drive partitioning

  • Thread starter Thread starter laaronx
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laaronx

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Just wondering how you guys have your drives set up on your DAW's. The 3 main questions I have are:
1) Do you guys think it's preferable to have 2 smaller HD's or 1 bigger HD? How does this affect backup capability?
2) How do you guys have your partitions set up? How are they organized- do you have OS and desktop apps in one partition, then audio stuff on another? How much drive space do you have allocated to audio apps? Do you install your programs (Cubase, etc.) in the same drive partition as the actual audio data?
 
1. Drives are cheap these days, small is a relative term. I prefer at least a 20GB drive for the operating system and applications only. At least a 40GB 7200RPM drive as a secondary master for Audio Data only. Backup is done via CD-R.

2. The second drive for audio data is one big partition. The main drive with the operating system is 3 partitions, but only because I triple boot windows 98. Not always necessary if your machine is dedicated for audio recording only. Some question whether it's even necessary at all with the advent of better OS's like XP. If I switch to XP I will still dual boot it, but only because of my setup.

I have two 40GB and two 20GB for audio data. The two 40's are in removable drive bays. One 40GB is my stuff, the other 40GB is for other people I record on occasion. One 20GB is mounted internally that I use to 'backup' data if I'm too lazy to burn it - gives me some sense of security even though I know it isn't optimal. Essentially it's just a mirror. CD-R is the best form of backup. The other 20GB has my first CD on it, haven't got around to formating it. It's a bit of an experiment, I want to see how long I can store the drive and still read it. So far it's been two years in the drawer.

OS and apps on one drive, Audio data on another.
 
Aaron,

> Do you guys think it's preferable to have 2 smaller HD's or 1 bigger HD? How does this affect backup capability? <

If you have two drives, you can back up from one to the other. If the main HD dies completely, you are still covered. And since it's so easy to copy from one hard drive to another, you're more likely to actually do it regularly! :)

> How do you guys have your partitions set up?

See my article in the current (July) issue of Keyboard magazine which explains all of this in great detail.

--Ethan
 
Ditto with both of these guys - two drives, with the larger/faster drive for data. As I've posted before, I'm a big fan of using Symantec Ghost (you can also use Drive Image) to make an image of the system drive. You can split that image up into 650 meg chunks, write it to your second data drive, then back those up to CDR. Then make a boot floppy and you are protected. That way if your system drive takes a dump you just put in a new drive, boot with your floppy, and copy the CDR ghost image files back on. Very little down time and a hell of a lot easier than re-installing everything from scratch.
 
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