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  3. Extra HD for VSL

  • Extra HD for VSL

    C
    C
    Hi everybody,

    A composer I work with is planning on purchasing the full VSL and I'm retrofitting his computer for him.

    I'm planning on getting him a 160 gig drive (7200 rpm) to go along with the two drives he already has. What I need to know is what PCI to IDE card I should get. (We need the card because there are no more IDE connections in his computer!) Has anybody had good results using a setup this way? Or is it a better idea to just get one bigger harddrive (200 gig?) for the samples and stick with two total HDs rather than three.

    Thanks!

    Cody
  • N
    N
    I ran into a disastrous situation installing a new 200 gig HD on a WinME box. After it reached about 140 gigs it would lose all its data and force a reformat - this is on a brand new computer using a well known Asus motherboard.
    The problem occured over and over again until I switched to XP and formatted the drive with NTFS instead of FAT - it works fine now. I don't know if this is problem with WinME, FAT32 or what, but be careful if you get a 200 gig drive. You don't want to lose 140 gigs of unarchived data like I did.
  • cmC
    VSL Team
    cmC
    last edited
    last edited

    @slaroussels said:

    I don't know if this is problem with WinME, FAT32 or what ...

    first of all it is with ME, secondly with FAT32, thirdly with or what [;)]

    ok, serious: if an application/wintendo crashes, one is seduced to interrupt the unavoidable scandisk, because it takes endless time with big disks - this can get disatrous as it leaves you with an inconsistent filetable and/or damaged files - you'll expect that very rarely with NTFS, because it does a kind of journaling changes. i've also noticed, that scandisk with 95/98/ME properly destroyed data in the end.
    so imo try to work with a reliable operating system like W2K and NTFS whenever you can ...

    christian
    and remember: only a CRAY can run an endless loop in just three seconds.
  • G
    G
    We can use NTFS for audio files and Gigastudio ?

    I thought that FAT32 was necessary ...


    Regards

    The French dyslexic who speaks badly English.
  • N
    N
    As I understand it, you can use NTFS with Gigastudio and/or other audio applications. I've read that NTFS can actually be faster with larger disk sizes. Obviously, you need to be running 2000 or XP to use it. The down side of this is many (or most) people can only load half the number of instruments in Gigastudio when using either of these operating systems (search the forum for more info on this.)
  • cmC
    VSL Team
    cmC
    why not use ntfs? it's a roumour from former times, that ntfs is slow (has been 6 or 7 years ago without highend-equipment)
    the 1 GB GS-thing is another problem, but anyway ntfs will keep many troubles away from you - of course only available with winNT/W2K/WXP

    i've been using ntfs-partitions for video for a long time (and video is not known for low bandwidth) and _never_ run into serious troubles with consistency, even if in the *early times* it has been a bit tricky to get the performance nedded

    don't forget, fat (16 or 32) seems to be more performant, because it never checks, that data has been written succesfully
    i'm still hoping, the tascam-guys get this issue fixed in the near future

    christian
    and remember: only a CRAY can run an endless loop in just three seconds.
  • L
    L
    FAT32 is no longer even an option on some newer MOBO/Processor/operating systems.

    Lots of the configuration info for GS is from the stone age, and hasn't been updated for an extremely long time.

    Lee Blaske
  • S
    S
    I've actually had a lot of luck with Fat32, especially in dealing with CWE errors. I've seen systems riddled with CWE, both using 4140's and Midiman 4x4's and seen their problems disappear when reformatting from ntfs to Fat32. But then again it does boil down to the specific motherboard/controller/hdd situation you're using.

    I was hoping this topic might address the theoretical 100gig limit for hard drives. It's becoming a moot point since 80 and 100 gig drives are getting so scarce, but I remember once upon a time (only 6-12 months ago) everyone was wary about using 120gig+ drives because of longer seek times, thinner drive platters and overall decreased performance, regardless of drive format. Has this recommendation faded?
  • C
    C
    Regarding large drives: installing a HD above 137 GB may cause trouble in some systems, depending on your OS, BIOS etc. The cause of this is addressing problems. For Win98 and ME, as well as WinXP pre SP1, your BIOS needs to support what's called 48-bit Logical Block Addressing (48-bit LBA). See e.g. http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/iaa/lba.htm for more information regarding Intel chipsets, and http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;q327202 for potential HD partion problems.

    WinXP with SP1 installed should be able to support 137+ HDs, independent of BIOS 48-bit LBA support.

    So, your options are

    - check that BIOS supports 48-bit LBA, or
    - use Win XP with SP1 installed, or
    - use a controller PCI card

    It's amazing what you have to go through to upgrade your computer... [8-)]

    Cheers,

    Chris
  • C
    C
    last edited
    last edited

    @Another User said:

    christian wrote: ... because it does a kind of journaling changes.


    I've wondered what the overhead is for all of these NTFS advantages though I, like you, advocate NTFS. I found this trick the other day.

    "18.) Disable NTFS Last Access Time; To prevent NTFS from updating the last Access time of each directory do the following : Go to Start > Run > regedit > Enter Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINES\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem. Add a new Dword and name it NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate. Set value to 1 to delete this feature."
    http://www.guygraphics.com/index2.html

    While I'm here:
    "10.) Turn Off System Restore – Although System restore can be somewhat beneficial it takes a lot of space, XP allocates 10% of your partition to System Restore by default, and if you have a large drive, you can be losing lots of space can tie-up HD. It will also affect access time (turning off it will increase Window Performance). You can change a variety of options for System Restore. To get to it go Right-click on My Computer, click Properties, and choose the System Restore tab. In this window you can completely disable system restore (which I recommend) or change the settings for specific drives (which I do recommend to only select system drive if decide to leave enabled). You may consider disabling and enabling to do appoint in time capture before making some large system adjustment, etc. There have been numerous reports that restore points do not seem to get fully restored, so to me the usage may be very limited at all."

    Craig Duke