noticeable difference w/ scsi?

[timmygrimm]

I'm 90% sure i'm going to get a digi 001 and build my own system along the lines of the $900 machine in this forum.

I was wondering if using scsi instead of ide for the audio drive (and maybe the sys drive as well) would improve track count and make a better system. i noticed someone saying their firewire drive made their system better, so i thought scsi might as well.

or would this worsen performance since the scsi card and digi are sharing the pci bus?

i've been through hell with my old cubase/motu setup and just want to make sure i'm doing everything right here.

thanks dudes,

-tim

[Pako]

Tim,

I know there's a lot of opinions out there, so I can only offer opinions from my own experiences.

I started recording with the digi001 with a seperate IDE, 7200 drive, one for the system and one for the audio.

Later, I upgraded to a 7200 scsi, and am currently running a 10k rpm scsi as well. I could always track 24 tracks, but was still limited to plugin count.

The main difference I found was with seek times and actual recording-start-times. The latency from when I hit record to when the tracks actually started recording was reduced dramatically.

So, IDE works.... SCSI works better!

You do, however, have more IRQ variables that need to be delt with upfront, but the long term benifits far out weigh them.

:cheers:

~Pako~

[Pako]

Originally posted by da BaSsTaRd!:
by going with a scsi setup you will see a dramatic improvement in seek time -- when you reach into your wallet, seek time will have been noticeably reduced because there will be much less from which to seek...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">:lol: An't that the truth! Preach it brother, preach it!

[Roy Howell]

Originally posted by da BaSsTaRd!:
by going with a scsi setup you will see a dramatic improvement in seek time -- when you reach into your wallet, seek time will have been noticeably reduced because there will be much less from which to seek...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">[img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[da BaSsTaRd!]

by going with a scsi setup you will see a dramatic improvement in seek time -- when you reach into your wallet, seek time will have been noticeably reduced because there will be much less from which to seek...

[ProductionEngelads]

I agree a ton of through put from the SCSI drive is not important but I am not sure the extra access time is wasted. I think it depends on how you are using PT LE.

What kind of Buffer settings are you guys using for the DAE? I like to us "0" ... so when I hit the space bar the things plays right now.

The way I use PT for editing radio and Tv audio is I am constantly editing small little sections of audio, cut, trim and I am constantly hiting the space bar to play.. And well the slower the ramp up on the drives the larger the buffer you need to use. Especially with the sessions I am using that might have a bunch of small audio files.

That is why for our new PT LE system we are building I am considering a SCSI. I really only need a small one since I only work on 30 and 60 sec spots....(sometimes with many SFXs they can be 15+ tracks)

Then when I am done with a spot it is "compacted" and put on an archive hardrive.

So this allows me to be as sloppy as I want and waste Hard drive space on the "working" drive and then not have to worry about running out of drive space.

Sometimes a Radio spot that is complicated might end up being a total of 1 gig of audio... but then once I finish it and compact down to just what audio is actually being used I end up cutting it down to around 50 MB and then I archive.... this way instead of only being able to have maybe 80 spots on an 80 Gig drive I can have what around 1600!! Makes it really nice when a client wants a one line change or revision in a radio/tv spot.

So for faster editing on the working drive I am thinking about a 9.1MB 10k SCSI 160 drive and just scale the through put back to around 50mb/sec.

I can buy a 9.1 drive for around $80.00 and PCI card for $170.00 so it is not dirt cheap but isn't way out there in price especially if it allows PT to keep up with my editing without the lag of a big buffer...

comments/input appreciated

[Mark_Knecht]

Hi,
I use ATA for my system drive and 1394 for my audio drive. So why am I so interested in SCSI?

OK, I'm going to suggest you still look at 1394 for your audio drive. SCSI might work better, but da BaSsTaRd's right on target, it isn't really worth the price differential.

But I am considering SCSI instead of for my next system drive. Why you ask?

Because a SCSI drive can be booted, and a SCSI drive can be external. With a SCSI system drive I can put the system drive in a closet with my 1394 audio drive and get even less PC noise. My system drive today accounts for most of the high-frequency noise coming out of my DAW. The PS and fans I use are all making lower frequency noise, and I think there are products to even reduce that noise from where I am. Zalman Tech, etc.

This would allow me to take all of the drives and CDs (except the floppy) out of the physical PC, use a smaller power supply which is more quiet, and some very small case with pretty much just the MB, CPU and memory. Sounds cool to me.

I do wish someone would make a 1394 adapter with boot support. Macs can do it, I'm told, but no one has done a PCI card that I've found.

Cheers,
Mark