DAWs- best advised configuration

[Jbo]

I am in the process of adding my second HDD, in response to
every source I have encountered. Now I am at the gateway,
ready to commit things as they shall be. But despite my extensive
reading and research.I find myself in doubt, again.
I think what I need to do next is initialize,partition, and format, and name my new drive, and install my os and my music application/s on the new disk all together, right?........or ....... ?
Of the various ways things could have happened, the new drive found its way to be on the same channel with my cd-rom, leaving the other IDE channel with only my original 60mb5400rpm unit. No doubt a viable configuration for a certain approach or two, or maybe more, I duno!
Alls I know is I liked the thinking of the fella whose lines I read that stated it is best, when music is your passion or more specifically, Hard Disk Recording, and therefore speed is of utmost
concern, a person should install on this new Audio-exclusive disk
all the musical applications to be used as well as the operating system itself, in order to facilitate maximum speed from the new
spinner.
Any one who can jump in here and confirm or debunk any of this,
I prethank-you to a redulant degree.


thanks Jbo:grinthumb

 

[aoj145]

Jbo,

Here's what I did to address recording issues....

I use Cool Edit Pro 2.0 on a Pentium 4 2.4 GHz, 1 GB DDR RAM with 2 Western Digital 60 GB drives. I also have a CD-RW drive and DVD drive.

For $50 I bought a Maxtor Ultra ATA/133 PCI Adapter which allows me to add 2 additional IDE channels to my system so I have 4 total (2 on the motherboard and 2 on the IDE card).

http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=294619&pfp=BROWSE

I have my CD-RW as primary IDE on the motherboard, DVD as secondary IDE on the motherboard, 1 WD 60 GB drive as primary IDE on the PCI card, and the second 60 GB drive as secondary IDE on the PCI card.

That way it can write to all devices simultaneously. My OS and program files are on the 1st 60 GB drive and my Windows swap file and temporarly Cool Edit files are on the 2nd 60 GB drive.

After I did this I had a massive improvement in recording. Each hard drive is 7200rpms.

Also, make sure to keep the drives fully defragmented and I set the Windows swap file to be a permanant size of 1.5GB (1.5 x system RAM) so that it's constant and doesn't need to resize.

I use a ATI Radeon 9500 graphics card, Sound Blaster Audigy 2 sound card for playback and record with a M-Audio Delta 44 (4 in /4 out) card.

Hope this helps...

Mike, YARN
http://www.yarnmusic.com
gperschbacher@hotmail.com

 

[Nodsu]

Thet HD being on the same channel as the CD drive may result in it running at ATA33 speed (commonly used by CD-ROMs) meaning that you will lose speed, especially when you do bulk access.

I'd recommend installing the OS and apps on the new HD, since it's most likely faster than your old drive (you didn't say what type the new one is, so I just assume it's brand new).

I'm not a music expert but I think that HD speed isn't a factor in music recording, considering that most HDs in use today have sustained transfer rates far over 10MB/s.

For copying data between the drives and simultaneous access, it would be best to keep the drives on separate IDE channels, but you will get a performance hit if your CD-ROM drive forces the channel to function as ATA33. You will have to check your CD-ROM documentation if it supports ATA66 or ATA100. Most likely it doesn't and you should put the HDs on a same channel. Or buy an additional ATA controller.

 

[Jbo]

My new(whoops) drive is aWD80mb,w/8mbcache@7200,will check those mentioned factors much gratim,fellas!,some good food for thought,standing by although is tedious with my anxiousness and all, but these factoids are the things I need.