New Athlon64 machine, best config for hardrives?

[DanS]

First off, thanks to all those whose suggestions helped me put together my new machine. I ended up with an Athlon 64 3200+, ASUS K8V DX SE Mobo, 1 gig ram, 120gSATA HD.

I've had Kompakt & Absynth2 running in multiple instances with the CPU usuage hovering around 10%.

Now we're talking!

 

Getting to the point. The 120SATA HD has all the software & some of the files on it at the moment. I have another 120ATA HD that has all my previous machines backups on.

 

I'll keep the programs on the SATA, and use the ATA for the audio files, correct? (I realize you're supposed to split the programs and the audio, but I never had any hassles doing it this way with my old PIII600)

Which drive should I keep all my samples on (Kompakt & Giga)?

 

Much obliged.

[Jazz Guitar]

Originally posted by DanS:

First off, thanks to all those whose suggestions helped me put together my new machine. I ended up with an Athlon 64 3200+, ASUS K8V DX SE Mobo, 1 gig ram, 120gSATA HD.

I've had Kompakt & Absynth2 running in multiple instances with the CPU usuage hovering around 10%.

Now we're talking!

 

Getting to the point. The 120SATA HD has all the software & some of the files on it at the moment. I have another 120ATA HD that has all my previous machines backups on.

 

I'll keep the programs on the SATA, and use the ATA for the audio files, correct? (I realize you're supposed to split the programs and the audio, but I never had any hassles doing it this way with my old PIII600)

Which drive should I keep all my samples on (Kompakt & Giga)?

 

Much obliged.

Sounds pretty kickass, but I'd have gone the SCSI route.

 

SATA and ATA are on different buses right? Seperate cables going to each, right? Keep the old audio files on the ATA, new on the SATA in a seperate directory from the application, and NOT a directory under the application's directory.

 

So, got any 64 bit applications?

[Dak Lander]

Sorry, to a point this is above my expertise but I don't believe I'd ever choose SCSI over any other comparable drive.

Too many issues in years past, though, at one time, they were faster in reading and writing.

I don't think that's the case today.

[not Cereal]

i wouldnt choose scsi either, although i have several scsi based machines here.

 

the difference in speed is often negligable. even with dast/wide scsi drives compared to even ata100.

 

the difference is when the drives start getting fragged this get hairy. i notice i rarely have to defrag the scsi drives, maybe every 8 months or so or even never on some. on the ide/ata drives its at least once a week if not more. during heavy projects its once a day.

 

i can always tell when the ide/ata drives need defragged by the drop in speed. the scsi drives never have this behavior even when they are fragged to beat hell.

 

still, i would not put scsi in a new pc unless it were a hardcore network server. THAT might actually be useful, but only in high-traffic situations.

[jlampson]

Dan,

 

I would suggest storing your audio on the SATA drive. It's much faster than your ATA drive. I do a bad thing and store my samples on the same drive as my audio, but I never have any problems and I have a much slower system than you. An XP2600+ is much slower, right?

 

John

[philbo_Tangent]

I recently set up my PC this way:

Drive 0 (15 GB) partitions:

C: Win2k Pro (2 GB)

D: WinXP (2 GB)

E: SwapFile (1 GB) - used by both XP & 2K

F: Programs only (10 GB)

 

Drive 1 (30 GB) partitions:

G: Data (recording projects) only (30 GB)

 

In both OS's, set min and max swap file size to the same size, and located on the SwapFile drive only. (I set mine so there the total of RAM + Swap File size = 1.5 GB. YMMV)

 

This setup is easy to back up and maintain, because you avoid a lot of the 'creeping-crap-buildup' on the windows drives that occurs when you have Windows & all the programs on the same drive.

 

I use the W2K OS only for backup, so I can still boot when/if XP takes a dump...

[DanS]

Thanks for the tips, but which drive should I keep the Giga files on?

 

SCSI's way too $$$$, and it isn't necessary anymore anyway, at least for my needs.

[not Cereal]

well, this depends on whether giga streams the samples from the drive, or stores them in ram. i dont know because i do not use giga.

 

if it stores them in ram, i would:

 

1. create a partition for the os (8gb - 16gb) on the sata drive. store the samples in the large leftover partion on the same drive.

 

if it streams them from the drive, i would:

 

1. still create the partition for the os on the sata drive.

2. store all audio files on the primary ATA bus with both master/slave drives.

3. store the samples on a third ata drive on the secondary ata bus.

 

thats what I would do.

 

someone else would do something different.

[Matt.Hepworth]

Originally posted by philbo_Tangent:

I recently set up my PC this way:

Drive 0 (15 GB) partitions:

C: Win2k Pro (2 GB)

D: WinXP (2 GB)

E: SwapFile (1 GB) - used by both XP & 2K

F: Programs only (10 GB)

This would actually reduce performance and could cause problems with folders of the same name. Having to access two partitions on the same hard drive to run apps is a bad idea. Same with swap file in a separate partition - kind of voids out the advantage. I'd suggest 5-7 gigs per OS and install the programs on the same partition as the OS.

 

On the ATA/SATA question, I use dual ATA drives one in dualboot partitions and one for audio. I use my SATA drives for session backups and system backups. Very good performance (100+ tracks simultaneously on my Athlon 64).