Is 1TB too much for a recording drive?

[tonedef]

I plan on using a 1TB glyph drive as my main recording drive. Would that be considered too much for a recording drive? Some people say max should be 500 gb.

[TOM@METRO]

I use 1TB WD drives partitioned into 2 drives for audio.

[tonedef]

If I partition half for just recording, could I use the other half for samples etc or would that slow it down?

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by tonedef

If I partition half for just recording, could I use the other half for samples etc or would that slow it down?

That is likely a very bad idea, and likely worse than just putting all the files on one partition (where the file will be closer and the heads have less seeking to do). On two separate partitions the disk heads would have to seek across a large amount of the drive to alternate between reading sample files and recoding or playing back your audio. Your sampels should be on the system drive or a separate hard drive.

There is nothing wrong with a 1, 2 or 3TB audio drive, as long as it meets the other requirements (e.g. does not use RAID, which many larger external stroage boxes do). Large drives are possibly a waste of money, but the extra space can be handy as well, e.g. I'll leave online backups of some things on the audio drive. Its just data sitting on the drive unused unless needed.

Darryl

[filosofem]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

That is likely a very bad idea, and likely worse than just putting all the files on one partition (where the file will be closer and the heads have less seeking to do). On two separate partitions the disk heads would have to seek across a large amount of the drive to alternate between reading sample files and recoding or playing back your audio. Your samples should be on the system drive or a separate hard drive.

Ideally, there should be a minimum of four separate hard drives. System, Audio, Samples and then Backup. Backup your system, audio, samples and if you're really anal, backup your backup.

[EGS]

Originally Posted by tonedef

I plan on using a 1TB glyph drive as my main recording drive. Would that be considered too much for a recording drive? Some people say max should be 500 gb.

My internal SATA3 1TB Western Digital Black works great as a recording drive.

[Bill Denton]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

That is likely a very bad idea, and likely worse than just putting all the files on one partition (where the file will be closer and the heads have less seeking to do). On two separate partitions the disk heads would have to seek across a large amount of the drive to alternate between reading sample files and recoding or playing back your audio. Your sampels should be on the system drive or a separate hard drive.

There is nothing wrong with a 1, 2 or 3TB audio drive, as long as it meets the other requirements (e.g. does not use RAID, which many larger external stroage boxes do). Large drives are possibly a waste of money, but the extra space can be handy as well, e.g. I'll leave online backups of some things on the audio drive. Its just data sitting on the drive unused unless needed.

Darryl

e.g. does not use RAID, which many larger external stroage boxes do

Actually, RAID is now approved for use with Pro Tools 10...

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by Bill Denton

e.g. does not use RAID, which many larger external stroage boxes do

Actually, RAID is now approved for use with Pro Tools 10...

Ah not so fast, and that comment is not really useful in this discussion, I'd still say folks should be using a basic audio drive to get started. And especially here in a thread/forum area about low end (LE) products and where some pretty basic stuff seems to be being misunderstood.

Avid has always seemed cagey/unclear about exactly what the claim for RAID support in PT10 means and always warns that YMMV. e.g. from the "what's new in PT 10 Q&A... "Performance with RAID systems is not guaranteed and is dependent on a variety of factors including network bandwidth, so you should still be using fast, directly connected, single hard drive systems as your primary recording disks whenever possible." Avid working on improving IO in PT10 was great, especially for larger users like post houses with large network storage requirements, and obviously caching with PT10 HD and PT10 CPTK is an important help as well in those environments.

The implementation and performance of RAID systems varies tremendously (for both software and hardware RAID). A list of qualified RAID controllers/systems with PT10 that would be useful, otherwise its the wild west out there, be careful.

Darryl

[albee1952]

I will sidestep the RAID discussion as I've never used it(or tried to). If your computer can accept more internal drives,, load it up. WD Caviar Black are an excellent choice(I own several). I also run 4 drives(all internal). System, Samples/backup, recording A and recording B. I backup to externals and DVD-R. My 1TB drives are partitioned in half for "housekeeping". I never defrag my drives. If I have a performance issue, I will copy a session folder from its location to another partition(could be the same drive or not). The copy(including copying audio files) would, in theory, be nice and neat in its new location

In any case, I agree, samples drive should not share any audio duty(why my samples drive is also a backup, and where I stash everything I download, like updates, plugin installers, and such). I also have all my SATA drives in a 4 slot Kingston drive cage so I can pull and replace any at will. With drives in AHCI mode(a BIOS setting), all but C: can be hot swapped. I can also swap my system drive in the time it takes to shut down, click, pull, click and reboot. Very handy if I have a crash, an update that goes sour, or need to suddenly revert to Pro Tools 9 for some project that can't cooperate with 10. I keep a clone of my current system drive, another system drive with the previous setup, and a pair of 2TB drives that do nothing but hold drive images of every computer I own(or care about).

[filosofem]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

Ah not so fast, and that comment is not really useful in this discussion, I'd still say folks should be using a basic audio drive to get started. And especially here in a thread/forum area about low end (LE) products and where some pretty basic stuff seems to be being misunderstood.

Avid has always seemed cagey/unclear about exactly what the claim for RAID support in PT10 means and always warns that YMMV. e.g. from the "what's new in PT 10 Q&A... "Performance with RAID systems is not guaranteed and is dependent on a variety of factors including network bandwidth, so you should still be using fast, directly connected, single hard drive systems as your primary recording disks whenever possible." Avid working on improving IO in PT10 was great, especially for larger users like post houses with large network storage requirements, and obviously caching with PT10 HD and PT10 CPTK is an important help as well in those environments.

The implementation and performance of RAID systems varies tremendously (for both software and hardware RAID). A list of qualified RAID controllers/systems with PT10 that would be useful, otherwise its the wild west out there, be careful.

Darryl

Good post.