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  #1  
Old 11-15-2004, 01:33 PM
chal7ds chal7ds is offline
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Default storage concerns...please advise!

Hey All,

I have Pro Tools LE Digi 002, and I'm shopping around for my first external firewire drive. What I'm concerned about is memory issues and/or storage options.

I'm going to be recording songs like every week, so I am wondering how many songs I'll be able to realistically keep on the drive I buy. How many megs is a typical 4 to 5 minute song file in pro-tools? And how many songs do you think you could fit on a 120 GB or 80 GB external drive?

I am going to want a good amount of storage. I'd like to store up to 100 songs or more if possible on the drive I buy.

What are the ramifications here?


Please advise..

Thanx for any help,
Chal7ds
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  #2  
Old 11-15-2004, 02:09 PM
crs117 crs117 is offline
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Default Re: storage concerns...please advise!

Chal7ds,

All this is variable information. For instance 1 24 bit track at 44k takes up only half of the space of a 24 bit track at 88k, and this is not to mention 96k. That is the first question you need to ask yourself. Secondly, number of tracks is the next biggest factor. 32 tracks take up twice as much space as 16 tracks of the same bit depth and freq. Thirdly (yes this is less important variable) how long the songs are also deteremines the amount of space used. Finally, how many takes you save of each track also racks up space. Lets say you record 8 different takes of a 20 second guitar solo, you then have 1:40 seconds of audio.

The best way to figure this is to get an average sessoin. For me that would be 24 bit at 44k using around 24 tracks (yes i still do not max out the tracks, but i do track out the busses).

So lets figure this.

44,100 samples (digital snapshots) per second taken with 24 bits each x 60 seconds.

This means

44,100 x 24 x 60 = 63,504,000 bits per minute = 63.504 megabits per second per track

Okay dont freak out, had drive capacity is measured in megabytes not megabits. A byte is 8 bits so we need to divide that number by 8.

63.504 / 8 = 7.938 megabytes per minute per track.

Now multiply this by the number of tracks, in my case 24, to figure out session size per minute.

7.938 * 24 = 177.12 megabytes per minute for 24 tracks.

Notice that if we used the 88k sample rate that number would be doubled what it is right now. Now all you need to do is figure out how many minutes your average session lasts. Lets say 4 min 30 seconds. so we need to multiply that number by 4.5

177.12 * 4.5 = 797.04

This is all assuming that you use all 24 tracks for the full 4.5 minutes at these specifications. These calculations will work for any type of session you set up, but remember on non-destructive mode you will be racking up a lot more data, but at the same time rarely will all the tracks be playing at the same time so it all depends on your recording style.

(samplerate)*(bitdepth)*(# of seconds)*(track count)
----------------------------------------------------------------------- = total approx. megabytes per session
(8)*(1,000,000)

I think this would be a conclusive formula to make things easier. Just plug in the approrpiate numbers.

Christian
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Old 11-15-2004, 03:38 PM
chal7ds chal7ds is offline
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Default Re: storage concerns...please advise!

Cool. Math is a good thing.

So..what kind of external drive did you get?

Thanx for the help...

[email protected]
chal7ds
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Old 11-15-2004, 05:19 PM
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spkguitar spkguitar is offline
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Default Re: storage concerns...please advise!

If you want one that has been proven to work with protools, and is recommended by professionals, you could go with this one that I already linked in your other thread.

Lots of people (including myself) build their own. Just about any good 7200RPM IDE drive and this enclosure will do the trick.



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Old 11-15-2004, 06:28 PM
chal7ds chal7ds is offline
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Default Re: storage concerns...please advise!

Cool..yeah, i bookmarked that other link you put in my other thread. I'll probably actually end up buying that one because it's the cheapest one i've seen yet!

No reason really to get a 500 dollar drive just because of a name slapped on it.

I also wanted to make sure that 120 GB's would be enough for the amount of recording i was going to do. But it looks like CRS117 answered that for me!! yikes! i hate math, but it works!

iight, thanx again ya'llz..

chal7ds
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