adding a hard drive

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I need to have a larger hard drive , but was thinking of just adding another. how hard is this , or is it simple to do? I have a 40 gig hard drive but it is getting pretty full. if you need more info I will add the other details.
 
depends on your budget..
if you got big budget, get a bigger drive, say 120gb? this should last long and comfy.. transfer your 40gb files to it, then sell your 40 gb drive..
but if budget is the issue, then get another 40gb :)
 
If your using your system for recording then I would suggest a second drive dedicated to audio only.
 
it's fairly easy, set the jumper to slave on the second/slave drive and make sure the main (boot) drives jumper is set to master, also, watch your 5v line from your PSU, adding more hardware might pull down the volts on the system, todays rigs need more power running all the extra hardware and cpu demands....

the master (boot drive) goes on the end (last) IDE ribbon cable connector, the slave goes on the second (middle) connector on the IDE ribbon cable...

cooling is a big factor today running large drives, do it less you loose your data or drive, just a thought, been there, done that, ahem...
 
I'm not a very computer saavy guy, I had my friend do it. It looked fairly easy. Ask the guys in the IT department at your workplace if you can :).
 
keep your 40gigs for OS, softwares, etc.

get a 40/80/120gigs dedicated to audio.
 
adding harddrive

so I can add let's say a 80 gig hard drive as a slave to the first one the 40 gig? on the same cable/ cooling is not a problem I have extra cooling fans and a Antec case that has loads of fans in the first place, it's so cooled inside you you could hang meat in it. I was just wondering also about the power supply maybe a bigger unit for more juice for two hard drives? but as I said it is a Antec case and power supply? is that a larger power supply, it came with the case.

Thanks for all your help
 
I would avoid hangin meat in any computer case- Antec or otherwise- the meat will inhibit air flow throught the case

:D :D :D :p :cool:

Seriously though- that outta work for ya- if all goes as it should you'll just plug the hard drive in as slave the primary master hdd and when ya fire up the puter- it'll be there- Im not sure but you may have to format it too- no biggie though

Around here an 80gig costs about the same as a 30gig- storage just keeps gettin cheaper and cheaper-

Also ive read about the inherent problem with giant hdd is that access time isnt great (thats alot of hdd to search) and im pretty sure that a built in buffer is one solution- for instance the some of the huge Western Digital drives have a built in 8mb buffer- that seams to be more and more common these days

If ya run into problems post back and im sure someone can help ya out (prob not me though- im no master puter guy;) )
 
keep your audio drive on a separate cable than your system drive. also try to keep your operating sytem on its own partition.
 
I went in to do this very thing last week on one of the computers at my church (a < 1 yr old Dell) and when I got in there there wasn't a slave cable available. There was just a stinkin' single connection cable from the motherboard to the existing HD. I'd never seen that before. It kinda freaked me at first, I was like "Well maybe the motherboard can't handle multiple drives?" I asked one of our IT guys and he said "Naw, they just do that to save $.02 on the cost of your computer." He then handed me a cable with a primary and a secondary connector on it. I shoulda figured as much. They've gotten as bad (or worse) than the car companies with tryin' to keep the owners hands off of "their" technology.
 
re-sweetnubs

true, you'll need an ide controller card (extra ide slot/slots) or a board that has an extra ide slot for the second ide cable, i didn't think about 2 drives on one cable but it would be no good as far as recording goes, there's a nice little benefit from using seperate ide cables, the drives don't crowd 1 cable and allows both divers to work independently of each other...

you put your recorders on one drive and multi track soft on the other, no drive fighting/hogging...

things run much smoother, no jitters or hangs when recording long sessions...
 
I think most of the info here is good, just a little overkill/overwhelming.

Unless you have added a few cards and or other drives to your computer, the power supply in there should be more than enough. Don't worry about upgrading unless you notice some random lockups, but again it most likly won't happen.

The 40 you have now is jumpered for Master, set the new one to slave. Put the 40 and the 80 on the same cable. Put the 40 on the inside connector and the 80 on the outside connector into the stock IDE bus. What that means is use the same plug on the motherboard that the drive is going into now. <The only reason to keep the drives on seperate cables is if they are running at diff speeds. ie 5000rpm vrs 7200rpm as the computer will default both drives to the slower speed.>
Keep your 40 gig and get the 80 or higher for your music. Move all your music files to the new drive, leave the OS and all your other software on the 40. No reason to change the partitions or worry about speed. The theory is that it will keep the drive faster but I've clocked drives so many different ways, and know that not even the keenest of all geeks would notice the difference between partitioning and cabling.
Just keep it simple.
Another thing you'll need to do when you get the new drive is you must set the partitions and format the drive. Let me know if you want help. No need to worry about heat as the HDD doesn't emit much.

Hope that helps,
SpaceBoy
 
adding hardrive

So VSpace Cowboy, should the new hard drive be partioned 50/50 or 60/40 or 20/80? since there is no OS on this drive does it need to be partioned at all since it well be used for just storeage/ But hey thanks man you it the nail right on the head by just keeping it simple. Thanks alot to all for your info!!!

BTW I have partion magic to do the set-up


Track One
 
Re: adding hardrive

track one said:
..... should the new hard drive be partioned 50/50 or 60/40 or 20/80?


Track One
Click to expand...


You will need to set the partition on the new drive. Not 50/50 or anything like that. Just leave it one big ass drive. 100% When most ppl use the word partition, they are trying so say chopping up or seperating drive letters on the hard drive. Mostly for cleanliness like having folders on a drive, but ppl think it will speed it up?! Thats like saying a matching shirt and shorts will make you run faster.

