I'll be taking the upgrade to 4 soon from being a life long VST user and I figure its about time to upgrade a couple of my drives and rethink how I have them setup. Right now I got a P4 w/ ASUS P4C800-e deluxe with 2 7200 IDE drives and a 7200 SATA, 2gig PC3200 ram. The IDE's are getting a little old so I'm thinking at least one could use a retirement. The board won't handle SATA 3 but downgrading the drive to 150 isn't an issue (from what I understand). I wasn't really thinking of setting up RAID but its not out of the question. What I was thinking is ditching the oldest IDE drive and setting up the "newer" IDE for XP and programs then using a new SATA for working audio and the other SATA for storage. The other option would be to go RAID for either the OS or the data drives or both. Or I could ditch both IDEs and setup a the OS on a RAID SATA's the do a RAID SATA for the data, but this would mean buying 2 new drive at least. I'm not worried about parity so we're talking RAID 0 for any of this. I'm not a pro with all this bus speed/Promise stuff so would it be worth it to use all SATA for the drives, or would keeping the one IDE for the OS make sense, or should I have a SATA drive run the OS and use the IDE as my data storage drive? Or is RAID even worth it for running XP, I can see how the arary would help for the working audio, but for just storage not so much. Would I want to consider using the Promise connection for any of this? The only card I have in there is the vid card, my audio card, Edirol FA101 uses firewire. So any opinions are welcome on getting the most out of this board as possible for read/ write bus speeds. Seeing how I got 2 IDE connections, the Promise connection, 4 SATAs, two of which can be RAID, I've got some options... thanks BW
"BW" <> wrote in message news:... > I'll be taking the upgrade to 4 soon from being a life long VST user > and I figure its about time to upgrade a couple of my drives and > rethink how I have them setup. > > Right now I got a P4 w/ ASUS P4C800-e deluxe with 2 7200 IDE drives > and a 7200 SATA, 2gig PC3200 ram. The IDE's are getting a little old > so I'm thinking at least one could use a retirement. The board won't > handle SATA 3 but downgrading the drive to 150 isn't an issue (from > what I understand). I wasn't really thinking of setting up RAID but > its not out of the question. > > What I was thinking is ditching the oldest IDE drive and setting up > the "newer" IDE for XP and programs then using a new SATA for working > audio and the other SATA for storage. The other option would be to go > RAID for either the OS or the data drives or both. Or I could ditch > both IDEs and setup a the OS on a RAID SATA's the do a RAID SATA for > the data, but this would mean buying 2 new drive at least. I'm not > worried about parity so we're talking RAID 0 for any of this. I'm not > a pro with all this bus speed/Promise stuff so would it be worth it to > use all SATA for the drives, or would keeping the one IDE for the OS > make sense, or should I have a SATA drive run the OS and use the IDE > as my data storage drive? Or is RAID even worth it for running XP, I > can see how the arary would help for the working audio, but for just > storage not so much. Would I want to consider using the Promise > connection for any of this? The only card I have in there is the vid > card, my audio card, Edirol FA101 uses firewire. So any opinions are > welcome on getting the most out of this board as possible for read/ > write bus speeds. Seeing how I got 2 IDE connections, the Promise > connection, 4 SATAs, two of which can be RAID, I've got some > options... That board's pretty well specified as I remember and pretty reliable. There must be a reason why you think your existing hard drives are about to give up the ghost. Fair enough. It's not a bad idea to replace your drive(s) if they are giving you cause for concern. For a DAW, IDE 7200rpm drives are usually more than adequate. An ATA 133 capable drive should in theory be able to handle 133MB/s data transfer, but in practice actual data transfer speeds will be around only half that. A SATA drive can handle 150MB/s in theory, but in practice the speed will be similar to what is achieved with an ATA 133 drive. A SATA II drive can handle up to 300MB/s but on your board a SATA II drive would only be able to run at 150MB/s maximum. Most SATA drives sold now are SATA II anyway. For speed, you won't do much better than one of the Western Digital Raptor series drives as they have a spindle speed of 10krpm and they will achieve much nearer to the maximum transfer speed possible under SATA or SATA II, however capacity when compared to other drives from WD and other manufacturers is relatively small and they aren't cheap when compared to standard 7200rpm drives. The