Hold on now,I said memory and fsb are more crucial than drive speed for recording and they are.I never said drive speed wasn’t important.A 7200 rpm drive is plenty fast enough to handle 24/96.If we were discussing a 5400 rpm drive I would agree you…But you most certainly do not need a 10,000rpm Raptor to record in 24/96.And no,Sata is not yet the industry standard and will not be until the cooling and pricing is leveled out.SCSI drives are expensive as #### which is the reason for developing Sata technology in the first place.
SATA ain’t the bomb…yet.
SATA and ATA aren’t going to give you THAT much difference unless they spin faster. The bus width doesn’t mean a whole lot because the 100/133MB ATA width will never be filled with sustained transfer which is what you need for audio. The 100/133 spec is only burst rates. There is little to no difference in speed between SATA and ATA on drives spinning at the same speed. Don’t confuse the protocol with which the hard drive shuttles data to and from memory and the CPU and the hard drive itself. Hard drives are mostly all the same. What makes one faster than another is how they are controlled (on the drive itself as in SCSI or on a controller as in IDE), the bus width (which few drives can come close to filling on their own) and simply how fast they spin. Now, if they invent a drive which can read more data per RPM (like AMD doing more work per clock cycle than Intel) then you will see big performance boosts. Unfortuately the read/write heads all need to be at the same pace at the same time. If they can get the heads to be independant, then you could expect much faster throughput. IDE/ATA/SATA have little to do with the actual speed you get when the drive still spins at 7200 RPM and can’t read at sustained rates much faster than 20-30MB/s.
Guys - I know that SATA is just ATA150 & I’m not confusing anything. But I’m telling you that I have 2 SATA drives in a RAID-0 configuration, and they are way faster than 2 ATA100 drives in a RAID-0 (both config’s with 7200 RPM drives)!!!
My point is that when you make unquantified statements like “they’re fast enough” - they doesn’t mean a bloody thing to me. You’ve got to frame what you’re talking about with numbers & context.
I work with very large files & when I open them in Sound Forge, I’m still sitting there for seconds. Nothing is fast enough for me.
I stand by my point that it’s all important. Memory speed & FSB speed is to the point where memory is not an issue anymore, i.e., they’re faster than most processors can keep up with.
Hmmmm…I wonder if the Alabama Supercomputer center over on Redstone Arsenal would let me try n-Track out on the Cray?
Buddy of mine works in high-end modeling software for the Dept. of Defense. He said one of his proggies takes over 8 hours to render results on the fastest PC his company can buy. Took the Cray 8 and a half minutes.
TG
I am part of the AMD camp and since no one has chimed in for AMDs, I will.
If you want a fast, cheap computer, try this DFI motherboard with this AMD 2600+ XP-M processor.
The motherboard includes SATA RAID 0/1, 2 UDMA133 channels(4 devices) and Firewire. The cost of the 2 together is less than $200. Also, the processor is the mobile variety and runs cooler than the desktop CPU. This means you can use very quiet cooling for the CPU. Or, if you are inclined, you can overclock the heck out of it.
As far as the harddrive question, always buy the fastest/quietest/largest drive you can afford for your audio files. 7200 speed drives are just fine if you get one that has been rated with fast read/write speeds. Also, I like my drives with at least an 8 meg buffer.
I know that the AMD XP chips are old technology, but they will do all you want and more. Plus, they are CHEAP. If you are looking for cutting edge technology, then look to the AMD64 chip and motherboards. Very fast and stable. Also are future proof (for at least a year…lol).
Take care,
Mike
I was not trying to push your buttons,Mr.Soul and once again I did not say that drive speed wasn’t important.What I meant to convey was the fact you do not need a Sata hd in order to record 24/96 digital audio.That’s just rediculous and yes your two Sata drives are faster…And Ive put them in for people as well and have absolutely nothing against them and can’t wait for them to smooth out all the bumps.They are the future but all I wanted to get across was the fact that 24/96 is not dependant on Sata technology.It will only do as you say,allow you the luxury of opening 100mb wav.file in half a second…My time is important but not that important.
I was not trying to push your buttons,Mr.Soul and once again I did not say that drive speed wasn't important..
Understood & likewise I'm not trying to push yours.
