How does everyone setup Hard drive?

[a2c]

Originally Posted by ronwasserman

Drive 1 - System SSD
Drive 2 - Pro Tools Files SSD
Drive 3 - Realtime PT Backup 1TB
Drive 4 - Sound Libraries 2TB
Drive 5 - Sound Libraries 3TB

All Internal.

Some reply posts said that they use only internal since Mac Pro has 4 bays. I agree with it.
Your 1st and 2nd HDD are SSD, I really want to try System in SSD. Could you give me your feedbacks using SSD?
So which HDD do you use for audio recording?

[a2c]

Originally Posted by albee1952

Well said by the Chief. I run 4 internal drives on my systems. System drive, samples drive and 2 audio drives. The samples drive also holds any downloaded updaters or downloaded plugin installers. If I am running a 1TB system drive, I partition it in half and use the other half as backup. I also have at least one cloned system drive stashed away that mirrors my present setup, and another system drive with the previous setup(PT8 since I am now running PT9). Friends thought I was nuts to keep buying hard drives over the last 2 years. Now with prices tripled, they're jealous

I hear you, I too keep buying hard drives. I asked ronwasserman
too same question but how do you like and see benefits in using System and operation PT soft on SSD? I know it's super quiet. (I have Air).
Also is your mirrored system HDD with RAID system?

Thanks

A2C

[a2c]

Originally Posted by ejwells

My current setup:

Internals:

1./ Mac Drive-1 TB WD Black Caviar
2./ Main Audio Drive- 1TB WD Black Caviar
3./ EWQL Terapack Drive- 1TB WD Black Caviar
4./ Backup/Samples- Partitioned 1TB WD Caviar (2x500GB)

Externals
5./ Audio 2-1TB eSATA OWC Mercury Elite (Hitachi)
6./ Audio 3-1TB eSATA OWC Mercury Elite (Hitachi)

Your HDD setup seems surrounded by WD. Do you have any reasons for that? I like WD too. Current my Drives are WD and Lacie, and Seagates for TimeMachine.
For your eSATA, I think you use eSATA PCI card, which card do you use? I have one from Lacie.

[a2c]

No body still using Thunderbolt yet?

[ejwells]

Originally Posted by a2c

Your HDD setup seems surrounded by WD. Do you have any reasons for that? I like WD too. Current my Drives are WD and Lacie, and Seagates for TimeMachine.
For your eSATA, I think you use eSATA PCI card, which card do you use? I have one from Lacie.

I guess I just like the WD Black Caviars. I have the 64 cache models, all 1TB.
I got my eSATA PCIe card from OWC. I forget the brand...it was $47.00.
Might be "Newertech."

[a2c]

Originally Posted by JFreak

UNIX knows about drive geometry and how to handle hard drives, so yes, partitioning will make drives perform at their best. Split drives 50-50 -- use the first part for recording and second part for storage. This will mostly affect seek times (latency) which is important for high track counts. It will also keep bits on the outer edge of the platter so throughput is as good as it can be.

If you don't partition, you will experience performance problems as soon as the drive is about 50% full.

So when the HDD capacity gets larger, we much cut in 50/50 for better performance? What about SSD?

[Chief Technician]

Originally Posted by a2c

Do you separate PT or other music softwares and audio recording HDD?

Yes.
Drive 1 - Macintosh HD
Drive 2 - Audio Drive
Drive 3 - Video Drive
Drive 4 - System CLONE

Originally Posted by a2c

Do you think it makes a big difference to separate software and audio recording HDD?

Absolutely. Never place any media associated with a Pro Tools session on the Macintosh HD (or your Desktop). Doing so is asking for performance issues.

Originally Posted by a2c

I see. I like and use Seagate because high cost performance in 2010 for one of my internal HDD.
Have you tried faster than 7200 rpm?

No.

[DetroitT]

Interesting thread!
Here is my current test system. This system curves other system implementation.

Drive 1 - Macintosh HD 1TB
Drive 2a - Media scratch (2TB Partitioned in two)
2b - Library, Samples Drive (2TB Partitioned in two)
Drive 3a - System CLONE (Superduper) (2TB Partitioned in two)
3b - Library, SFX Drive (2TB Partitioned in two)
Drive 4 - Audio on-line working 1TB

Optical Bay 1 DVD
Optical Bay 2 Blu-Ray

Xternal Raid 5 for Video
Xternal Singles for BU - BU clone Archiving
Recently added 4 bay independent racks for Raw drive usage thus
cleaning up the many single drives and their power supplies.

DiskCatalogMaker for scanning all Drive content database
e.g. search database, it tells me the location and drive.
Get the drive from the Drive locker find the files.
T.

[JFreak]

Originally Posted by a2c

So when the HDD capacity gets larger, we much cut in 50/50 for better performance? What about SSD?

50/50 has nothing to do with capacity. It's because drive platters are round and the outer edge has better performance. Simple laws of physics. SSD does not have this phenomenon, because the "moving parts" have been eliminated; however, SSD's have other shortcomings. We're talking about traditional spinning magnetic disks here, not SSD's.

Long story short, if you partition 50/50 then the first part is stored on about 33% range in the outer edge of the disk. That in effect cuts max seek times to 33%, provided that the storage partition is not being used when you record. So, if a drive manufacturer advertises 12ms latency, this trick brings it down to about 4ms which is great. Effectively doubles the track count that the drive is able to sustain without hiccups.

But this is only true if the inner part (storage partition) is not used at all while you track or playback.

[JFreak]

Originally Posted by a2c

Have you tried faster than 7200 rpm?

My work drive is 10k rpm and I never have to worry about it.