Extra HDs... 7200 or 10000?

[Kerouac]

Do you think bumping up to 10000 is worthwhile for your audio disk and sample disk? Since I'm waiting patiently (not really... ) for a new Mac Pro I figured I should go ahead and get everything else ready. The drive in it will be a 7200 I assume, but I'm not sure if the 10000 are worth the extra cost.

[albiedamned]

Unless you're recording large numbers of simultaneous tracks at high sample rates, I doubt a 7200 rpm drive will be a problem. And 7200's are probably gonna be quieter.

[Kerouac]

That's what I figured, but since I'm already dropping the coin on an awesome machine I didn't want to skimp on something as simple as a hard drive.

[AwayEam]

HEY BRO

 

Get a 10K RPM or solid-state system drive, you'll notice the difference. If you're getting a solid-state drive, do your research - some are bollocks. I've heard good things about the new Intel models, though.

 

I'd leave the samples and other stuff on a bigger, slower drive.

 

Keep in mind that the hard drive is the slowest storage in your system, and the speed of hard drives hasn't been improving at a rate commensurate to that of processors. If you spend a little more on your system hard drive, you'll get the best bang for your freakin' buck in terms of overall performance and responsiveness.

[albiedamned]

I agree with AwayEam that 10,000 rpm will probably give you better overall computer performance. I thought you were asking the question specifically with regards to DAW functionality, in which case I don't think it will make a difference since I don't think the hard drive is the bottleneck in most systems. And since it will in all likelihood be louder, from a DAW perspective I think 7,200 makes more sense.

[Phil O'Keefe]

I can see the potential benefits for solid state drives, but right now, they're expensive and fairly small, and often times, too slow. 10K drives are fast... but noisy. 7.2K SATA drives are reasonably fast, inexpensive and do fine for most folks. Unless you're streaming tons of samples, and doing sessions with huge track counts, IMO, it makes more sense (at least as of right now) to stick with 7,200 RPM drives. I'd recommend at least three - one for the system drive, one for audio, and the third for samples. Oh, and don't forget some externals for backups.

[albiedamned]

I also have 3. One for the OS and installed applications, and two for data in a RAID-1 array. Windows 7 supports software RAID-1 for the first time; previously it was only available in the server OS's or through third party stuff. (I have Win 7 Ultimate - not sure if they give you RAID-1 in other editions). So if a hard drive fails, I am protected.

[TimOBrien]

7200rpm drive can stream over 100 simultaneous audio tracks.

 

No need for expensive (and NOISIER) 10k drives.

[AwayEam]

I can see the potential benefits for solid state drives, but right now, they're expensive and fairly small, and often times, too slow.

 

HEY BRO'KEEFE

 

Too slow?

 

The early models maybe, but with anything made in the last couple years, there's just no comparison. They'll be 2-3x faster for real applications than a mechanical drive.

 

10K drives are fast... but noisy.

 

I have to disagree with this one too. I've got 5 hard drives in my machine, one of which is a 10K, and it's quiet as a mouse. To be fair, I've got the 10K drive in one of these joints.

 

Like I said earlier, storage speeds (RAM, hard drive, cache) just don't scale the same way processor speeds do. Using a 7200 RPM system drive on a new computer will hobble it.

 

You will get a massive improvement in responsiveness for relatively little money if your OS is on something faster than a 7200 RPM drive.

 

EDIT: Another note on hard drive noise - At work, I have 24 15K RPM drives in two open enclosures in a rack. You probably wouldn't want that in your tracking room, but it's far from the noisiest thing on the rack. Hard drives just aren't that noisy if they're mounted properly

[AwayEam]

 

7200rpm drive can stream over 100 simultaneous audio tracks. No need for expensive (and NOISIER) 10k drives.

 

 

HEY BROS

 

Note that I'm not disagreeing with this particular point that y'all are making. The hard drive will almost never be the bottleneck in your recording bandwidth.

 

I'm talking about overall system responsiveness.

[chris carter]

As a point of reference, my drive is 7200 and I regularly mix records with well over 100 tracks of audio, probably with up to 60 playing at the exact same time. No problems. On the extremely large projects (over 150 tracks) it will sometimes take a second between when I locate to a position and when it buffers everything that needs to play. It's not a problem though.

[Kerouac]

Man, some of you guys get some wicked track playback. I've never been able to keep that much going without some creative freezing and bouncing. Even then I'll have the occasional drop out but it's not as much of an issue. If you're mixing though you're buffer is set a lot higher than when you're tracking though, right? I generally try to track around 128 and mix 1024.

[chris carter]

^ yes, buffer is set very high when mixing. The only time I set the buffer low is when playing VST instruments (I have hardware monitoring so that's not an issue for other tracking duties).

[Red Ant]

I just ran off a mix with 119 tracks and about 65 plugins, plus a couple of virtual instruments... at 128 samples buffer

 

This was in Reaper 3x, on a 3GHz Core i7 with 12GB RAM and a 10KRPM RAID array. OS was Vista64.

[nerol1st]

I have 4 internal drives in my mac pro. They are all 7200 rpm. I have not had any issues with anything.

[TimOBrien]

 

HEY BROS Note that I'm not disagreeing with this particular point that y'all are making. The hard drive will almost never be the bottleneck in your recording bandwidth. I'm talking about overall system responsiveness.

 

 

 

That's a rather vague question - responsive when?

In desktop operations? Program launch?

Loading sample libraries? Clicking on menus?

 

And not the original question which was 7.2k or 10k drives....

 

.....we're not psychic.....

[offramp]

 

HEY BRO'KEEFE

 

 

Man, I had just swallowed my coffee when I read this. One or two seconds earlier, and that would have been all she wrote for the MBP.

[Beck]

7200 for me and it's not even an issue. I have two super quiet WD EIDE drives in my main DAW -- one for the OS and programs, and the other larger drive for audio. I build my PCs and choose components with great care. I have my favorite MOBOs and all that.

 

If your system is choking with 7200 rpm drives the problem may lie somewhere else in the system... or you're using too damn many plugs and "features" which IMO make things sound like crap anyway, so stop it and get some outboard gear for Christ sake!

[CME]

I can say as far as the OS drive goes faster is better. I upgraded my MacBook Pro drive to a 7200 from a 5400 and huge difference in boot time and a noticeable difference in program load times. I wanted to go to SSD but couldn't justify the price and the fact that there are still improvements to be made in them. However since you asked about audio and sample discs, I'll agree with everyone, 7200 is fine.

[BrainChild]

Not all drives are created equal. Do a little bit of research yourself. Spindle speed is great but also consider read and write acess times, on board cache, and MTBF. I am also assuming you are using native SATA. If you are still using IDE then make sure you match spindle speeds. Personally I still use mostly SCSI's at 15k and some SATA Raptors at 10k. I don't locate my PC's or drives where noise could be a factor.