LogicDeLuxe said:
I want to use a PC in order to record multiple tracks at once. Though since the band has only that one room, I don't want to expose my hard disk drives to the vibrations of drums, bass etc., hence Complact Flash seems a reasonable alternative.
Are there any drawbacks to be considered? (besides the costs per MB)
What CF cards are preferable for this?
Flash has fast read speeds, but relatively slow write speeds. I'd be impressed if the throughput were sufficient unless you're only doing a couple of tracks at once. Maybe some of the newer flash parts are faster, but I'd check out the specs before you spend any money on it.
If you're having trouble with vibrations causing the drive to glitch, my advice would be a laptop drive. They're designed to handle a little bit of instability in the surrounding environment. If you're really concerned, suspend the drive in a shock mount enclosure, then put that on top of a foam rubber pad.
If you do use a desktop drive, make sure you use at least four screws to mount the drive. Make sure the computer is sitting on thick, plush carpet. Also, if you can, use isolation mounts for the drive instead.
My PowerMac G5, for example, has plastic tracks into which rubber bumpers slide. This not only makes the drives easy to swap, but also adds significant isolation.
That said, I've never seen a properly mounted drive have problems from vibrations. It really shouldn't be a problem. Yeah, the heads are floating close to the surface of the drive, but there's also a very large amount of airflow keeping it from crashing. Likewise, yeah, in theory, a big vibration can change the rotational speed of the drive slightly, but there's a heck of a lot of inertia generated by spinning at those speeds and the drives have a fair amount of play in where the sectors fall anyway. It really shouldn't be a problem unless your hard drive just plain sucks.
