Hard Drives

[alonzoslefthand]

Well it finally happened to me - I ran out of room on my hard drive...

I just record for fun, so i never really thought about a long term solution for storage space. Until last night when I tried to track a new song and realized i had no room left.

Any suggestions on a big hard drive i could buy?(remember i'm on a hobby budget)

also - If i want to back a session up to cd, and it's 2-3 GB what do i do? just break it all up and put all the audio files on as many CDs as it takes and then just load it all back on my computer when I want to use it again?

[gerax]

I'm using Maxtor ATA 100 7200 rpm HD on my machines and they work flawlessly; I'd go with an 40 or 60 GB as a second audio drive only to store and menage all of your audio files; as for backing up to CDr, the answer is simple: create two ro more folders and split the audio files accross them and put the PT session inside one of them (usually the first one); burn the folders on as many CDr as needed; when you need to get the files back just copy all of the files in the same folder together with the PT session and they'll work just like the original; always works for me.

L.G.

[basschair]

First, I'd be interested in finding out how big your primary drive is; in other words, how quickly did you fill it up and how much space did you use? If you're concerned about $$$, think about your needs first, then your system's ability to handle a 2nd drive, then go out and price them. There's definitely differences in brands, though statistically you'll be okay if you stick to one of a few brands: IBM, Maxtor, Seagate to name a few. Everyone has a bad experience with some drive, blames the brand, and will never recommend them...scan the net for online reviews on reliability, make sure that you get the speed (7200rpm or up; 9ms or less), and go get it.

As far as the configuration, that's another issue. I'm sure that there are others here that can give far superior advice on that subject. I've simply chained my drives, and it's working with a solid track count and pluggin count. Still, that might not work for you...
Hmmmm, in re-reading this post, I don't think that this did anything but give you more crap to think about...good luck!

[Mark_Knecht]

Hi. Yes - 1394 is the same as Firewire. It's what I'm using. I like it.

However, you can start with an internal ATA-100 drive today, and buy a 1394 drive case later for the drive. Just put the audio drive in the case and it becomes a 1394 drive. No formating. No files lost. Everything's there. It becomes portable and external later.

[quote]Originally posted by Swaphappy:

This is the Fire Wire stuff right?

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[Mark_Knecht]

So true!! [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

Originally posted by basschair:
Hmmmm, in re-reading this post, I don't think that this did anything but give you more crap to think about...good luck!

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[basschair]

Mark, you make me cry [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] ...still, I agree with you. That post could have been a little more to-the-point, not to mention varied. The 1394 format has gotten a lot easier to work with since I did my reading on it a while back. Can you really just pop into a 1394 hardware case, get a firewire card, and you're good to go? What kind of card would you recommend for an Intel D815 type MoBo at 133?

[Sparks]

Is there any danger in using WinZip to compress the .wav files, burning to CD-RW, then Unzipping them back into projects?

[Swaphappy]

What type of system do you have?
First make sure your system will support large
hardrives before you buy.
I found that my Pentium II would not support drives 40 gig or larger even with a Bios upgrade.
The only solution was to buy an ULTRA DMA card and put the larger drive on that.
I would recommend an 80 Gig WD-7200rpm IDE drive. That ought to do the job.

[Mark_Knecht]

Or consider 1394 drives. When I need more space on any of my machines, I just hook another one to the bus... No internal changes to the machine after the 1394 controller is in.

[Swaphappy]

Originally posted by Mark_Knecht:
Or consider 1394 drives. When I need more space on any of my machines, I just hook another one to the bus... No internal changes to the machine after the 1394 controller is in.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">This is the Fire Wire stuff right?