dobro
Well-known member
I've got a 60 GB hard drive dedicated to audio files. It's got just one partition. Sensible?
wheelema
Boner-obo
You did not mention the partition size, but if the whole disk is partitioned, then yes, sensible.
dobro
Well-known member
Yup, it's the whole disk.
Now here's the follow-up question: I read somewhere that if you've got a two-drive system, it makes sense having the smaller drive dedicated to audio, because the head has less disk space to navigate and get everything done more easily and more quickly etc.
Sensible?
Now here's the follow-up question: I read somewhere that if you've got a two-drive system, it makes sense having the smaller drive dedicated to audio, because the head has less disk space to navigate and get everything done more easily and more quickly etc.
Sensible?
wheelema
Boner-obo
Wow.
All hard disk drives use platters. Each platter is the same size, and each has a dedicated head for read/write. When you want to make a HDD more spacious for any given recording density you add a platter.
For example, Western Digital makes a 40GB, a 80GB, and a 120GB HDD. Now, I haven't cracked the case on any of these, but on those HDD cases I DID crack when I was into this shit, what you would find would be one platter in the 40, two in the 80, and three in the 120... each with their own read/write head.
So adding more platters doesn't create more real estate to navigate.
The three factors that most impact how fast you can get the data off or on is; rpm (there are currently three spindle speeds, 5,400, 7,200, and 10,000), with the 10K being the most expensive and 7,200 being considered more than good enough; the interface (once again there are three, SCSI, Ultra-ATA, and Serial-ATA or SATA), with the SCSI being the most expensive and either of the other two being considered more than good enough. The future most likely belongs to SATA. The third factor is the 'seek speed', or how fast the head can get to the data. I haven't seen too many HDD manufacturers compete on seek speed, and this crap is already too confusing, so ignore it.
So, anyway. Whatever HDD you get it's good where your criteria is concerned.
However, the smaller the HDD, the easier it is to back up since you just capture the whole disk without picking and choosing data. So THAT may be a consideration.
All hard disk drives use platters. Each platter is the same size, and each has a dedicated head for read/write. When you want to make a HDD more spacious for any given recording density you add a platter.
For example, Western Digital makes a 40GB, a 80GB, and a 120GB HDD. Now, I haven't cracked the case on any of these, but on those HDD cases I DID crack when I was into this shit, what you would find would be one platter in the 40, two in the 80, and three in the 120... each with their own read/write head.
So adding more platters doesn't create more real estate to navigate.
The three factors that most impact how fast you can get the data off or on is; rpm (there are currently three spindle speeds, 5,400, 7,200, and 10,000), with the 10K being the most expensive and 7,200 being considered more than good enough; the interface (once again there are three, SCSI, Ultra-ATA, and Serial-ATA or SATA), with the SCSI being the most expensive and either of the other two being considered more than good enough. The future most likely belongs to SATA. The third factor is the 'seek speed', or how fast the head can get to the data. I haven't seen too many HDD manufacturers compete on seek speed, and this crap is already too confusing, so ignore it.
So, anyway. Whatever HDD you get it's good where your criteria is concerned.
However, the smaller the HDD, the easier it is to back up since you just capture the whole disk without picking and choosing data. So THAT may be a consideration.
wheelema
Boner-obo
And kind as a follow up, you just don't know how many platters a HDD manufacturer is using to achieve a given storage amount. Common sense kind of dictates that they make the drive as cheap as they can, so if squeezing 120MB onto a single platter is the cheapest way to go, than you only have a single platter, but then again, they could have twelve 10MB platters stacked up... you just don't know.
dobro
Well-known member
"However, the smaller the HDD, the easier it is to back up"
Yup, and easier to defrag too.
I'm looking at this cuz I'm getting pops and clicks and dropouts when I play big mixes on my audio software. I formatted and reinstalled Windows last week, and that got rid of the stuttering, but there's still some annoying stuff going on. I can adjust the buffers in Cool Edit of course (and I will), but I figure the defaults should be able to take care of it with my machine: P4, 7200, 512 RAM.
I've got a minimum amount of stuff running in the background, and the system's free of spyware.
I've got a Gadgetlabs Wave 824 soundcard.
It should work.
Yup, and easier to defrag too.
I'm looking at this cuz I'm getting pops and clicks and dropouts when I play big mixes on my audio software. I formatted and reinstalled Windows last week, and that got rid of the stuttering, but there's still some annoying stuff going on. I can adjust the buffers in Cool Edit of course (and I will), but I figure the defaults should be able to take care of it with my machine: P4, 7200, 512 RAM.
I've got a minimum amount of stuff running in the background, and the system's free of spyware.
I've got a Gadgetlabs Wave 824 soundcard.
It should work.
B
Bulls Hit
Well-known member
It might also pay to set your block size as big as it will go (32K?) on your audio drive
dobro
Well-known member
How do you do that? Don't you have to do that when you're formatting the drive?
B
Bulls Hit
Well-known member
dobro said:
Uhh.....yep. Sorry.
For backup you might consider Ghosting the audio partition to the other drive. It's fast and you've got redundancy
B
bullyhill
New member
Great advice given I can only add, your first partition will be the fastest. Consider a wheel, at 7200 rpm one rotation covers more area at the outside compared to the center. Your disk will write the outside first so put what you want to be prioritized there.