Hard Drive Benchmarking

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peritus

peritus

The not fountain head
Hard Drive Benchmarking / ProTools problem

I found this free utility to measure my hard drives to make sure I'm picking the right one for audio data.

HD Tune

Do you see any reason that Pro Tools acts like it likes my firewire hard drive better than my raid-0 pair (see graph)?
 

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Here's the firewire drive benchmark...
 

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No clue, but it's an interesting thing you're showing here :) Rep +1
 
maybe because your recording software is sitting on the internal drives? it's best to have your audio files recording to a separate drive.
 
TravisinFlorida said:
maybe because your recording software is sitting on the internal drives? it's best to have your audio files recording to a separate drive.
Click to expand...

I thoght of that too (when I built the machine)... Here's my arrangement (hard drives listed only):

C: = Misc Programs/Files

F: = Win XP SP2 and its pagefile (home of Pro Tools install)

X: = (Raid-0 pair) / (home of Pro Tools sessions)

Z: = (Firewire drive) / (home of samples, vst, rtas, and plugin patches)

Thanks for the input though....
 
Why do you have your programs on a separate drive than windows? Why are your plugins on a separate drive? Just curious. Why in hell do you have so many drives?! :eek:

What do you mean when saying that Pro Tools likes your firewire drive over your raid drives? Is it a performance problem? Glitching?
 
TravisinFlorida said:
Why do you have your programs on a separate drive than windows? Why are your plugins on a separate drive? Just curious. Why in hell do you have so many drives?! :eek:

What do you mean when saying that Pro Tools likes your firewire drive over your raid drives? Is it a performance problem? Glitching?
Click to expand...

Well as far as programs go, I've been kinda lax about it (aka no preference...as far as it was on C or F)

I have a lot of drives because I usually move my old drives to the new pc when I upgrade (good motherboards for this are hard to come by).

And the plug-ins being on a separate drive. Remember? It's portable (firewire). Also, I hate installing hundreds of plugins. So, when it's time to do a system refresh (aka wipe all internal drives) (about twice a year), I'm set. I'm not aware of any reason why the plugins, samples, patches, etc. being on a separate hard drive than the OS, progs, and audio would be an issue. On the contrary, I'm thinking it would be a good thing (bandwith wise).

Thanks
 
I can see your point(s) on having your plugins on a separate drive. I was'n trying indicate a problem there. Just curious. I'm still wondering what you meant by saying that pro tools likes the firewire drive better.
 
Oh yeah.. There is glitching... Pro Tools won't even play/record when the audio is on any other drive than the firewire... Even though we just proved that the Raid pair is sooo much faster (go figure!). That doesn't really sound that bad, right? Except for the fact that I get artifacts in my recordings when the audio is stored on the firewire drive. So you see? I'm rendered incapable of recording anything through Pro Tools and I must figure this out ASAP... If you look above, you'll notice the difference in CPU usage. I suppose that could be the problem but hopefully the following will save me....

Now... I'm getting ready to do that system refresh I told you about... I'm trying to put together an more effective plan.... hmmm...
 
Here's how I run:

C: XP SP2/Program Files for Recording/Plugins/Temp Files - Dual 10k Raptors in RAID0
D: Other Program Files (less critical)
E: Samples Only (DFHS, Trilogy, etc.)
X: Storage/Temp Files #2

Works pretty well for me
 
TravisinFlorida said:
I can see your point(s) on having your plugins on a separate drive. I was'n trying indicate a problem there. Just curious. I'm still wondering what you meant by saying that pro tools likes the firewire drive better.
Click to expand...


Hey man... Hopefully I'm not comin' off rude... I appreciate your help.. I'm just really frustrated with Pro Tools quirks.... :mad:
 
aaroncomp said:
Here's how I run:

C: XP SP2/Program Files for Recording/Plugins/Temp Files - Dual 10k Raptors in RAID0
D: Other Program Files (less critical)
E: Samples Only (DFHS, Trilogy, etc.)
X: Storage/Temp Files #2

Works pretty well for me
Click to expand...

Wow... I'd really like to see a chart for your raptors! Bet that would be sweet...

Just so I can verify..you are recording on the same drive as the OS, and recording apps?
 
I did'nt see you coming off as rude......no worries there. I'm kind of baffled about your problem with pro tools and your drive situation. I'm just trying to figure out exactly what the problem is that your having. You said that pro tools likes your firewire drive more than your raid drives. I don't know what you mean by that. What's the problem with the raid drives?
 
Ok, I may have missed it........or you may have edited your post.......glitching. You don't have any glitching problems with your firewire drive? It seems strange that your raid drives have a problem with glitching when the transfer rate is like 5x that of the firewire. Have you tried a non raid config with your internal drives? I remember reading about some folks having problems with SATA drivers. I really have no clue. Wish I could help.
 
peritus said:
Wow... I'd really like to see a chart for your raptors! Bet that would be sweet...

Just so I can verify..you are recording on the same drive as the OS, and recording apps?
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's seemed to workout the best that way for me. The second temp for recording is on the X drive as indicated. The completed tracks, when mixing, are pulled from the X drive.
 
Pro Tools doesn't support RAID...and never has as far as my knowledge.

as far as glitches in your audio on your Firewire drive...what do you mean? static...clicks and pops? what speed is your drive running at? have you tried adjusting buffer settings in the program?
 
TravisinFlorida said:
What are your latency settings? Have you setup your pc for DAW use? In case you have'nt read this: http://www.musicxp.net/
Click to expand...

Yup.. seen that.. Great site (I made all suggested changes long ago).. My latency is set (inside PT) at 256 and Level 2 buffer... I've experimented with a lot of different combinations between the to, to no avail....
 
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