External Hard Drives

[J.Stone]

Its nice to have windows load up quickly, applications load faster etc. I never bought it specifically for recording, i bought it because i wanted as fast a pc as i could get at the time. And as for it being fast, your right, mate of mine has two of the newer 150Gb ones in a RAID0 array

Application load can be HDD related, but mainly it's CPU and Memory bound.

Also, im guessing it may be because your 19, but raptors arent that expensive, at the time (4 years back i think it must be) it cost a damned sight less than my 3.2Ghz P4 did

I'm not exactly "poor", but when you look at it like this:
36GB Wester Digital Raptor: £70
400GB Hitatchi Deskstar: £60
It's pretty damn expensive.

And dude, there are far more cool things coming into play than USB3.0, the posibilities nanotechnology are bringing into the computer industry are pretty awesome

One step at a time. USB3.0 is a cool one. Also, there's a new type of microchip in development. Instead of being FLAT it's a Sphere. Reduces travel distance between points and has a higher cooling surface. How smart is that? Solid State is a huge one though. No spin up, no seek time. It's just mad.

(and anyways, USB3.0 will probably be like USB2.0, start off fast, and 10 seconds later be down to 10Kb/s or whatnot )

Don't knock it till it's been tested in a controlled environment. :>

 

[ctufankjian]

Hi, I just bought a great hard drive, it's a Smart Disk, it's 120GB, and I'm using it exclusively to store music projects, and Mp3's etc. The cool thing about this drive is that it has an LCD screen on the front that tells how much drive space is used, an even cooler thing is that the screen is always on!

 

[DocBop]

A) Bothering with Firewire, to me, is a complete waste. I'll explain in greater detail in a second.
B) Partitioning the drive for different projects (that's an actual partition) is a terrible idea. If I'm remembering right, you'd probably end up with a more active drive by using multiple partitions than simply slapping it in a folder. It also means that if you create a 35gb partition and for some reason you require more, you have to go create a new partition! Unless you didn't really mean an actual partition in the drive, in which case ignore the above.

I may only be 19 but I've been around computers for a damn long time. There a few things that are key when you think about how useful stuff is, for instance! Your average 7200 RPM drive will actually only achieve a constant write data rate of 40MB/s - 55MB/s and hell, even the best 10k Raptor drive might just scrape 75MB/s, AT MOST(They'll generally pull around 60MB/s). The only reason you should ever both with Raptor drives is for random access seek time and guess what! You're only cutting maybe 0.004s off random access seek for a task that isn't heavily dependent on seek. It's all well and good having 150MB/s SATA and all that lark, but when your drives can't read and transmit data anywhere CLOSE to that speed, what's the point? I mean take Firewire, that's 800Mb/s (NOTE: MEGABITS). That's 100MB/s (NOTE: MEGABYTES). USB2.0? 480Mb/s (60MB/s). If you're getting a 7200 RPM external drive or enclosure, it doesn't matter if it's USB or Firewire as they'll both return pretty much exactly the same results. If you're buying 10k Raptors for file storage or audio recording, again...You're wasting your money. They're designed for Data bases, file servers and at a push, gamers. The random access speeds of a hard drive are far more important in those fields than they ever could be to the audio editing field eek this has turned into a bit of a rant and now it's 3:40am.

P.S. Check this baby out! http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?pid=10718

You are forgetting a few things....

Firewire is Asynchronous and USB is Synchronous and that slows the communication and thru put. Faster spindle speeds always speed thru put and especially if only using one drive. For those that don't know a disk typically doesn't read/write all the sector on a single disk read, so it has to wait for the platter to rotate back around so it can continue reading or writing. If the spindle speed of the disk is faster the wait time for rotating is reduced.

Partitioning a drive reduces sector size so less wasted disk space. Folders are just another file and don't do anything they are just an organizational tool for us humans. Using more partitions the data will likely be written sequential and if random be limited that partition. I would have a work area on a drive then transferring your recording to storage area when done would help leave better suited for sequential area to read/write. In fact if on a second drive setup the work partition be created first so it will created on the outside of the disk platters increasing thru put because they will be less missed reads by the heads and more data per head read.

FYI a new Firewire spec' was just announced that will triple the speed of FW 800. The new devices will be available starting next year.

