PT HDN 10, 96KHz recording, HDDs, SATA, RAID, SAS, NAS... Please help!

[dubrichie]

Alrighty,

So I'm going to replace my aging PT HD2 TDM system with PT HDNative 10 and, of course, a spanking new computer to run it on.

The computer, which will run Win7 x64 Pro, will be based around an Intel Xeon E3-1270 / C206 chipset with 32GB of 1333MHz RAM.

Now, I need some advice on an HDD Setup. So far I have been operating at 44.1 or 48KHz and recording to / running sessions from a single SATA 3.0Gbps 7200rpm drive, up to about 100 tracks in total and with no disk-related problems.

But I will be running the new rig at 88.2 or 96KHz / 24 Bit, recording 24 live tracks simultaneously, and using up to 128 audio tracks in a session. I will be utilising the new Disk Cache system of PT HD10 to run sessions pretty much entirely from that lovely 32GB of RAM, and I can't wait to check out the performance.

So what do I need to achieve this HDD-wise?

My chosen motherboard / chipset has Intel Rapid Storage Technology RAID. Is this RAID system compatible with PT HD10? Should I buy a hardware RAID PCI-Express card? A SAS or NAS setup? Or will a single SATA 6.0Gbps 7200rpm HDD suffice?

I am aware that PT can already spread audio across multiple drives, but the system has always seemed rather clumsy and over-complicated to me. As such, I don't want to go there and instead want to present PT with a single 'Audio Drive' that is big and fast enough for what I want to do. Whether it be by fooling PT with a hardware RAID solution, or whatever, I'm easy so long as it works, is reliable and comes at a reasonable cost.

I have never used RAID, SAS or NAS before; I have never had the need to... Gimme the juice!

Oh crikey, I'm totally out of the loop here! For shame, for shame!

Many thanks in advance,

[Dism]

It seems to me that the choice is entirely yours now.

Timeline Cache effectively takes disk speed out of the equation so there's no reason you couldn't use a RAID or SAS or whatever your heart desires.

PT10 definitely handles disk usage differently since I can now host a session in an OSX ramdisk whereas it doesn't seem possible (at least on the Mac side) to do so in PT9. The only limit now is how much RAM you have in your computer.

[timecode]

My first suggestion would be to study the "build" threads floating around to ensure compatibility.
I spent a lot of time reading through them before I built my new system, to much success.
Hard drive wise - as Dism said.

[nerd513]

i would go with the most reliable drive that works with other systems as well as your system... a standard 2TB firewire drive should suffice i would say...100-300$ just about anywhere they sell hard drives