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#1
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Dual Hard Drives? Why?
Hey all,
I was advised a while back to purchase a secondary drive for my system specifically for recording purposes. I now have a WD Caviar Blue as my main system drive and a WD Caviar Black as my recording drive. I was encountering issues prior to this upgrade (9073 errors or something) and they have since stopped. Why is a secondary drive required for Pro-Tools? I understand that it is beneficial to performance, but I just don't understand why the errors occur if one is not present. Never seen anything like this working with Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 and other high end programs. Can anyone give me an explanation in lamans terms? Thanks in advance.
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SELF BUILT PC: WINDOWS 10 (64-BIT), INTEL I7-7700K CPU @ 4.20GHZ, 32 GB RAM INTERFACE: RME FIREFACE UFX+, ELEVEN RACK PRO TOOLS: PT2019.10 |
#2
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Re: Dual Hard Drives? Why?
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Glad you got a working rig now! Nick
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Core i7 920 OC'ed @ 4.0 GHz (200 X 20) 12 GB Patriot Viper Extreme Asus P6T OCZ Agility 64 GB SSD Hitachi 1TB 32 MB HDD WD Caviar Black 500GB Saphhire HD 5850 3 x 20" monitors Eleven Rack w/ ERXP Fender Super Champ XD Marshall JCM2000 DSL100 Silver Edition W/ Silver Jubilee Cabinet |
#3
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Re: Dual Hard Drives? Why?
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In addition, it seems like they removed this restriction from Pro-Tools 9 (http://avid.custkb.com/avid/app/self...p?DocId=380567). Am I safe to assume this was a programming flaw on the part of the makers of Pro-Tools LE? Thank you for the information. I appreciate it. I'm just trying to understand my software
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SELF BUILT PC: WINDOWS 10 (64-BIT), INTEL I7-7700K CPU @ 4.20GHZ, 32 GB RAM INTERFACE: RME FIREFACE UFX+, ELEVEN RACK PRO TOOLS: PT2019.10 |
#4
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Re: Dual Hard Drives? Why?
Having two drives has always been advised even in video editing. I do audio recording and mixing, while a friend of mine is actually very active as a professional video editor. And in both fields, it has always been recommended to have one system drive (including daws) and one media drive.
There is also a very very big difference with a program that is used in photography and those used in audio recording and video editing. The two laters are a lot more heavy on the bandwidth information being used. |
#5
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Re: Dual Hard Drives? Why?
The other thing for video or audio editing, is that there's a lot more wear and tear on the hard drive, when it's constantly skipping around trying to find different files. This will probably shorten the life of the hard drive. If you're always backing up your audio stuff, it's not a big deal if your hard drive goes. But it's a little more hassle if it unnessacarily happens to your system drive.
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#6
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Re: Dual Hard Drives? Why?
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PT10, Focusrite Liquid Saffire 56, Eleven Rack, i7 950 @3.80GHz, Noctua NH-D14 CPU cooler, GA-X58A-UD3R, Corsair CMD12GX3M6A1600C8 12GB, SAPPHIRE VAPOR-X HD5770 1GB GDDR5 PCIE, Caviar Black 500GB 32MB Cache OS drive, 2x Caviar Black 1TB 64MB Cache Sata3 (Audio and library), Broadcom BCM94322MC wireless network adapter W7 - 312 dverbs @ 64 buffer/ 403 dverbs @ 1024 |
#7
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Re: Dual Hard Drives? Why?
Consider what the system drive is doing all the time. It is working on finding and executing all your commands, plus there's a lot of stuff going on in the background that we are not even aware of. Then consider that all this is done with one playhead, accessing the entire drive(because files can be spread all over a drive-a good reason why drives need to be de-fragged now and then). Then look at the recording drive which needs to stream audio files(maybe 2, 16, 24, 48 or even 128 tracks). That playhead has a lot to do, so it would get really bad if it had to chase down software and program instructions at the same time. I bet if you tell Adobe PhotoShop to render a large photo file, it would not allow you to do much while its rendering. The system I am typing on(with a single drive and a dual core cpu with 4gig of RAM) gets really sluggish when I extract a large rar file.
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HP Z4 workstation, Mbox Studio https://www.facebook.com/search/top/...0sound%20works The better I drink, the more I mix BTW, my name is Dave, but most people call me.........................Dave |
#8
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Re: Dual Hard Drives? Why?
And think of it this way....how much is a good robust hard drive? $75? And how many ALBUMS can you get on that drive? 10? More? It wasn't that long ago that a reel of 2" tape was $110, and you only got 30 minutes of 23 tracks on it (had to give up one for time-code!) Plus, it was not advisable to EVER use that reel again. So I can't understand ANYONE having issue with spending a few extra dollars for a secondary drive. We are truly in a "best bang for the buck" situation here. And yes, even Photoshop works MUCH more efficiently rendering files on a secondary drive.
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#9
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Re: Dual Hard Drives? Why?
Pretty much all Adobe products advise a "scratch" drive as well.
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Brian Windows 11 Pro | macOS 12 Pro Tools 2022 benonistudio.com Youtube Channel - benonistudio Plugin Deals @benonistudio |
#10
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Re: Dual Hard Drives? Why?
Yes - as a systems admin - I agree. The speed needed for the disk writes, and monitoring the audio all at the same time requires the second disk. There is lots going on there. . . and the dual disk config. makes it possible. :)
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