Do I need a Special Hard Drive?

  • Thread starter Thread starter TheFish
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TheFish

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I would like to know if it is advisable to have some kind of special hard drive optimized for A/V data. If that's not necessary, then what are the recommended requirements (e.g. access speed, etc) for a hard drive? One last question before I shut up: Should I use two separate drives, one for the O.S. and one for data? Thanks.

The Fish
 
Yes, yes, and yes.

You can find LVD and A/V type drives and they are more reliable for multimedia puposes.

Look into ATA-66 or UDMA-66 for IDE's, or at least SCSI 2's.

Two seperate drives is totally recommended.
 
Check out www.storagereview.com and read some of their reviews -- they are top notch. HDDs aren't really optimized for A/V specifically, but there are ones that are designed to be used for more intensive purposes.

UDMA/66 (IDE) drives are much cheaper than SCSI which makes them much more appealing. You don't really _need_ the speed of SCSI unless you plan on doing some extremely hardcore recording.


As you said, two is a good idea (a neccessity really). Defragment the drives often to keep them in good form too.

mandelbrot
 
I simply want to put in my two cents on the comment that 2 drives are a necessity. Necessary for what?
Sure, a faster drive will simply work, well- faster. And the number of tracks and software plug-in effects you can use will increase with a faster drive. But until you've specified exactly what your needs are, the term necessity is IMHO an exaggeration.
My single IDE drive gives me 36 tracks of digital audio without a burp or a blip.
 
OK. If I wanted to go with SCSI (more for the expansion capabilities than anything else), what controller card could somebody recommend to me? And what brand of HDD?
 
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