There is a lot to designing storage from low level of the hardware to the high level how the computer is configured and how the software handles writes.

 

[deaf pea]

You seem to have miss understood me. A partition is like segmenting a drive. If you've got a 100gb drive and you put it into two segments you should end up with two 50gb segments which present them selves in the operating system as separate 50gb drives...

The correct term IS "partition", NOT "segment". And yes, the OS sees the various partitions as separate FHDs.

...Even if you're just sitting there doing mixing from a single partition and not touching the other one, the operating system is still asking for information from the other partition...

Why do you think that? The application (with the help of the OS) asks for the files that it needs . . . FROM WHERE IT KNOWS THEY ARE LOCATED! There's no unnecessary searching, the app knows EXACTLY where to find each file that it needs . . .

...If you want to reduce your seek times, just use it as a single drive. Just use a folder filing system...

You seem to forget that I'm using SEVERAL FHDs (8 - although I don't usually have them all "on" except when i'm doing backups). I usually spread a project over 2 partitions - on separate FHDs - for a little "head-room"* as far as track count and edit density goes . . . (sometimes I'll need a 3rd one)

*borrowing a term from audio . . . I think the usage is similar enough.

...It also means that if for some reason your project went over 35gb, that you wouldn't have to go make a new partition (afaik partitions are generally fixed in their size...

As I already said "partitioning ISN'T a thing you do when "you require more" space . . . you do it ONCE, when you first put a new FHD into service." You DON'T "make a new partition", you just start recording in another partition (on another FHD) . . .

You might want to check my profile, ya' know, I'm doin' this stuff EVERY day of the week . . .

...If you've ever wondered why you have to defrag your HDDs every now and then it's because the drive doesn't write all your files in a nice pretty line on the disk. They get scattered around. With audio recording you could be doing gigs of data recorded directly to a disk, and the disk doesn't care where it's recorded, it just slaps it down...

BUT, if you've gotta' lotta' "contigious free space" in your partitions (like several 4 or 5GB blocks in each of the 2 or 3 partitions/drives you're using for the project) the audio gets put down "nice and neat" . . . with no need to defrag EVER!
I REALLY enjoy having more HD than I really need . . . it makes things work a lot better. I still remember the MANY problems with the SCSI HDs that we used to use (10 8GB HDs for recording/editing/mixing with a 30GB and a pair of 36GB for backups . . . everything was done at 48KHz/24bit in those days, I do ALL new recordings at 88.2KHz/24bit now . . .

...For audio editing, you're better off getting a decent CPU and a mass chunk of memory because they're far more important than disk seek could ever be...Edit: It's also worth mentioning that Audio / Video editing is HEAVILY CPU/Memory reliant. It'd be better to have an Intel Q6600 and 3GB of memory (max 32bit OS's allow) than a rack of 10k raptors.

Yeah, ya' got THAT right . . .
I'm running OSX 10.4.10 on a dual 2GHz PowerPC G5 with 6GB (out of the 8GB possible) of RAM . . . probly should get the 2GB more of RAM . . .

...In fact, your best bet for good bang for buck is to take a load of cheap and reliable drives and put them in a raid array.

FWIW, a Raid array can cause a lot of problems . . . that's why they suggest disableing Raid on the DigiDesign website.

And that's gotta be the first time I've seen "cheap" and "reliable" in the same phrase!

 

[DocBop]

Deaf Pea I disagree with the blanket condemnation of RAID. RAID can be risky for the inexperienced or if using cheap gear. I am also not a big fan of software RAID, I prefer hardware.

If doing RAID 0 which is what I thing J. Stone is talking about that is too risky for my taste. RAID 0 is good for performance spreading reads over multiple spindles, but is VERY RISKY because if you lose one drive you have lost everything. RAID 10 o 0+1 can give you data protection but is expensive because of the number of drives required.

I use a lot of RAID 1 mirroring no performance boost but great data protection with minimal overhead.

People hear about RAID 5 and it sounds great and it is used a lot in IT. The problem most don't know about RAID 5 is if a drive dies you have a limited window that it will protect you. If you don't replace the bad drive and let the RAID rebuild it your parity data turns to crap and you lose the whole RAID array. Also calculating all that parity the RAID 5 use has overhead. So RAID 5 is great for read intensive applications and slow for write intensive applications. I wouldn't use RAID 5 without a hot spare drive or two.

