Hard Drive Question

[bernfu]

Hello,

I recently purchased an MBox and it should be arriving soon. I am now looking at hard drives. The question is, do I need to buy a hard drive that is set up for recording (for example, a Glyph) or can I buy a "normal" drive? Is it the optimization or the speed? Will a "normal" drive at 7200 do the trick?
Also, does my computer need to be setup to take firewire (I have a PC)?

Thanks in advance to the recording gurus!

Adam

 

[zekthedeadcow]

7200 RPM is fine but get three
1 for system disk
1 for program disk
1 for audio/data disk

Put the system and program disks on one IDE channel and the data one on the other...

that made the biggest difference for me...

and make sure that they are running in DMA mode and not PIO (they'll probably install as PIO)

 

[AlexNC]

Thats a little over board in my opinion. Not to knock you, but many people in these types of forums suggest items that the normal user just doen't need. It is a good thing to have multiple hard drives though. You only need two, not 3. I keep my OS and programs on my small drive; and save all my project files to my large 7200 drive. This way, if your Windows starts acting up, you can always reinstall the operating system without over writing your project files.

Also, be sure to backup your projects every so often on CD-R's. I have never had a hard drive die on me, but I have heard some horror stories.

 

[jake-owa]

Two drives, not three. One for OS and programs and one for music and session files. The most important thing is to keep the system streamlined to keep performance tight. Do not load every damn free player and bizcard, videophone, ..ect ware you can find. In fact if you can, try to use the recording machine for just that recording and editing and keep it free of a net connection. I've had two machines go south due to internet crap, it sucks when a net problem crashes your multitrack recorder. The machine I use now is free of strings or extra duties and has been running FLAWLESSLY for two years with no end in sight.

If you have to you can use it for an all purpose machine just backup all your sessions and keep it as simple as possible.

 

[christiaan]

I recently purchased an MBox and it should be arriving soon. Also, does my computer need to be setup to take firewire (I have a PC)?

The MBox uses an USB interface and when you want an extra hard drive, with a PC you're best off with an IDE drive so you won't need Firewire.
And I'd say too that 2 drives are sufficient for a well performing DAW.

 

[rogga_bogga]

Hello,

I recently purchased an MBox and it should be arriving soon. I am now looking at hard drives. The question is, do I need to buy a hard drive that is set up for recording (for example, a Glyph) or can I buy a "normal" drive? Is it the optimization or the speed? Will a "normal" drive at 7200 do the trick?
Also, does my computer need to be setup to take firewire (I have a PC)?

Thanks in advance to the recording gurus!

Adam

You have all the info you need on www.digidesign.com, but here is what it says among other things:

- Minimum speed of 7200 RPM & average seek time of less than 10.0 ms
- For 32 tracks, drives must be dedicated for audio (internal or external)
- Using boot drives for audio tracks is not supported
- Each IDE drive must have DMA enabled in the "System" Control Panel. This can be changed in the "Settings" of each IDE drive on the "Device Manager" tab of the "System" Control Panel.


Since you will be using XP you need to download service pack 1 from microsoft, or you'll be getting noise from the usb connection.

And yes, two hard drives is enough. One for the OS and one for audio.