@blackhole said:
* Is a single modern IDE drive enough for heavy duty (large) Orchestra composing?
* What amouts of memory is optimal for normal and large orchestra compositions.
hi geert,
let me say something from the technical point of view:
there is a chain of devices involved in the process of datatransmission
the chipset and/or harddiskcontroller, the drivers, the operatingsystem, the harddisk itself and the fragmentation of files
although modern ide-harddrives are very fast, a scsi-drive has lesser latency and seektime - it's not only the the nominal datarate that counts
i would not recommend to use a system with a single drive for the following reasons (all depending on the size of your work):
all windows-versions use virtual memory, which is not more than a file on your drive (usually C:\) and besides windows itself all programs (eg. gigastudio) use this area to store data temporary.
if your system, virtual memory, programs and samples are located on the same drive there is a permanent read and write to different sectors of the drive - and the heads have to move often and possibly long distances
try to use a second drive for samples and/or your paging file to avoid too much moves
make sure DMA-access is enabled (sometimes a problem on some motherboards with via-chipset - use the four-in-one-drivers if available)
depending on the size of your installed RAM try to reduce the size of your virtual memory to the necessary minimum (windows and most programs try to move apperently unused data into the pagefile, which requires access to the harddrive and therefore takes time)
assuming you have a physical memory of 512 MB and your system and programs need 100 MB choose a virtual memory of lets say 612 MB
so you can load another amount of 1 GB data into the physikal and virtual memory
unfortunately there seems to be a limitation in the current version of gigastudio (on W2K only?) which locks the application if the system tries to access more than 1 GB memory-space - so even upgrading your memory will not solve that flaw, because the program uses the virtual memory, even if physical memory would be available (you can observe this using the taskmanager)
to sum it up: i would recommend to get a second fast harddrive (7200 /min) and move the biggest part of the pagefile there (rightclick my computer, properties, advanced, performance options, virtual memory - change and select the appropriate values - leave at least 2 MB on the systemdrive, windows needs that, choose the same values for initial and maximum size to avoid fragmentation of the pagefile) do that _before_ copying any data to that drive, so the pagefile gets on the fastest part of your second harddrive
if you choose for the time being not to use a second drive perform a defragmentation on your existing drive before copying the samples
on the RME-website in the FAQ-section it is also reported, that the use of a 3com ethernetcard (model 905 - which is pretty perfect for network) seems to decrease the throughput of data to the harddrives ...
my description applies on *slightly heavier setups* and you may not need to carry out any of the described steps if your system runs fine
you can get back to me anytime with more detailed questions if you like
christian