Software RAID I don't like because it is chewing up CPU cycles typically when your application needs them. With hardware RAID the card has its own CPU and memory for cache your app's don't take a loss. Also with software RAID your OS drive goes bad on you your hosed till you rebuild and hopefully the OS stored enough RAID config data on the drives to help rebuild the RAID array. With hardware RAID and OS bites the dust I can (and have) taken the RAID card out put it in another computer and got back online.

So I wouldn't do a blanket condemnation of RAID, but people have to know what they are doing to plan, implement, and maintain RAID. If you do you have data protection and increased performance at a $$$ cost for drives.

 

[geoffkhan]

Some of the technical "advice" being provided in this thread is astounding. Partitioning drives for speed benefit? USB 2.0 being faster than Firewire 400? Wow.

Seriously, if you don't actually know what you're talking about, stop attempting to provide advice to other people. Spreading inaccurate information only hurts people.

For a lot of people, a USB 2.0 external drive will be acceptable. Other people will find that a Firewire 400 drive suits them better. Others will prefer Firewire 800. Some people may use SCSI drives. Others still will need fibre channel.

In no case will partitioning a single external drive provide a speed benefit. Read about how filesystems work if you don't believe me.

+1, right on!

 

[deaf pea]

Deaf Pea I disagree with the blanket condemnation of RAID...

I am SPECIFICALLY talking about MY experience using ProTools HD on an Apple dual 2 GHz PowerPC G5 running OSX 10.4.10 . . . it WASN'T a "blanket condemnation of RAID", but, instead, a comment on J.Stone's bad advice that "your best bet for good bang for buck is to take a load of cheap and reliable drives and put them in a raid array." . . . remember, the OP was asking if it was "better to store your recording projects on a different HD than your main HD" . . . and I was relating that to MY persanal workload, which, as I said, is ProTools HD/OSX/multiple FHD . . .

Sorry if I pi$$ed ya' off . . .

 

[deaf pea]

Some of the technical "advice" being provided in this thread is astounding. Partitioning drives for speed benefit?...Seriously, if you don't actually know what you're talking about, stop attempting to provide advice to other people. Spreading inaccurate information only hurts people...

I hope you're not talking about me . . . . . .

I guess not, because you say

...In no case will partitioning a single external drive provide a speed benefit...

I DON'T partition a SINGLE external drive . . . I do it to all 8 of 'em . . .

I partition FHDs for organizational convenience, to easily be able to do sequencialized back-ups and to be able to do more complex $hite without having problems (I often have over 100 tracks per session, and with LOTS of edits - more than 1000 per minute, maybe)

...I usually spread a project over 2 partitions - on separate FHDs - ...[for better] track count and edit density...

 

[The Owl]

Western Digital Mybook's are great.

+1 on that, I have 2 of them, one for recording (500Gig) and one exclusively for VST instruments (250 Gig).

Also, when shopping for drives, please, AVOID MAXTOR!!! They may be inexpensive but they will crap out in no-time flat!

 

[hunta]

Wow people sure get huffy defending their USB... Is microsoft sponsoring the forum now?

 

[DocBop]

Sorry if I pi$$ed ya' off . . .

I'm not ticked just trying to shared what I've learned from building servers and SANs for last ten years.

 

[Dave Martin]

In an effort to bring this thread back to the original question...

I've been using LaCie's for a couple of years now (4 drives with about a Terabyte of storage, and the HD4 rig in the B room has 6 drives with about 2 TB)- when I bought 'em, they were highly recommended by my local Mac store. But since then, LaCie has apparently either changed suppliers or manufacturing, since friends have bought a few that were dead out of the box. I'm in the middle of backing up 12 years of projects recorded on DA-88's, and just purchased a couple of Rockstor 500 gig drives (around $800USD for both) and once those are filled up, I imagine I'll be buying more.

By the way, I've had no problems with sessions up to 100 tracks running off of the LaCie drives.

 

[i_got_a_mohawk]

+1 on that, I have 2 of them, one for recording (500Gig) and one exclusively for VST instruments (250 Gig).

