SCSI : record onto ONE hd ?

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Badtz

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I'm doing audio production [digital performer] and was wondering which setup would be best ?


Would it be best to put the OS + Apps on a separate HD [ata/ide] and the Audio recording onto a separate HD [scsi, 15k.3 cheetah]?

OR

Have the OS + Apps + Recording all onto the 15k.3 Cheetah?

And why?

:::::::

My guess is that it would be best to put everything onto one drive, since the OS + the Apps would get a boost from the faster 15k drive? That's just a guess.

Would it be beneficial to put the OS + Apps on a 10k scsi drive [instead of the ata/ide drive mentioned earlier] and the recording on the 15k scsi cheetah?


Thanks for any help
 
i would put the os/apps/swapfile on the 10k and the audio direct on the 15k. why? because the os and apps are already loaded when you start recording, but they may want to use the swapfile and the recording drive simultaneously. more important than this configuration is having a lot of ram, but if i had to purpose-build a machine for recording, i would have the quicker drive for audio and the slower for os/apps/swap.
 
two drives is the way to go, that way you don't incur seek times on the hard drive. when the cpu switches from getting audio to processing the audio.

my app drive is a 20g ide, and my audio drive is a raid+0 scsi comprised of 2 40g HD.
 
thanks for the help so far!

would there be a big difference [in OS response, App response, etc.] by using a 10k versus a 15k for the OS/App/Swap drive ??

:)
 
Badtz said:
thanks for the help so far!

would there be a big difference [in OS response, App response, etc.] by using a 10k versus a 15k for the OS/App/Swap drive ??

:)
Click to expand...
Personally I would use the 15k drive for OS/App/Swap because more rpms means lower latency (latency eq. on average 1/2 cycle) which is good when you load a lot of small files, like an OS or application. For good sustained transferrates (important for audio), a 10k or even a recent 7k2 drive is sufficient. Data density is key here.
15k drives are also not designed for high transferrates. they often have platters with a smaller diameter to decrease seek times but that will also have a negative effect on the transferrates.
15k drives: great for system drives (and especially database servers).
 
so i shouldn't use the 15k.3 [74gig] cheetah as the audio drive? :(
 
Badtz said:
so i shouldn't use the 15k.3 [74gig] cheetah as the audio drive? :(
Click to expand...
15k drives still have high transferrates, just not necessarily higher than a 10k drive.
 
i would use the faster drive as the audio drive since the drive has to deliver the audio into the system on time or you'll have dropouts. if you have enough RAM, and you cut/paste audio snippets into your song then those snippets will remain in RAM, but if you play everything without cut/paste'ing sections then that fast drive is really going to come in handy, since you'll never use you system cache or swap because the audio drive is constantly delivering new audio.

also, i always set my min/max swap size to 2.5 times the size of my RAM.
 
Badtz said:
My guess is that it would be best to put everything onto one drive, since the OS + the Apps would get a boost from the faster 15k drive? That's just a guess.
Click to expand...

You've guessed wrong.:D you always want to run your audio files on a separate drive from your OS/apps.

Would it be beneficial to put the OS + Apps on a 10k scsi drive [instead of the ata/ide drive mentioned earlier] and the recording on the 15k scsi cheetah?
Click to expand...

Depends on what kind of transfer rates you need. the faster your system drive, the snappier your machine will be. Booting from a striped SCSI RAID will give you a smokin' system, but there's danger in there if the RAID goes down. Bye-bye system. Better have a backup.....

As for your audio drive, as long as that storage is fast enough to supply the number of tracks you need without problems there's no point in going any faster.

BTW what machine/OS/host card?
 
The system is a Powermac [1ghz] , running OSX, and probably use the PowerDomain 29160N scsi card....

audio will be on a Seagate Cheetah 15k.3 74gig

and currently, I'm contemplating on what to do with the OS/Apps/Swap ....

Either to buy another scsi 10k or 15k, but with small capacity. [~30-40 gigs]

Any recommendations on a scsi-raid card?
 
The ATTO cards are tops in performance, but if you wanna play you gotta pay. They ain't cheap.

The Initio Miles2 is also a good card. It's only Ultra2, but much less $.

You might want to check out the MacGurus RAID performance database to see what kind of performance is possible.

Be aware though that if you have other bus-mastering PCI cards you could have issues at high transfer rates. I know with PT setups you sometimes have to slow the cards down due to PCI bus traffic limitations. Don't know about MOTU though. You might want also check out Unicornation BBS to see what works with those setups.
 
thanks for the info!!

scratch the scsi-raid idea out then :)

Any comments about 10k vs. 15k scsi hard drives for the main system HD?

i'm thinking between another 15k.3 [~30gig] or a 10k maxtor atlas scsi .... ?


:)
 
Here's an excellent site for hard drive comparisons:

http://www.storagereview.com/

One of the guys on the Gurus site swears by the Atlas drives. His RAID numbers back him up too.

I have a Seagate 'Cuda in my 8600 that's 2 years old now. Still quiet & reliable. Just stay away from the older 10K & SCA (80pin) drives. Too hot to run internally, too loud for a control room/studio, and SCA is for servers. LVD (68pin) is what you want.

Another thing to be aware of with SCSI setups is cable & termination quality. Cheap cables & terminators can cause you major headaches. Granite Digital makes the best SCSI accessories (and lots of other cool stuff). They are pricey, but anybody who's lost time & data due to the "SCSI voodoo" caused by cheap stuff (often supplied with host cards) will tell you it's well worth the extra $.
 
Thanks for the suggestion on granite digital! :)

For the OS/Apps drive, I should be looking at the random seeks correct? [not the STR?]
 
Seek times are important, but only one factor in many that affect performance.

If you go to the reference section over at Storage Review you'll find a much more in-depth explainantion than I could give you here, especially considering my typing speed.:D

Here's another good read, though a bit dated:

http://www.macgurus.com/products/drives/mgscsiadapters.php
 
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