G4/400 HD's?

[antlife]

OK, I read all the back stuff. What is the best deal for extra HD's on my G4/400. Internal ATA's or SCSI ext. or int. Is there a big benefit on splitting the session over 2 or more drives?

[Jeff D.]

life,

There is a lot of variation in the opinions on the drive issue. However, if your goals are 1. Maximized performance and 2. Least cash outlay you won't go wrong with one of the newer large capacity ATA drives from Maxtor or IBM.

On my G4 400 even the factory 5400RPM drive could play back 24 tracks of 24bit. However, it couldn't record the maximum of 18 inputs simultaneously. I added a 15GB maxtor, a 27GB Maxtor and a 40GB Maxtor, and all work great . I also have SCSI, and I have noticed no improvement using SCSI so I'll be buying the less expensive ATA drives from now on.

I have seen no benefit to splitting the sessions over more than one drive.

Here's the reason: 24 tracks of 24 bit audio requires about 3MB/sec sustained transfer rate. The Maxtor 40GB tests out on my system at 12MB/sec sustained rate. So there is plenty of headroom for fragmentation, etc.

Also, for backup sometimes it's easier to buy a $99 15GB ATA drive and put it into the ZIP drive bay on your computer (it works fine there as a third ATA drive) and drag your session files to that drive, and then put the drive in your closet (or have your client pay for it!). No messy backup issues like split up sessions over multiple CD-R's or DVD-RAM discs, etc...

Good luck,

Jeff D,

[Jeff D.]

Oh, in my ATA drive frenzy I forgot to mention one advantage of SCSI drives: They seem to start recording much more quickly when you press the record button. There can be a 1 to 2 second delay after hitting the record button with the ATA drives I've tried.

1 to 2 seconds is about how long old analog tape decks take to start recording, so maybe this isn't so bad...

Jeff D.

[Frank S]

As a die hard SCSI type who recently added a second ATA drive, I humbly point out another big advantage of the ATA drives available out there - THEY'RE PRETTY QUIET. I can kinda go crazy sitting there with my 9G Cheetah blaring at me for a few hours - and forget about tracking acoustic guitars or vocals with that thing sitting in the room.

I got a Maxtor 40Gig 7200 Diamond Max Plus for ~$260 (not the fastest, but definitely cost effective) and popped it right in to my G4 - changing the jumpers on the Western Digital 20G ATA that it came with to do the master ->Slave thing. The whole thing took 10 minutes (after the hour or so research on how to do it). I am really amazed at how quiet it is - I'll probably end up using it for most of my live tracking, and transfering the files to the SCSI drive to take outside my studio when needed.

The second or two delay is definitely worth noting, but not a major detraction.

BTW, at some point there will be a 40G 10000 rpm ATA drive, and a 60G 7200, and......

[FTF1013]

So...what you're saying is that for solid professional performance (as much as can be optained through the LE software...which is still better than my PC's Cool Edit Pro I hope) it doesn't matter if I use a couple of good 7200 rpm IDE drives as opposed to SCSI?

If so then you've saved me a lot of $.

Thanks, in advance.

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I Have No Slogan.

[Frank S]

Bingo!

The only things you'll miss are the immediate ability to record, and the ultimate plug and play kind of portabilty that goes with the SCSI drives .