Hard drives

[danerz]

Hey,
I will be replacing my G5 imac with a brand new MBP soon. I was just wondering what the best hard drive configuration would be for audio edititing and recording. I've heard its best to keep all your files on an external and all the apps on the internal hd so when the internal wears out all you have to replace are apps and vica verca. Is this true. If so what is the best external for the job.

I'm open to any other suggestions as well.

Thanks alot.

 

[CanadaRAM]

Hey,
I will be replacing my G5 imac with a brand new MBP soon. I was just wondering what the best hard drive configuration would be for audio edititing and recording. I've heard its best to keep all your files on an external and all the apps on the internal hd so when the internal wears out all you have to replace are apps and vica verca. Is this true. If so what is the best external for the job.

I'm open to any other suggestions as well.

Thanks alot.

It's not an issue of the drive wearing out. It's an issue of separating the read/write responsibilities of Data from those of the application and scratch files. Since most applications rapidly alternate between reading and writing data, and accessing the program and scratch files, if those were all on one disk, it would take time for the single set of heads to shuttle back and forth between the different areas of the disk. When you have it on 2 hard drives, the Data drive's heads can stay positioned over the data and the internal drive's heads can stay on the scratch files - for faster performance overall.

An external drive is also a near-essential for making backups, so by all means get it. Firewire 400 or Firewire 800. Not USB.

 

[danerz]

It's not an issue of the drive wearing out. It's an issue of separating the read/write responsibilities of Data from those of the application and scratch files. Since most applications rapidly alternate between reading and writing data, and accessing the program and scratch files, if those were all on one disk, it would take time for the single set of heads to shuttle back and forth between the different areas of the disk. When you have it on 2 hard drives, the Data drive's heads can stay positioned over the data and the internal drive's heads can stay on the scratch files - for faster performance overall.

An external drive is also a near-essential for making backups, so by all means get it. Firewire 400 or Firewire 800. Not USB.

So do you think its a good idea to have the apps on the internal and the data audio files on and external. Can you recomend some good external 800 drives.

 

[zimv20]

i like these for backup and remote audio.

 

[danerz]

Will the data transfer be fast enough from a fw800 drive to edit the audio. can someone tell me if im going down the wrong track.

I will be having the apps on my internal and all my audio files on an external (pref FW800). Is this a good thing to do or not.

Thanks

 

[odinsride]

Will the data transfer be fast enough from a fw800 drive to edit the audio. can someone tell me if im going down the wrong track.

I will be having the apps on my internal and all my audio files on an external (pref FW800). Is this a good thing to do or not.

Thanks

That's pretty standard for a recording setup. You're on the right track. FW800 is goooood

 

[danerz]

That's pretty standard for a recording setup. You're on the right track. FW800 is goooood

Thanks for the help dudes. I might pick up a drive sometime soon. If anyone has any other opionons or solutions feel free to add.