Need Sage advice: Multiple Harddrives

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crandallwarren
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2011/03/22 20:06:49 (permalink)

Need Sage advice: Multiple Harddrives

Hey All,

I just upgraded from a laptop to a desktop. My new rig has a couple of empty expansion bays and I have a couple of older Sata drives.

I've often heard of people putting their OS and everyday programs on one drive, DAW stuff on another and maybe even another just for samples.

Can someone walk me through what the ideal setup is?
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    bitflipper
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    Re:Need Sage advice: Multiple Harddrives 2011/03/23 01:20:58 (permalink)
    What you've just described is a pretty good plan. SONAR and Windows on drive C:, audio on drive D:, samples on drive E:. Or whatever works best for capacity. You might want to run a benchmark against your drives before deciding, and if one is faster use that for your audio files and projects.

    Just don't partition the new drives - leave them as one big disk for best performance.


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    dlogan
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    Re:Need Sage advice: Multiple Harddrives 2011/03/23 15:02:41 (permalink)
    I have 2 drives - one with the Sonar projects & audio, everything else on the rest. Made a considerable difference in performance.
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    Twigman
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    Re:Need Sage advice: Multiple Harddrives 2011/03/24 07:06:54 (permalink)
    I have several drives:

    1 OS and apps
    2 Sonar Projects and Audio and Video
    3 Sample libraries
    4 Other stuff [documents/photos/spreadheets etc etc]
    5 yet more other stuff
    6 BACKUP images of 1/2/3/4/5

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    SyncroScales
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    Re:Need Sage advice: Multiple Harddrives 2011/03/26 02:52:46 (permalink)
    For 4 drives:

    - C drive: OS, Programs
    - D drive: Media, Projects
    - E drive: Pagefile, Media Cache
    - F drive: Previews, Export

    or for 3 drives:


    - C drive: OS, Programs
    - D drive: Audio/Project files
    - E drive: Samples/Loops


    Other info I'v found:

    - If you have ReadyBoost: I wouldn't hesitate to stick that usb stick in the back of your computer and leave it there. If it's needed, it helps. Multiple drives make ReadyBoost not as needed (with enough and fast RAM, and a fast CPU, etc too.....).

    - Putting the Pagefile onto an internal drive is a lot better than a usb stick or a flash card (you can assign it to usb sticks and flash cards, if anyone was wondering). Its always going to be faster, even with HDD's. I'v read SSD's turn of ReadyBoost or something since they are fast enough and don't need it. I'v checked the Read/Write speeds with programs like DiskSpeed32, and seen the benchmarks.

    Desktop specs: ASUS M3N78-VM, AMD Phenom II 965 3.4Ghz, 3.5Gb RAM (4Gb), XP Home Edition 32-bit Service Pack 3, nVidia GeForce GT 430. 4 internal drives, a bunch of externals.
    Laptop specs: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ 2Ghz, 3Gb RAM, Vista Home Premium 64-bit Service Pack 2, ATI 3100. 3eSATA to work off of, a bunch of external drives.
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    noldar12
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    Re:Need Sage advice: Multiple Harddrives 2011/03/26 14:48:09 (permalink)
    As already stated:

    3 drives: one o/s and programs; one audio files; one samples.

    If you are going to be a heavy samples user of large demanding libraries, using additional drives for samples can help (i.e. adding a fourth drive).  Note this only really applies if you are using libraries like the new EW ones, VSL, etc. 

    Jim
    #6
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