?:D :D
 
All said and considered here,…
I would just add, if you want less drives and same speed you would obtain with Raid combined,go SCSI U320, only thing that really dances to the rhythm of present boards/memory speeds.

Speed they are capable of, and lets face it, today HD’s are weakest link in this architecture of information domain between hardware.

Naturally there is a very good reason for that (Industry),but postponed for later date I will pronounce the same.
 
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