IDE or SCSI?

[Johnny916]

Yes I am going to a buy a new computer. I want a built a home recording studio with it. What kind of hard drive should I get with it though? Of course I want to get a fast SCSI hard drive but that's very expensive. Is buying a SCSI hard drive necissary for professional quality recording?
Or should I just go with the cheaper kind of hard drives, which is IDE or something like..

 

[Emeric]

SCSI is overall, better. But new IDE drives have reached the point now where they are quite functional in a recording application. If SCSI is out of your budget, get IDE, just make sure it's 7200RPM ATA/66. The Quantum KA/KX's and IBM Deskstars are good drives.

Emeric


[This message has been edited by Emeric (edited 01-13-2000).]

 

[Slackmaster2K]

I would only consider SCSI if I was a professional and truely needed that extra performance.

ATA/66 is really the best bang for the buck these days, falling right in the middle of today's typical SCSI speeds of 40 and 80MB/sec....at a fraction of the cost.

I recently purchased a 9GB SCSI drive for my work server at a price in the $300 range. In that case SCSI was truely needed. But for that cost I could have purchased almost two 20GB 7200RPM Ultra ATA drives for my home machine.

Recording requires a lot of space and a lot of speed. As EIDE continue to decrease in price and increase in speed...it's really a great way to go for the home studio; and in many cases even the semi-pro to professional studio I'd imagine.

To go the ATA/66 route you'll need a machine with an ATA/66 controller, preferably on the motherboard, and the latest greatest chipset (e.g. Intel's i840) to really see the benefits. Plugging a 7200RPM drive into a standard EIDE controller isn't the correct solution.

Many mobo manufacturers today offer ATA controllers right on the motherboard. Check out www.abit-usa.com

As Emeric mentioned, Quantum makes a really nice drive. Avoid Western Digital like the plague. I've also been noticing that Maxtor is making real cheap 7200RPM drives...about $129 for a 13GB. Seagate also has great prices at times. I've used both Seagate and Maxtor drives in the past and was satisfied with both...and am currently using Quantum.

Slackmaster 2000

 

[Jess]

There's a lot of bull around about SCSI. Things have changed dramatically over the last few years.

A 20Gig IDE Maxtor 5120 UDMA sustains 20MB/Sec. That'll set you back about $365. Try and do THAT with SCSI. You'll need a ATA 66 and a modern mobo like the ABits etc.

And it'll let you run lots of tracks with effects, some in real time, on a fast PC.