largest WD Raptor drive at the moment is I believe 150GB, which should be more than enough for most projects. Personally, I don't think you'd see much real benefit over a standard drive for audio with Cubase 4.5 with your current system, and I'd be tempted to go for a large capacity well specified Seagate drive for less money. RAID comes in a variety of flavours as you probably know. I've highlighted three below: RAID 0; RAID 1 and; RAID 5 RAID 0:- If you are thinking about increased transfer speed and capacity, you will need two drives which are synchronised (striped) and which together provide greater capacity and will be seen as a single 'drive'. This type of array is called RAID 0. The advantages are: you get a larger single (virtual) drive and faster data transfer speeds as both drives can read and write simultaneously. The main disadvantage is that if one of the drives fails or the array gets broken (this depends on the quality of the hardware, the quality of the drivers and the knowledge/experience of the person building the system) for some other reason, you've lost all your data, so your backup regime would have to be very disciplined. personally I'd avoid using RAID 0 - particularly as the reasons for it are less compelling nowadays given the large capacities that are available in a single drive and the fact that most hard drives will perform far better than adequately well on their own. Of course any drive can fail, and for that reason backups are very important, but by putting RAID 0 into the mix, the risks of data loss because of a failed array are higher. RAID 1:- If you are thinking more about data integrity and safety, then RAID 1 (mirrored) is probably better. RAID 1 uses two identical drives and the idea is that all data written to drive 1 will simultaneously also be written to drive 2 thereby meaning you immediatley have a safety net should something go wrong. A RAID 1 array with one of the drives failed can continue to operate in a degraded state whilst a replacement drive is sourced. This would be my preferred choice for any application where the data was sufficiently important and particularly in any commercial environment where the data isn't centrally held on a server. The advantages are: a RAID 1 array can be rebuilt provided one of the drives is still operational; there is a continuous second copy of all data at all times (not to be confused with regular backups, but it does provide a first line safety net). The main disadvantages are: slightly slower (pretty negligible) data transfer speeds; twice the outlay in terms of cost for two identical drives whilst not seeing any benefit in increased capacity. RAID 5:- If you want the best of both worlds, RAID 5 might suit your needs. RAID 5 uses a minimum of three identical hard drives which are synchronised/'striped' together to provide a capacity of two thirds of the sum capacity of all three drives. If any single drive in the array fails, the array can continue to operate in degraded mode whilst a replacement is sourced. If your system only supports two drives in any RAID array this won't work anyway. As I said, I'd personally be more interested in protecting my data than increasing the data transfer speed. Yes, RAID 0 does go faster in general than a single hard drive would on its own, but not that much faster in practice, and for me the risks are greater than the gain. In your position, I'd double check the maximum drive capacity that your motherboard can handle and go with a single SATA drive that is big enough for your needs for audio data OR two identical drives in a RAID 1 configuration if you want increased protection against data loss. Unless there is some pressing reason why the main OS drive should be replaced, I'd probably stick with the existing drive - BUT I would recommend making a full image backup after optimisation in case of failure so that your OS can be restored to a new drive relatively painlessly as necessary. Symantec/Norton Ghost or the freeware DriveImage XML are two applications which can handle this. You say you're not worried about parity, which I take to mean you're not bothered about mirroring (RAID 1), so I'd say just get a large capacity single drive for data and forget about RAID altogether. In my experience Promise RAID chipsets and drivers have been reliable, so there would be no real reason to not use the Promise IDE connector in JBOD mode, but if there's a free SATA connector not on the Promise chip, I'd probably use that with a SATA drive. Remember that if adding drives to an existing system, power consumption will rise and the existing PSU may need to be replaced. In fact if you are already having issues with booting your system and you suspect that your hard drives are at fault, you may well find that your PSU isn't working quite as well as it once did. In my day job I see quite a lot of cheap PSU's that are no longer performing as well as the label on the case would have you believe and the typically the main symptoms will be systems not booting at the first attempt which generally gets gradually worse in a matter of weeks; spontaneous reboots. Of course there are plenty of other possible reasons for those symptoms, but trying a different PSU often does the trick with systems that are more than a couple of years old.
