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  #1  
Old 01-24-2003, 11:53 AM
Stone Knife Stone Knife is offline
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Default So tell me about 8-meg HDD buffers!!

I'm seeing some HDD manufacturers offering 8MEG buffers in their new IDE drives (Western Digital and Maxtor for example)...

Is this increased drive RAM useful to ProTools- or a non-issue?
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Old 01-24-2003, 11:55 AM
Mark Staples Mark Staples is offline
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Default Re: So tell me about 8-meg HDD buffers!!

It's the only kind I buy. You'll get better performance out of them.
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Old 01-24-2003, 06:18 PM
Mark Staples Mark Staples is offline
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Default Re: So tell me about 8-meg HDD buffers!!

I've got the 2-800JB's (80GB) and 1-120BB (120GB). The 40GB drives wouldn't be enough for me. My setup is my boot drive is 80GB. I have a D: drive of 80GB for miscellaneous stuff and my swap file. I then have the recording drive in a removable IDE drive tray. This way I can service multiple clients simultaneously without having to opening my computer each time. Also, it makes it fairly easy because part of the deal is for the client to buy a 100GB or more drive, I provide the tray and when the project is complete, I give the back the drive with their complete project on it. If they choose to have it remixed or mastered elsewhere, then they have it all...sessions and sound files (with settings and everything). It also takes the responsibility off of me to provide all of the storage.

I have found this to be the most economical way to deal with things. I'm working with someone now that has about 3 projects. We'll have a separate drive for each project. Keeps it simple. Shelf life for drives is around 3 years. By that time, most people will want to re-track if they wanted to release the songs again.

I'll also burn the 24-bit versions (multiple mono and interleaved) to CD for long-term storage.

Hope this helps.
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Old 01-24-2003, 07:02 PM
da BaSsTaRd! da BaSsTaRd! is offline
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Default Re: So tell me about 8-meg HDD buffers!!

i bought the WD 80GB. i got interrupt errors until i updated the ide controller driver (i'm on 98 still - was using the MS driver). now it performs better than my previous drives...
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Old 01-24-2003, 08:55 PM
Stone Knife Stone Knife is offline
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Default Re: So tell me about 8-meg HDD buffers!!

So what y'all seem to be saying is that the 8meg buffer WD drives are "OKEE-DOKEE".
Thanks for your input; Mwave or Newegg will hear from me directly!
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Old 01-25-2003, 12:22 AM
Stone Knife Stone Knife is offline
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Default Re: So tell me about 8-meg HDD buffers!!

Thanks, Mark- Do you have a manufacturer preference? How about the Western WD400JB 40GB as a primary drive?
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Old 01-25-2003, 09:21 AM
dbrunell dbrunell is offline
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Default Re: So tell me about 8-meg HDD buffers!!

I was running 2 IBM Deskstars in my system, but I heard about good performance from the Western Digitals with the 8MB buffer, so I got one of the 80GB HDs and put it in my system as the audio drive. Fast and quiet! I liked it so much, I got another to use for the system drive. My system is much quieter than it used to be, and noticeably faster. Recommended!

Doug
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Old 01-25-2003, 04:52 PM
Mythlandia Mythlandia is offline
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Default Re: So tell me about 8-meg HDD buffers!!

Stone Knife - You might find it helps to de-frag your hard drive. Sometimes, it's just that the files have been fragmented.
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Old 01-25-2003, 07:16 PM
dbrunell dbrunell is offline
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Default Re: So tell me about 8-meg HDD buffers!!

I agree with Mythlandia- and before you defrag, you might want to run Scandisk with the option to check for any bad sectors. I usually run Defrag before a session; it only takes a few minutes, and gives me a nice, clean configuration to start with.

Another reason, besides performance, that it's good to run two separate drives on your PT system is that you can back up data from one drive to the other. I used Norton Ghost to create an image file of my PT partition (Windows XP Home) and put the image file on drive 2. I have drive 2 set up with an extended partition, and three logical drives. I back up (just by copying) all my Pro Tools session data from drive 2 to a directory on drive 1. So, if either drive buys the farm, I still have all my data.
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Old 01-25-2003, 07:47 PM
Stone Knife Stone Knife is offline
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Default Re: So tell me about 8-meg HDD buffers!!

Thanks, fellas, Defragged and scandisk/ckdisk and DriveImaged to n'th degree here, probably too much, even... [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

It is odd that ONLY PT creates this 'grahhhhhhhhh' racket. The other apps kindof just crunch along, but PT 5.3 just riiiiips. My second drive, a Maxtor Diamondmax 80 just whirrs along, almost impossible to hear even while defragging or heavy file-reading.

You're right, there is no single thing you can do (after maxing out your MB's RAM)for an inexpensive system upgrade than adding a second HDD. I would never go back to just one.
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