Should I get a separate hard drive for VSL? If so, what kind of external hard drive should I buy? I have a laptop, so that rules out an internal.
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Hard drive
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Separate drive? Yes. Without question.
I don't know if you use a Mac or PC, but I'd recommend getting an bus card for your PCM slot. That will at least give you a separate bus so that your audio interface doesn't have to share bandwidth. Bus slot options abound, depending upon need:
As for drives, G Technology has wonderful drives with connectivity of all sorts. If you go the card slot route, you may want to consider an eSATA card for your laptop and then add an eSATA drive-- better performance than FW. 7200 rpm is highly recommended-- 8MB drive cache = good. 16MB drive cache = better.
[edited]
For the full VI Cube, two drives 300GB each are better than one single larger drive.
One other note: if you're serious enough about using VI Cube on your laptop, it really may be worth while putting in a 7200 rpm internal drive if you don't already have one. This library is not exactly a starter kit for the way it benefits from hardware optimizations.
Dunno-- For me, I wouldn't spend VSL money on software only to cut corners on hardware. I'd make sure that all aspects of my hardware were worthy of running this library.
Just a thought.
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@cm said:
the 300 GHz must be a typo, IMO it should read 300 GB.
the cache-size is based on a rumor - it does not affect sample streaming at all, the portions of requested data are too little for any effect.
christian
Good eyes, cm-- I changed Hz to B above. Thanks for the correction. My bad!
Question-- are you saying that the requested data for VI Cube is too large for the cache or is this a general statement about hd cache sizes and effectiveness?
And if requested data exceeds the cache size, is the cache totally ignored?
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the portions are to little, not too big ... streaming works in a way where subsequent buffers are filled with data. one end of the chain is the soundcard (you can select the buffer size in most cases), the other end is the harddisk.
some sampling engines have a configurable buffer size, the vienna instrument is using 64 KB per stereo sample (preload buffer). when the buffer runs empty now (more precisely: half of the buffer) the system has to fill this gap, the operating system now calls a portion from the harddisk.
clearly it would make no sense to fill the cache of the harddisk with more than the requested portion, because it is highly probable the operating system will not call for it.
large cache sizes make only sense if there are subsequent calls (sustained access) as it can be found with video- or audio-streaming or loading a larger office document or image.
in fact unreflected caching can get contraproductive (as with some raid controllers) because it also needs time to empty the cache from unused, but chached, data
christian
and remember: only a CRAY can run an endless loop in just three seconds. -
I use a 1TB glyph drive for the entire cube and I don't even really see my samples streaming. Seems to run from memory, I use 8gb of it cept for 32-bit limitations (I use the VI)
However I could be wrong. My system does choke when I have 40+ VI tracks running, but I'm thinking that's a processor thing.
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the vienna instrument is using 64 KB per stereo sample (preload buffer). when the buffer runs empty now (more precisely: half of the buffer) the system has to fill this gap, the operating system now calls a portion from the harddisk.
clearly it would make no sense to fill the cache of the harddisk with more than the requested portion, because it is highly probable the operating system will not call for it.
large cache sizes make only sense if there are subsequent calls (sustained access) as it can be found with video- or audio-streaming or loading a larger office document or image.
in fact unreflected caching can get contraproductive (as with some raid controllers) because it also needs time to empty the cache from unused, but chached, data
christian
Understood.
Thanks!
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