Hard drives for G4
trique, as a fellow G4 user, may I offer the following opinions?
First, the new G4s come with big fast hard drives, which helps a lot. More disk space buys you more recording time; faster drives, more RAM, and faster CPUs buy you more tracks.
Second, you want to keep your audio files separate from all other files. Hard disk recording requires that you keep large amounts of contiguous (unfragmented) disk space available at all times. It's much easier to do this if you only have to deal with audio files.
While you can use just the built-in drive on a current G4 for audio, if you do, you should set up the disk with a separate partition for audio. Do this immediately when you open the box, before you install any software or data! Allocate two partitions: a small one, say 5-10 GB, for software and all your other files, and the second partition should use the rest of the drive for audio files only.
If your budget permits, I'd suggest you buy a second hard drive, and put nothing but audio files on it. Installing a 2nd drive into a G4 tower is a very straightforward task, requiring only a #1 Philips screwdriver and a grounding strap. It's even documented in the manual!
My 533 MHz G4 came with a 40 GB IBM Deskstar 75GXB drive, model # 307045. It's big, fast, and quiet. This drive would be a good choice for a 2nd audio drive, and is readily available for under $200 at many computer stores.
The IBM drive is just one of many choices, and the disk drive industry comes up with more every day. You want a drive that meets the following specs: 7200 RPM, ATA/66 or ATA/100 interface, seek times under 9 ms (lower is better), sound ratings as low as possible (many current drives are down in the 30-33 dB range), and as much space as you can afford. I would suggest you stick with either IBM, Seagate, or Quantum drives.
You could go the SCSI RAID route for maximum performance, but that gets very expensive very quickly. And modern ATA drives offer more than enough speed for most situations. Stick with ATA drives for the most bang for your buck.
Last, use a disk defragmenter utility regularly to keep your audio drive neat and clean. Norton System Tools from Symantec would be my first choice, but you could also use Alsoft's PlusOptimizer, or as a last resort, Micromat's TechTool Pro. PlusOptimizer is a one-trick pony, but the others will also perform routine file system maintenance. If you can only afford one, I'd suggest TechTool Pro, because it is good at so many other maintenance and testing tasks, even if its defragger is lousy.
That's all I know, I hope it helps.