Re: VST to Cubase4 and upgrading drives On Nov 3, 3:28 am, "nickm" <> wrote: > "BW" <> wrote in message > > news:... > > > > > I'll be taking the upgrade to 4 soon from being a life long VST user > > and I figure its about time to upgrade a couple of my drives and > > rethink how I have them setup. > > > Right now I got a P4 w/ ASUS P4C800-e deluxe with 2 7200 IDE drives > > and a 7200 SATA, 2gig PC3200 ram. The IDE's are getting a little old > > so I'm thinking at least one could use a retirement. The board won't > > handle SATA 3 but downgrading the drive to 150 isn't an issue (from > > what I understand). I wasn't really thinking of setting up RAID but > > its not out of the question. > > > What I was thinking is ditching the oldest IDE drive and setting up > > the "newer" IDE for XP and programs then using a new SATA for working > > audio and the other SATA for storage. The other option would be to go > > RAID for either the OS or the data drives or both. Or I could ditch > > both IDEs and setup a the OS on a RAID SATA's the do a RAID SATA for > > the data, but this would mean buying 2 new drive at least. I'm not > > worried about parity so we're talking RAID 0 for any of this. I'm not > > a pro with all this bus speed/Promise stuff so would it be worth it to > > use all SATA for the drives, or would keeping the one IDE for the OS > > make sense, or should I have a SATA drive run the OS and use the IDE > > as my data storage drive? Or is RAID even worth it for running XP, I > > can see how the arary would help for the working audio, but for just > > storage not so much. Would I want to consider using the Promise > > connection for any of this? The only card I have in there is the vid > > card, my audio card, Edirol FA101 uses firewire. So any opinions are > > welcome on getting the most out of this board as possible for read/ > > write bus speeds. Seeing how I got 2 IDE connections, the Promise > > connection, 4 SATAs, two of which can be RAID, I've got some > > options... > > That board's pretty well specified as I remember and pretty reliable. > > There must be a reason why you think your existing hard drives are about to > give up the ghost. Fair enough. > > It's not a bad idea to replace your drive(s) if they are giving you cause > for concern. For a DAW, IDE 7200rpm drives are usually more than adequate. > An ATA 133 capable drive should in theory be able to handle 133MB/s data > transfer, but in practice actual data transfer speeds will be around only > half that. A SATA drive can handle 150MB/s in theory, but in practice the > speed will be similar to what is achieved with an ATA 133 drive. A SATA II > drive can handle up to 300MB/s but on your board a SATA II drive would only > be able to run at 150MB/s maximum. Most SATA drives sold now are SATA II > anyway. > > For speed, you won't do much better than one of the Western Digital Raptor > series drives as they have a spindle speed of 10krpm and they will achieve > much nearer to the maximum transfer speed possible under SATA or SATA II, > however capacity when compared to other drives from WD and other > manufacturers is relatively small and they aren't cheap when compared to > standard 7200rpm drives. The largest WD Raptor drive at the moment is I > believe 150GB, which should be more than enough for most projects. > Personally, I don't think you'd see much real benefit over a standard drive > for audio with Cubase 4.5 with your current system, and I'd be tempted to go > for a large capacity well specified Seagate drive for less money. > > RAID comes in a variety of flavours as you probably know. I've highlighted > three below: RAID 0; RAID 1 and; RAID 5 > > RAID 0:- If you are thinking about increased transfer speed and capacity, > you will need two drives which are synchronised (striped) and which together > provide greater capacity and will be seen as a single 'drive'. This type of > array is called RAID 0. The advantages are: you get a larger single > (virtual) drive and faster data transfer speeds as both drives can read and > write simultaneously. The main disadvantage is that if one of the drives > fails or the array gets broken (this depends on the quality of the hardware, > the quality of the drivers and the knowledge/experience of the person > building the system) for some other reason, you've lost all your data, so > your backup regime would have to be very disciplined. personally I'd avoid > using RAID 0 - particularly as the reasons for it are less compelling > nowadays given the large capacities that are available in a single drive and > the fact that most hard drives will perform far better than adequately well > on their own. Of course any drive can fail, and for that reason backups are > very important, but by putting RAID 0 into the mix, the risks of data loss > because of a failed array are higher. > > RAID 1:- If you are thinking more about data integrity and safety, then RAID > 1 (mirrored) is probably better. RAID 1 uses two identical drives and the > idea is that all data written to drive 1 will simultaneously also be written > to drive 2 thereby meaning you immediatley have a safety net should > something go wrong. A RAID 1 array with one of the drives failed can > continue to operate in a degraded state whilst a replacement drive is > sourced. This would be my preferred choice for any application where the > data was sufficiently important and particularly in any commercial > environment where the data isn't centrally held on a server. The advantages > are: a RAID 1 array can be rebuilt provided one of the drives is still > operational; there is a continuous second copy of all data at all times (not > to be confused with regular backups, but it does provide a first line safety > net). The main disadvantages are: slightly slower (pretty negligible) data > transfer speeds; twice the outlay in terms of cost for two identical drives > whilst not seeing any benefit in increased capacity. > > RAID 5:- If you want the best of both worlds, RAID 5 might suit your needs. > RAID 5 uses a minimum of three identical hard drives which are > synchronised/'striped' together to provide a capacity of two thirds of the > sum capacity of all three drives. If any single drive in the array fails, > the array can continue to operate in degraded mode whilst a replacement is > sourced. If your system only supports two drives in any RAID array this > won't work anyway. > > As I said, I'd personally be more interested in protecting my data than > increasing the data transfer speed. Yes, RAID 0 does go faster in general > than a single hard drive would on its own, but not that much faster in > practice, and for me the risks are greater than the gain. > > In your position, I'd double check the maximum drive capacity that your > motherboard can handle and go with a single SATA drive that is big enough > for your needs for audio data OR two identical drives in a RAID 1 > configuration if you want increased protection against data loss. Unless > there is some pressing reason why the main OS drive should be replaced, I'd > probably stick with the existing drive - BUT I would recommend making a full > image backup after optimisation in case of failure so that your OS can be > restored to a new drive relatively painlessly as necessary. Symantec/Norton > Ghost or the freeware DriveImage XML are two applications which can handle > this. > > You say you're not worried about parity, which I take to mean you're not > bothered about mirroring (RAID 1), so I'd say just get a large capacity > single drive for data and forget about RAID altogether. In my experience > Promise RAID chipsets and drivers have been reliable, so there would be no > real reason to not use the Promise IDE connector in JBOD mode, but if > there's a free SATA connector not on the Promise chip, I'd probably use that > with a SATA drive. > > Remember that if adding drives to an existing system, power consumption will > rise and the existing PSU may need to be replaced. In fact if you are > already having issues with booting your system and you suspect that your > hard drives are at fault, you may well find that your PSU isn't working > quite as well as it once did. In my day job I see quite a lot of cheap > PSU's that are no longer performing as well as the label on the case would > have you believe and the typically the main symptoms will be systems not > booting at the first attempt which generally gets gradually worse in a > matter of weeks; spontaneous reboots. Of course there are plenty of other > possible reasons for those symptoms, but trying a different PSU often does > the trick with systems that are more than a couple of years old. Thanks for the reply. The more I think of RAID the less I want to go that route. The only real reason I can see for replacing one of my drives is its age, besides that, its not showing any bad behavior. And I'm thinking a fresh XP install wouldn't hurt things. I'll probably just get a good SATA drive and replace my oldest IDE with it. And yeah, Ghost it for sure before I do anything.
