external HardDrive

[DevonB]

there was benchmarks over at toms hardware on Firewire, USB2 and Firewire800

Got a link?

I'd guess maybe it was this.

Beautiful, thank you. Going USB halves the transfer rate, Firewire not doing that much better. Suckage.

Devon

[bluemoon]

I never really had first-hand experience with this until recently, so was always skeptical about the USB2 vs. Firewire thing, especially considering the theoretical limits of bandwidth for each which are actually higher for USB2. I can now tell you though that Firewire is the way to go for external hard drives. (Firewire 400)

If you are using Windows XP or W2K, get a drive that does both USB2 AND Firewire. That way you'll have the flexibility of the ubiquitous USB connectivity if you ever need to move files to a different computer, but have the option to use Firewire for performance based applications where speed, throughput are critical (audio and video).

If you want to do any kind of audio work, i.e. recording, streaming samples, etc., you can forget the specs....connecting to the drive via a Firewire connection will give you so much better sustained throughput that it will seem like it is twice as fast as a USB2 connection.

I use an Adaptec Firewire PC Card adapter with my Thinkpad T42p, and have my connected drive's properties in WinXP set up (somewhat counter-intuitively) so that the Policies setting uses "Optimize for Quick Removal" rather than "Optimize for Performance", meaning that I have write caching disabled.

I use Sonar3PE with a lot of DX/VST stuff and actually notice no difference in performance between my external 7200rpm HD connected via Firewire and either of my internal 7200rpm Hitachi drives. I haven't yet experimented with external Firewire drives while using a Firewire audio interface, because I still use a Tascam US428 (which connects via USB 1!!!).

My system works great, but I may eventually upgrade to a Firewire interface, but wouldn't anticipate that this would really affect anything.

bluemoon

[bluemoon]

Since we sort of drifted off of the orginal topic, I also had some suggestions that pertain to the orginal post.

Getting a large external drive gives you the luxury of rethinking how you can work. IMO, your C drive should be only OS, applications and drivers. It doesn't really matter if it's a dedicated drive or a partition. Subsequent drives/partitions should contain the actual files that you create/work with. Depending on the programs you use, the ideal would probably be to have audio on a different physical drive that is using a different bus, but whether or not this is critical to performance depends on your applications and the way you work.

I typicaly record audio to a second internal HD and use an external Firewire drive for samples/acid loops and backups.

The important thing though is to keep the OS and applications separated. That way, once you've tweaked your system and applications and know that everthing is working well, you can make a clone of your C drive (partition) using Norton Ghost or something similar, knowing that if your system ever screws up, you can return it to a pristine state in minutes, not days. Don't rely on Windows Restore or GoBack, get Ghost or Drive Image 7 (I actually use both, but Ghost 2003 is my most trusted).

Working this way also has the benefit of keeping the partition that your OS and programs reside on from getting as fragmented, which keeps things running smoother. It also means quicker defrags of your subsequent drives/partitions that DO get fragmented, i.e. the drives with all of the files you are working on.

bluemoon

[zai]

After reading some of your comments, I think I'm starting to get the idea.

OS only on the laptop, applications in No. 1 external firewire 8MB Cache drive, audio/loops/samples in No.2 firewire 8MB Cache drive.

1GB of Ram I think I'll put in the laptop...now deciding upon a P4 or AMD64...Centrino is nice...but only the battery life is beating the P4s.

I'm also going to wait for the "dual core" come out...should be nice!

Zai

[bluemoon]

Uhhhh....no Zai. I know this sounds a little complicated, and it's probably only worth it for those who absolutely depend on their PC and must be able to get back up and running quickly in the event of a disaster, but here's a clearer explanation...

Put the OS and applications TOGETHER on your C drive. Just install everything normally. Then use your other drives to save audio, etc. (and any other type of files you create, project files with MIDI, or documents you create from any other program, Word docs, etc.) The idea is that you want your C drive not to change, which causes fragmentation and makes things a little less straightforward in the event that you have to restore a backup. Once the OS and your programs are installed, and all the settings are adjusted to your liking, drivers have been updated, etc. then you create the clone image with Ghost. I like to think of this as "Freezing" my OS, programs and settings.

Of course, if you update a driver, load a patch, install a new program or VST, etc., once you know it's working right, then you'll want to make a new backup clone. If on the other hand, that new VST or patch hoses your computer, then you can restore your PC to exactly the way it was when you knew it worked. You don't have to worry about all of your projects and associated files, audio that's been edited, etc. because you saved them to a different drive or partition, which hopefully you will back up separately, in a more traditional manner.

There are a few other tips I give people if they want to set things up this way. If you don't want to lose ANY files in the event that you want to perform a restore of your C drive...

1) Get out of the habit of saving files on your Desktop or in your My Documents directory. Instead create a folder on a different drive called "Current" or something like that, then make a shortcut to that directory on your desktop. I would do this before I made my Ghost image clone of the C drive.

2) If you use your PC online, don't accept the default directory for your email program. Create a "Mail" directory on a different drive/partition, then go into your email program and change the preferences so it saves all of your mail into this new directory.

3) You can also usually change the default save directories within preferences of any of the other programs you use.

bluemoon

[zai]

Thanks for the advice guys!

Zai