USB 2.0 fast enough for DFD?

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radiant
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2007/06/27 01:40:11 (permalink)

USB 2.0 fast enough for DFD?

Hello There!

I am planning to buy a new hard drive for my huge sample libraries like East West and Vienna.

I like prortable hard drives like the Seagate 250 or 400 GB external USB 2.0.

But I like to know whether these (USB 2.0) storage drives are fast enough for Direct From Disk (DFD) mode in Kontakt etc.

I do not have tons of RAM to use Giga. So DFD is best for me. But would USB 2.0 (with my old AMD 2800+ with 1GB RAM) would be able to handle the data streams?

If USB would be slow or CPU intensive, then I would be going for internal HDD (forgetting my portable options).

Please advice friends whatever you feel is best.

Thanks in Advance

Regards
post edited by radiant - 2007/06/27 01:52:38
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    mgh
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    RE: USB 2.0 fast enough for DFD? 2007/06/27 06:35:02 (permalink)
    the consensus is that usb2.0 is the slowest of the options available - if you need external then get firewire or eSATA, but the best option is internal SATA. of course, this depends on ur internal connectivity, but if you have the ability to install another internal hdd then do this!!!

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    Slugbaby
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    RE: USB 2.0 fast enough for DFD? 2007/06/27 08:17:13 (permalink)
    I have all my projects stored on an external drive, and USB2 is fast enough.

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    Beagle
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    RE: USB 2.0 fast enough for DFD? 2007/06/27 09:13:52 (permalink)
    I agree that USB2 for an external drive is fast enough for storage of projects - but I'm not sure about their use for streaming samples. However, your statement about having "tons of RAM to use Giga" makes me believe you are not familiar with Giga's functionality. Giga puts the first few millisecs of the sample in the ram, but the rest is streamed into the ram from the disk as that initial sample moves out. so it's a modified DFD process and disk streaming is an intergal part of Giga's functionality.

    I have Gigastudio 3 and my samples are stored on an internal 7200rpm IDE drive and I don't have any problems with it. I rarely use over a dozen channels at the same time and I don't think I've ever used more than 1 port - but I have no problems with it in that set up. However, I'm not sure I would be comfortable with streaming Giga or a true DFD sampler direct from a USB external drive - especially if you're using a lot of simultaneous channels/ports. But that's just me - it might be fine.

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    bitflipper
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    RE: USB 2.0 fast enough for DFD? 2007/06/27 14:21:59 (permalink)
    USB 2.0 fast enough for DFD?


    Short answer: yes.

    Firewire is faster, of course, and neither USB nor FW can match the speed of an internal drive. But remember, it only has to be fast enough; there is no need to have excess bandwidth. You're not doing asynchronous multi-user database queries, you're streaming audio data. Either the interface has sufficient bandwidth or it doesn't, and USB 2.0 has sufficient bandwidth. Yes, it's more CPU-intensive than FW, which in turn is more CPU-intensive than an internal drive. But if that small amount of CPU overhead pushes your computer beyond its limits, then you're running too close to its limits to begin with and disk drives are not your biggest problem.



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    Steve_Karl
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    RE: USB 2.0 fast enough for DFD? 2007/06/27 15:46:28 (permalink)

    ORIGINAL: Beagle

    I agree that USB2 for an external drive is fast enough for storage of projects - but I'm not sure about their use for streaming samples. However, your statement about having "tons of RAM to use Giga" makes me believe you are not familiar with Giga's functionality. Giga puts the first few millisecs of the sample in the ram, but the rest is streamed into the ram from the disk as that initial sample moves out. so it's a modified DFD process and disk streaming is an intergal part of Giga's functionality.

    I have Gigastudio 3 and my samples are stored on an internal 7200rpm IDE drive and I don't have any problems with it. I rarely use over a dozen channels at the same time and I don't think I've ever used more than 1 port - but I have no problems with it in that set up. However, I'm not sure I would be comfortable with streaming Giga or a true DFD sampler direct from a USB external drive - especially if you're using a lot of simultaneous channels/ports. But that's just me - it might be fine.


    Just to be clear ..... Giga's streaming is way ahead of and more effecient than DFD and is the original.

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    radiant
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    RE: USB 2.0 fast enough for DFD? 2007/06/27 18:27:10 (permalink)
    Hello All!

    Thanks for your replies. It's really surprizing to know this fact about Giga. Long ago I tried it and soon it staretd to give me out of memory errors. Further using VSL libs with Giga is troublesome since the Performance tool (with midi loopback) is a extra thing to manage. So running Kontakt with scripts on VSL libraries is nice. So that's how I am relating K2's DFD with USB 2.0.
    Well so far it appears that USB would do fine if the cpu can handle it. So let's try it. I would let you know the results soon.

    Thanks everyone!
    radiant
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