The 'second hard drive for audio' route....

[Kickin.da.speaker]

I end up deciding that I need one. My Yikes/OS8.6/320Megs RAM with Digi001 and Logic gives me Direct i/o errors around 20 mostly stereo tracks of audio playing.

Now what are your experiences with Ultra33 and 66 on a Yikes?
My plan is to get a Maxtor Diamond Plus (7200rpm Ultra66 or Ultra100) and install it without a card. Anyone's been down that road before? How many tracks can you play-back?

[nuke]

It works perfectly fine on my Yikes (an early 400).

I have second IBM 7200RPM Ultra ATA drive setup and partitioned for audio use. No trouble at all hitting and maintaining maximum track performance with the 001.

It is better on the second drive if you partition the drive with several small partitions (~5 gigs or so) and use those for your audio sessions. Less seeking and overall better performance from the drive.

[Kickin.da.speaker]

Did you put your IBM as a slave or a master on the IDE chain? Do you have your system on the original HD or on the IBM?

[Jeff D.]

Kick,

I've also got a Yikes 400. I added a Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 27GB about 9 months ago, unpartitioned (to allow maximum space for live recordings). Everything workds great - I can record & play 24 tracks of 24bit with no problems. I recently added another Maxtor 40G drive in the Zip drive bay, and it works well (in fact, it's quite a bit faster than the 27G!)

You should have no problems with your proposed setup.

Jeff D.

[Dopamine]

Sorry for a stupid question, but what are the differences between the Yikes and other G4's? I bought my G4 as soon as they were available. It's 400Mhz and cost me $2500. Is this a Yikes? Can it be upgraded?

Also, does anyone know where can I find a good deal on a 40 gig ATA internal?

thanks!!

[Kickin.da.speaker]

>Dropamine, go into Apple menu>Apple system profiler. Under Hardware overview, it should say what type of powermac you have PCI graphic is a Yikes, AGP graphic is a sawtooth. I'd bet yours a Yikes if you bought right away. The motherboard is really the one of a G3, and the ATA bus are 33Mbps, not 66 like in sawtooth, there's one more firewire port on the sawtooth...

For the others: I'm planning on getting this baby: http://123cdc.com/cdc/maxsearch.Disp...44&p_itemcode=

Is that a maxtor diamond plus? Is that a good drive?
Thanks!

[ThomCat]

nuke...

IMHO I think that partitioning gains you very little in track count, which in part is based on faster access and read/write time. But every microsecond counts, and since the fastest access is on the outer part of the drive, here is what I do:

I partion a 9G drive with 2 partitions, first a 2G which uses the outer part of the platters, and then a 7G for the rest. I use the 2G partition as a working area for tracking and multi-track mixdowns (the latter being the most demanding task for your drive) but I target the finished project to the other partition for storage of the mixdown file.(Targeting the original partition would actually be a scoche faster, but read on.) Then I move the original tracks to the same directory I just put the mixdown in, which since it's on a different partition, is a simple copy. Now I can wipe the faster 2G partition clean for a new project.

I also use DiskExpress Pro to defrag, as it lets you place target files at the outer sectors of a partition to maximize access and read/write time. Of course I'm not sure if I'm gaining all that much, but it's a system that works well and is easy to manage. Comments anyone?

[Jeff D.]

kick,

That's the one. And a great deal too!

Jeff D.

[nuke]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">quote:<HR>Originally posted by ThomCat:
nuke...

IMHO I think that partitioning gains you very little in track count, which in part is based on faster access and read/write time.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, a small partition is better for your working audio session because of the way Protools wants to use your disk. It likes to allocate files and stuff as you record, and on a large partition, there can be a lag time due to all the access that has to go on. (ie, hit record and nothing happens for several seconds)

I did something similar, I have the factory 10G drive (as master - makes no difference really) and added a 34 Gig IBM 7200RPM drive as slave on that bus.

The 34 gig is partitioned as 3x 5-gig segments and a 15 gig segment.

I use the small 5 giggers for working sessions. I keep an extra system folder on the 15Gig partition in case my main drive bytes the dust.

When I'm not working on a session, I just copy it over to the 15 gig section, erase the small partition and start a new session, or retrieve an older one for work.

The process of copying all the files onto a clean partition will defrag the files automatically. Plus, I at least have some minimal backup on the other partition.

I put stuff ready for CD burns onto the 15 gig section too.

It works for me.

[nuke]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">quote:<HR>Originally posted by Kickin.da.speaker:
Did you put your IBM as a slave or a master on the IDE chain? Do you have your system on the original HD or on the IBM?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Original drive in place, where the system folder and all applications are installed.

I use the second drive for audio.