SCSI Hard Drives?

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punkin

punkin

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I've been working on a couple personal projects...call them "modern Jazz/metal/fusion". To say the least, they're effects and synth plug-in intensive. I find that when I get the computer loaded up with many tracks (20 or so) each with their own effects or VSTs, I start to get hang ups and artifacts.

I've read up a bit on computer efficiencies...seems that SCSI drives might help. I've got my eye on a couple Cheetah 73 GB 10000 rmp units. Was going to use one for the OS and the other for the music record/playback storage. Is this a difficult upgrade?

The machine I'm currently using is a Falcon-NW computer with; ASUS P4C800 deluxe MOBO, 1024 RAM, 2 each 120 MB WD-7200 hard drives, Pentium 4 3.2 MHZ processor.

Looking forward to the advice. :p
 
SCSI drives are costly...the 10,000 rpm drives are working pretty close to them now. Im using the WD Raptor, but the max is 30gig.
Instead of using effects on all tracks, try using the buss to lighten up the load.
 
If you get SCSI drives then you will also need to get a SCSI controller card, as they will not plug into the IDE controller on your motherboard. Other than that I can't see it being a very difficult upgrade with current drivers etc. You probably wouldn't need one for your OS disk though....

A quick look at the seagate website:
The Cheeta that you're looking at has an average seek time of 4.7ms.
The fastest serial ATA Barracuda has a seek time of 8.5ms.
 
SCSI isn't as big of a deal as it was a few years ago. Even if it was faster that won't improve your plugin performance. That is related more to processor speed.

One advantage of SCSI is that it can transfer data without using the processor so it could theoretically give you a little more processor overhead. Probably not enough to warrant the cost.
 
Scsi is not going to help you. Tex said it. Plugins rely on CPU speed.
 
Thanks guys...I exersized the effects to buss idea...I can see a significant improvement on cpu loading already. I've also found that if I save the synth and effects/audio tracks rather than using it as a live plug-in, I'm able to reduce the load a bit as well. I guess I'll just have to get a little smarter when mixing the tracks.
 
punkin said:
Thanks guys...I exersized the effects to buss idea...I can see a significant improvement on cpu loading already. I've also found that if I save the synth and effects/audio tracks rather than using it as a live plug-in, I'm able to reduce the load a bit as well. I guess I'll just have to get a little smarter when mixing the tracks.
Click to expand...


Far from suggesting that there is no enough good points already presented here.

Yes, you could get more then adequate performance even with 7200 (8MB cash) and not to mention fantastic Raptor. I have Raptor. But I also have been SCSI user since early 80's and no serious user of SCSI, or those who are familiar with U320 would ever suggest diminish its performance.

Hard drive will always be most important component affecting performance you are looking for.

Certainly, that same needs adequate environment and associated power but that is clear without even saying. (memory,Cpu)

I have tested my Raptor (72GB) and Hitachi U320 (146GB)on long run to make it short, U320 is one to lead by far.

While reading, they behave the same,but when transferring becomes most frequent SCSI always proves who is the undisputed leader.

In fact even U160 and less speed protocols will present at times superior performance to ATA-133.

While even SATA offers only declaration - speed as we all know, and even industry admitted it has been in many ways disappointed until SATA 300 merges in near future,SCSI has always been extracting every bit of performance since earliest SCSI 1 standard.

What SATA is barely (not just speed) implementing SCSI architecture had since 1986.

Many people are angry because of their cost making them out of reach for many,true, but those merits reflect no objective criticism to SCSI performance

If you do path SCSI, go Adaptec. Best drivers in industry and know one thing that every owner of SCSI knows : SCSI drive will be here to stay, everything in your machine will break before this drive.

I have in several instruments SCSI drives since early 80?s (50MB,150MB,3x512MB,4x4GB,2x18GB) none, I repeat none ever required any attention.

Again yon can make super efficient system based on ATA133, but, SCSI is one to path when absolute performance is required.

Nothing can match SCSI reliability of good SCSI system.

Let me give you a few best links to learn all you need about SCSI and why it is what it is.

This is the great link to make yourself familiar with all types of SCSI and all details you might need to know.

>>> http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/scsi.html

SCSI masterland >>> : http://fieldhome.net:9080/scsi_faq/

Very good resources >>> : http://www.scsi.com/scsiWorld.htm

Also, there is a crazy thing that I have tested - it works - IDE to SCSI : >>> : http://shop.ily.com/P_988.htm

good luck.
 