When you set it up for the first time, you will need to create the primary partition on the new drive. This tells your operating system how to store data to the drive. Partition Magic is an great program that will guide you straight through. All you will need to do is note what drives you have <PM will show you that>. You may have currently you C as the primary and maybe a D hard drive letter. Then a burner maybe is your E drive. It will set up your new drive as E then bump back automatically your burner to F.
Its not as bad as it sounds, damn near plug n play.

SpaceBoy
 
Re: Re: adding hardrive

VSpaceBoy said:
You will need to set the partition on the new drive. Not 50/50 or anything like that. Just leave it one big ass drive. 100% When most ppl use the word partition, they are trying so say chopping up or seperating drive letters on the hard drive. Mostly for cleanliness like having folders on a drive, but ppl think it will speed it up?! Thats like saying a matching shirt and shorts will make you run faster.

When you set it up for the first time, you will need to create the primary partition on the new drive. This tells your operating system how to store data to the drive. Partition Magic is an great program that will guide you straight through. All you will need to do is note what drives you have <PM will show you that>. You may have currently you C as the primary and maybe a D hard drive letter. Then a burner maybe is your E drive. It will set up your new drive as E then bump back automatically your burner to F.
Its not as bad as it sounds, damn near plug n play.

SpaceBoy
Click to expand...

think again, most partition there drives to save there data in case of melt down and to keep M$ under control...

say C:\ is 4g of microsuck, and it goes south, all you do is reinstall C and keep all the data on D, E, F, G, etc etc...

what about your swap file? in the past 10 years of reading forum post and reviews they've said to make a partition for it? and the many other great reasons for using partitions...

like keeping all your large appl on E and if your shit self nukes you still have all you appl there, along with all your backup data on E F G H I J K L M N O P etc etc..

i run 3 80g drives on 1 system and use C through R partitions, wouldn't have it any other way...
 
also moving your swap to the second drive improves preformance quite a bit...
 
For what it worth...

Here is the way my HDs are:

40gigs:
C:\10gigs\ OS 1 (xp) for, web, etc.

D:\10gigs\ OS 2 (xp) dedicated to the studio.

E:\20gigs\ lets call it a "temporary backup partition" At the end of the day when I know we will continue tomorrow, I simply copy what we recorded to this partition, kind of backup. Not 100% safe, it'S still an internal HD, blablabla, I know. :) But its better than nothing!


80gigs:
F:\40gigs\ Dedicated to the studio's audio

G:\40gigs\ Dedicated to MY audio projects. But of course, when the G: is full (it happened a few times, I dont care about using the F: to complete the project. And in fact the next time I'll have the chance to modify my partitions, the 80gigs will be 20/60 instead of 40/40.

oh..and btw, when I get some new software, I always try it on the C:\ part, before installing it in the "studio OS". This way, I know if everything will work OK next rec. session.

And no I dont use Partition Magic. I tried it..uh dunno...2 years ago? was the 5th version I think. And yes, was making partitions, but, sorry, cant remember exately why, it pissed my of the way this software made it. Kind of "simili-partitions".

So I'm still an FDISK dos user... Or makind partitions wile installing Windos is also a good thing.
 
the cookie set up on hr server sucks, i just lost a long ass post...

fuk it... outta here...
 
go for it dude, we (well I) want to read your stuff! Pretty sure we all learn something on HR.
 
Re: Re: Re: adding hardrive

Fusion2 said:
think again, most partition there drives to save there data in case of melt down and to keep M$ under control...
Click to expand...
I said before... ppl just do it for cleanliness. If you have a "melt down" a partition is not going to save anything. If the hard drive goes, then it takes every partition with it. What else could you be referring to as melt down?? If a program goes south, uninstall it through Windows and reinstall it. Drive partition is not affected. People say they like to have one drive for OS, another for swapfile, one for this, one for that. I have lived it all, done it every which way, and can tell you there is no good reason!! PPl think Windows is better on its own. WRONG.
Fusion2 said:
say C:\ is 4g of microsuck, and it goes south, all you do is reinstall C and keep all the data on D, E, F, G, etc etc...

[/B]
Click to expand...
That wouldn't work. You would have to reinstall most software anyways. But regardless, you don't need another partition for that at all.

Fusion2 said:
what about your swap file? in the past 10 years of reading forum post and reviews they've said to make a partition for it? and the many other great reasons for using partitions...
[/B]
Click to expand...
The main use for swap file on its own is if you get low on gigs on the drive, performance wont suffer as much. But Windows comes configured to grab what it can and where. Most ppl dont even mess with that cfg. And for your info as well, swap file SUCKS and is slow!!! Check the numbers on transfer rates from your hard drive vrs your RAM. Why would you want to waste your speed and hard drive space on swapfile when RAM is SOO cheap and SOOO much faster??!! I have had swapfile DISABLED for over FOUR YEARS and it would knock you on the floor to see the diff in speed.

My point with all this babbling is, unless you have an extra hard drive DETICATED to backing up, then it is all just glorified cleanliness. Partitions are NO DIFFERENT than folders in Windows. It wont make anything more or less stable, faster or slower going either way.<excect for my swap file reply>

motto of the day - KEEP IT SIMPLE! :)

Kryogh - I agree, I use FDisk too when I need it but the main reason for using Partition Magic is it runs in Windows. Nice GUI compared to DOS.

SpaceBoy
 
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