This is why you want two (or more) hard drives

[Doctor Jones]

Now matter how big the drive that came with your computer is, you want a second one (or a third etc) to record audio, for these reasons:

1) Audio files are huge (5 MB/min @ 44.1k, 16 bit).

2) Audio files are (ultimately) temporary. You create lots of little audio files when you edit, process, bounce, import, etc. You delete audio files frequently, when you trash lousy takes, or when you Compact them. When you're done with a song, you delete audio files altogether (after backing up to CD, if you wish).

3) This storage/modification/deletion pattern will leave your drive fragmented in no time. When your drive is fragmented, new files must be written in small chunks in several places. This makes your drive work harder to write them, which slows down your system. Fragmentation also makes your drive work harder to read audio files, which (again) slows down your system. Then net result of all this slowing down: lower track counts and shallower edit density.

4) Fragmentation is easy to fix using disk utilities (like Norton Speed Disk). However, it's *significantly* safer to optimize a non-system drive. Imagine: you defrag your audio drive, something goes wrong, your data is scrambled, and you lose your work (this doesn't happen often, but it *can* happen). That sucks, doesn't it? Yes, but not as bad as if you took your system drive down at the same time.

5) Additionally, your OS is working while you write audio. If you're using the same drive to run your OS as you are to store your audio, you're reducing the amount of audio you can read/write at the same time.

So, if you've blown your wad on a machine and a Digi001, go ahead and record to your system drive (for now). But earmark *the next $200-300* of your money for an additional drive. Don't buy plug-ins. Don't buy software. Don't buy guitars. Buy a second hard drive.

Now go forth and rock, my friends.

[Chris Coleman]

and all the above are also good reasons to partition large drives (18 gig into two 9 gigs, etc.).

[haze]

And could someone please explain the best
way to partition hard drives. I'm sure a lot
of us can benefit from this info. I'll have
a 20 gb ATA.

thanks, haze

[lwilliam]

I just downloaded from the FWB site (www.fwb.com) the latest version of the Hard Disk Toolkit PE (light edition). It was $60, I believe. I then dragged my audio hard drive icon over to the system drive to back it up, then used an "auto-initialize" feature and selected HFS as the type of format. Right after initialization, it asked me how many partitions I wanted. I told it three (on my 27.2GB drive). Wham, bam, it was done and I had three 8.6GB partitions. I then copied my files back from the system drive, and I've been working flawlessly since. The whole process took about 3 minutes (except for the download).

The Apple Disk Initializer MAY also be able to do this. It is located in your Utilities folder.

Piece of cake...



------------------
Larry W.

[Shaggy Dog]

I recently contacted Apple re this Hard Disc Driver issue. Since Steinberg and others (but not Opcode) insist we must use FWB. Apparently the newer Drive Setup that comes with 8.6 (and higher) is Assynchronous. Since Apple wisely decided to go after the server market (adding a factory [Adaptec] U2 SCSI card and drive).

If however we add another drive they will not support it. Period. It was hard just to get the above info.

[Chris Coleman]

when I put my 18 gig internal drive in my G3, I just used the Drive Setup utility to partition the drive into two parts. I would highly recommend AGAINST any third party applications to do the same thing (at least on a Mac).