Stealthtech said:
SCSI drives are costly...the 10,000 rpm drives are working pretty close to them now. Im using the WD Raptor, but the max is 30gig.
Click to expand...
You haven't seen the 74GB versions yet? check it out here. Westen Digital 74GB SATA, at about double the size of the old, and double the price of course ;)
 
As one who has used both SCSI (Adaptec 2940UW fast ultra wide) and IDE, I have to say this:

SCSI is not a magic bullet for the digital audio workstation!

Remember that a SCSI adapter in a PC must share the PCI bus with your sound card(s). If you're trying to record a few tracks while monitoring a few tracks, that PCI bus is very busy!

I too thought that SCSI would be better, but my dropout problems went away when I switched to IDE/ATA.

As far as reliability: There is no difference in the drives themselves between SCSI and IDE. They are the SAME drives. The onboard circuitry is different.

Now, if you're running a file server, SCSI wins hands down.
 
christiaan said:
Scsi is not going to help you. Tex said it. Plugins rely on CPU speed.
Click to expand...

Yep the cpu's the plugin bottleneck.

Raw power is what you need
 
AGCurry said:
As one who has used both SCSI (Adaptec 2940UW fast ultra wide) and IDE,As far as reliability: There is no difference in the drives themselves between SCSI and IDE. They are the SAME drives. /QUOTE]

Really?

Tell me then why companies who hate loosing money and cut every possible aspect that would lead to that direction, offer 5 years on every SCSI drive? rain or shine.

2940UW is 3 generations old adapter, what? you compare it with latest ATA/SATA drives?

Good, you have just proven another point to SCSI.

Where was IDE world when 2940UW was the latest product?

Every SCSI drive has industry strict tolerance to failure?

Military,hospital and any pro dedicated environment can't afford failures.

If your SATA or IDE drive gets broken, so what? You will get a new one.

That does not imply to industrial application and that is the very essence SCSI is made for.

Performance ,reliability, industrial strength, and zero tolerance error cycle.

Same?... get serious.
Click to expand...
 
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Anthony said:
AGCurry said:
As one who has used both SCSI (Adaptec 2940UW fast ultra wide) and IDE,As far as reliability: There is no difference in the drives themselves between SCSI and IDE. They are the SAME drives. /QUOTE]

Really?

Tell me why companies who hate loosing money and cut every possible aspect that would lead to that direction, offer 5 years on every SCSI drive? rain or shine.

2940UW is 3 generations old adapter, what? you compare it with latest ATA/SATA drives?

Good, you have just proven another point to SCSI.

Where was IDE world when 2940UW was the latest product?

Every SCSI drive has industry strict tolerance to failure?

Military,hospital and any pro dedicated environment can?t afford failures.

If your SATA or IDE drive gets broken, so what? You will get a new one.

That does not imply to industrial application and that is the very essence SCSI is made for.

Performance ,reliability, industrial strength, and zero tolerance error cycle.

Same?. get serious.
Click to expand...

Anything beyond SATA is unnecessary for home recording. As was said, CPU is the bottleneck.

One 24/96 track is 2.88MB a second, give or take. Even at 10 tracks you're still under 30MB, which is far below what my Seagate SATA benches at. If you want to get really frisky throw 2 in a RAID 0.

Spend your money on RAM and a decent CPU.
Click to expand...
 
Polaris20 said:
One 24/96 track is 2.88MB a second, give or take. Even at 10 tracks you're still under 30MB, which is far below what my Seagate SATA benches at. .
Click to expand...

Polaris, what sort of performance do you get from your Seagate?

I did a SiSandra on the IDE controllers running my 2 SATA 120GB Barracudas, and it reported that they weren't running as fast as they could. I went into the bios and changed each one from Auto to UDMA-6, but back in device manager they're still reporting as UDMA-5.

When I run HDTach over the drives, I'm only getting around 50MB/sec continuous, and 80-something MB/sec burst with 12.something average seektime for random access.

What sort of numbers are you getting?
 
I am getting about 65MB/sec continuous, 90MB/sec burst with 9ms average seek.

What SATA controller do you have? I have whatever one came with the Asus A7V600.
 
Hmmm
As I suspected.
The controller's integrated on the south(?)bridge of my Asus P4P800. It's not on the pci bus, so it should be performing better than it is
 
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