Also, when shopping for drives, please, AVOID MAXTOR!!! They may be inexpensive but they will crap out in no-time flat!

Ive been running two maxtors for about 4-5 years now with no problems at all. Within that time ive had a 36Gb (or there abouts) WD raptor and 80Gb WD crap out on me

 

[hunta]

But since then, LaCie has apparently either changed suppliers or manufacturing, since friends have bought a few that were dead out of the box.

You know since you mention that, we've had a couple bum LaCie drives at work lately. They've been those new "rugged" drives, guess not so much. I have one of the WD mybook 500 gigs and haven't had any problems, but I had been planning on getting a LaCie for my next external.. I dunno what I'll get now. LaCie worries me a little.

 

[kevinmoore73]

I hope you're not talking about me . . . . . .

Yes, I was specifially talking about you.

I partition FHDs for organizational convenience, to easily be able to do sequencialized back-ups and to be able to do more complex $hite without having problems (I often have over 100 tracks per session, and with LOTS of edits - more than 1000 per minute, maybe)

What you're doing is ludicrous, and it's criminal that you're advising people to do the same. I don't care how long you've been doing it or who advised you to do it originally, it's unnecessary.

 

[deaf pea]

I'm not ticked just trying to shared what I've learned from building servers and SANs for last ten years.

thanks for your input . . .

Yes, I was specifially talking about you...

. . . . . .

...What you're doing is ludicrous... it's unnecessary.

could you please expain "why"? . . . or "how"? . . .

and remember that ALL of my comments are based on my experiences working with ProTools Mix, ProTools MixPlus and ProTools HD3 (from 4.x up to the 7.3 that I'm using now) on Mac (G3 thru G5, OS8.6 thru OSX 10.4.10) for the last 10 years or so . . . Don't tell me anything about PCs or PC clones, please . . .
and, FWIW, I didn't say anything about "partitioning" for "faster seek times" AFAIK . . .

 

[bassness]

Even when I only have one hard drive I still partition it so OS is by itself and I don't install anything on that partition. That way if something goes wrong with writing data the OS is isolated. If I have to rebuilt the OS I can reformat its partition and reinstall, but my apps and data are isolated in their partition and still there.

You're still going to have to reinstall your applications if you isolate the OS on a partition and install apps to a different partition. Most all applications write to the Registry when installed and if you reinstall the OS, then you also recreate the Registry. All of the individual Registry settings that individual application installs made will be lost. A lot of your apps won't run and those that do will produce errors

Creating a partition (or more than one) is a smart move as you won't lose your data if you do have to reinstall the OS. I run into this at work all the time where people save all sorts of data to their desktop. I try to explain that they should save data to another partition that we create for that reason or preferably to a network drive, since that is backed up. I might as well be talking to a wall.

 

[DocBop]

You're still going to have to reinstall your applications if you isolate the OS on a partition and install apps to a different partition. Most all applications write to the Registry when installed and if you reinstall the OS, then you also recreate the Registry. All of the individual Registry settings that individual application installs made will be lost. A lot of your apps won't run and those that do will produce errors

Creating a partition (or more than one) is a smart move as you won't lose your data if you do have to reinstall the OS. I run into this at work all the time where people save all sorts of data to their desktop. I try to explain that they should save data to another partition that we create for that reason or preferably to a network drive, since that is backed up. I might as well be talking to a wall.

Some apps will have to be reinstall to get them back in the registry, but some don't. But data is still there and simple enough to rerun a installer to get the registry setup again. Also many app's write there temp/working files to whatever partition they are on, so if in same partition as OS they can fill the partition and take down the machine. I had major brand AV and defrag software take servers down because of this.

FYI some users put boatloads of crap on their desktop because they figured out it bypasses many disk quota programs. As they say USER is a four letter word.

 

[bassness]

As they say USER is a four letter word.

As we like to say, the problem often lies between the chair and the keyboard.

 

[bullshark]

FWIW, I use a Vantec eSata external enclosure, used that for about a year. 100% reliable, not a single hiccup ever AND I get all the benefit of the large SATA bandwidth+interchangeable drives+portability AND it can be hooked up via USB should I ever want to hook it up to a non-eSata capable machine.

Firewire and USB for external is so last millenium...