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

 

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.

 

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.