What I meant to convey was the fact you do not need a Sata hd in order to record 24/96 digital audio. That's just rediculous and yes your two Sata drives are faster....
Now don't take this personally but I disagree with you here. When you say something like I don't need this or that, you've got to first of all quantify what you are saying. Leave the generalities to politics
. As I said previously, I "need" as much speed as I can get. I disagree that 1 ATA100, 7,200 RPM drive cut it because that's what my first computer had and it didn't cut it for 96/24 work.
And Ive put them in for people as well and have absolutely nothing against them and can't wait for them to smooth out all the bumps.
Since I've been using these drives successfully for at least 1/2 year, I'm interested specifically in what you feel the bumps are, e.g., heat in 10,000 RPM disks, reliability, what?
Understood & likewise I'm not trying to push yours.
What I meant to convey was the fact you do not need a Sata hd in order to record 24/96 digital audio. That's just rediculous and yes your two Sata drives are faster....
Now don't take this personally but I disagree with you here. When you say something like I don't need this or that, you've got to first of all quantify what you are saying. Leave the generalities to politics
. As I said previously, I "need" as much speed as I can get. I disagree that 1 ATA100, 7,200 RPM drive cut it because that's what my first computer had and it didn't cut it for 96/24 work.And Ive put them in for people as well and have absolutely nothing against them and can't wait for them to smooth out all the bumps.
Since I've been using these drives successfully for at least 1/2 year, I'm interested specifically in what you feel the bumps are, e.g., heat in 10,000 RPM disks, reliability, what?
Mr. Soul, you’re confusing “need” with “want”. The statement was correct that one doesn’t need SATA for 24/96 recording. One may want, or even demand faster response in applications, but that is different from “need”, meaning “minimum requirement for the stated purpose”.
OK, today’s semantics lecture is now over. 
The statement was correct that one doesn't need SATA for 24/96 recording.
Sorry but I'm not confusing the words & you're not reading exactly what I'm saying. I stand by my statement that ATA100 doesn't cut it for 96/24 work that I do. Let me be more specific - ATA100 is not fast enough for 20 tracks of 96/24 audio. As I said (for the 3rd time), my old machine had an ATA100 drive & the machine's I/O couldn't keep up.
Sorry but I'm not confusing the words & you're not reading exactly what I'm saying. I stand by my statement that ATA100 doesn't cut it for 96/24 work that I do. Let me be more specific - ATA100 is not fast enough for 20 tracks of 96/24 audio. As I said (for the 3rd time), my old machine had an ATA100 drive & the machine's I/O couldn't keep up.
sigh.
I go away for a while, quit drinking, quit smoking, take the pickle jar off my head, learn some social skillz, and my first conversation? argument.
just like my marriage(s).
Hey Hux!!! Great to hear from you. Now on to the more important question - have you finished that song yet
-Daniel
Hux - at least you’ve got a good sense of humor! And great to hear about your reform.
You know how the “my DAW is better than your DAW thing” goes. We’ve been through is before here many times so you have to be careful when starting hardware threads, just like when you start music threads.
Mike
PS - just got this note today from a client who picked up his new DAW last Sunday
<!–QuoteBegin>
| Quote |
| By the way, Mike, I should mention a really unexpected (although it makes sense) bonus from this new computer of yours – it runs my court reporting software much, much better than my HP did! So I’m finding I’m able to crank out a goodly number of extra pages per hour than I was, which means more income in less time, which is great. |
And he’s got one of those pesky SATA hard drives too!
Still got my pickle jar…
You know how the "my DAW is better than your DAW thing" goes. We've been through is before here many times so you have to be careful when starting hardware threads, just like when you start music threads.
You know what they say about those who shout the loudest
You know what they say about those who shout the loudest
well, the real question is:
do I really need 24 bits?
fogs up pickle jar cackling
do I really need 24 bits?
Boy - you really do like to start wars
Nahhh - the question is do you "want" 24 bits not whether you "need" them
Mike
PS - I'm thinking about starting to smoke & do drugs again to get away from this routine, boring subarban life I live
Boy - you really do like to start wars
Nahhh - the question is do you "want" 24 bits not whether you "need" them
Mike
PS - I'm thinking about starting to smoke & do drugs again to get away from this routine, boring subarban life I live