Fastest computer setup ?

[The Swami]

What would be the best setup for audio.I don't want to go SCSI because of cost I'll be getting an AMD x2 64 4400 processor but should I get two raptors and run in raid 0 for my operating system and programs or should I get the new SATA 2 drives with 16mb cache and run them in raid 0. Should I keep Sonar on a different drive than my operating system or keep my project files on another drive? I don't know if it's faster for a drive to read and write to itself or to read and write to another drive.I don''t want to spend over 1900.00 for this setup. I already have the software and audio cards I need but I was just wondering about file location and what is the quickest way to go.
Sorry if this rambles a little.
Thanks in advance
Mitch

[jcschild]

HI Mitch,

SCSI is dead for audio.
Raid 0 is only required if your doing 96K and more than 40 tracks of it.
a single Sata drive can do over 120 tracks 48k

the only other reason for Raid is for Giga samples (disk streaming)
and you wanting max polophony.

OS and programs on the same drive.
Sata 2 shows no gains and is not supported by nforce 3 or KT800chipset

Scott
ADK

[The Swami]

Thanks Scott I really appreciate your insight.
Mitch

[WidgetNinja]

Originally Posted by jcschild

HI Mitch,

Raid 0 is only required if your doing 96K and more than 40 tracks of it.

Scott
ADK

It's actually never required. Most RAID cards treat mirrored drives as striped when doing reads. The only time plain striping is necessary would be if you were streamin IN, not OUT. If you are recording so many tracks at once that 4GB of RAM and a powerful mirrored rig can't keep up... well then I want whatever CPU and audio cards you are running so I can record that much!

[jcschild]

Originally Posted by WidgetNinja

It's actually never required. Most RAID cards treat mirrored drives as striped when doing reads. The only time plain striping is necessary would be if you were streamin IN, not OUT. If you are recording so many tracks at once that 4GB of RAM and a powerful mirrored rig can't keep up... well then I want whatever CPU and audio cards you are running so I can record that much!

??
mirrored drives are NOT treated as striped read or write.

last time i checked recording 56 tracks of 96k simutaneously is streaming in!

that was done on a AMD Dual Opteron with a pair of RME Madi cards and YES
a 4 drive raid 0 array. we have done playback of over 120 96k tracks with the same.

now add to that uncompressed video streaming with that many audio tracks
that was done with the same aside from the CPUs were Dual Dual Core Opterons


FYI we do broadcast video systems here also, streaming in or out of that heavy a bandwidth Does require Raid 0.
Multiple streams 6-8 drives in raid.

4Gig? i am assuming you mean MAC as Windows XP still cant address 4Gig properly.

memory has little to do with Disk streaming/recording/playback unless its loaded with Samples.

Scott
ADK

[dynomike]

Everyone here seems to know more than me about raid, but for audio, yeah, I'm gonna bet you don't need it.

It wasn't totally clear in the above posts but conventionally you should keep your programs and OS on one drive and just audio files on another for better speed.

Good luck with the new PC! Have you found a good 64 bit soundcard? I haven't bothered getting sonar 5 b/c motu still hasn't released 64 bit drivers (nor will they for a while, I bet.. grr)

Mike

[T_R_S]

RAID is a bad idea for audio. When you get a lot of edits anf file fragmentation teh computer has to look accross many platters to access the Data. Allocation of tracks to specfic drives will work much beetr in audio rather than raid.
I also would not say SCSi is totally dead. IDE/Firewire and SATA do not have the contious throughput that SCSI has. High speed data still requires SCSI most regular applications is IDE/Firewire and SATA. But high speed servers and DATA backup AIT3 and AIT 4/ SCSI is the only option.

[shaddai]

HI Mitch,

SCSI is dead for audio.

I hope you guys don't mind if I but in here, but jschild,

Is there any specific reason you've said this? Not necessarily disagreeing with you, but just curious if you know something I don't. Been seriously considering SCSI for my Sonar rig, and have the Adaptec card..just no drives yet. If there's some specific reason I need to consider as I go forward, I'd love to hear it.

Thanks!
Todd

[jcschild]

HI,
well lets make this simple there is nothing a Sata drive cant do that a SCSI drive can for pro audio unless you get into insane stuff, like 192 K recording. and then i would ask why?

and even then you can raid Sata drives to get it done.

it all about bandwidth while Scsi still technically has bigger bandwidth you dont need it.

here is an example. we sell Newtek VT4. they recommend 6-8 SCSI drives in raid 0
for 8 streams of uncompressed video.

we have done 8 streams playback with just 2 300G Maxtor 16meg Sata.
i have not tried capturing this many. (only have 3 cams here)

but the Sata drives played back as many steams as 6 SCSI. (10K)
or 4 SCSI 15K with windows raid 0 (required by VT4 cant use a raid card.)

as i have already posted about about 96K tracks for audio.. above..

unless you want to spned more money, have more noise and more heat for no beter performance SCSI is dead for Audio and dang near for Video aside from HD 1080i 24p. then you better have one heck of a video raid array.

Scott
ADK

[shaddai]

well lets make this simple there is nothing a Sata drive cant do that a SCSI drive can

Sub 4ms seek times
Bus mastering
10+ drives on one cable..

Bus mastering=HW interface card does the necessary processing to access the drive.

This is exactly the same type of method that gives the TC Powercore, UAD & PT TDM systems their strength & stability. Processing has been shifted away from the mobo processor and onto dedicated cards...allowing the system processor to do other things...like plug ins. I can hear the next question..."isn't that what DMA does"..not really. DMA allows the software to access the disk directly. But there are still mobo processor cycles required for the software to compute how to access the disk. With bus mastering, it's done with the interface card itself.

There are possible issues with this though. If the SCSI card takes over the PCI bus, what happens when my Lynx AES16 and my Adaptec are natural born enemies? Start diggin I guess

Seek time=keep reading.

10 drives=okay, 5. Whatever. My scsi card can do 30, but they won't physically fit in the box. The point is that given the same size drives, SCSI is capable of storing way more information one one computer than SATA is, as long as the powersupply & OS can support the drive count.

it all about bandwidth while Scsi still technically has bigger bandwidth you dont need it.

U160 SCSI=160 MB/s
1st gen SATA=150 MB/s (I'm pretty sure it's even more now)
Newer U320 SCSI=320 MB/s

Doesn't seem like SATA is that far behind SCSI at all.

With VIDEO it is all about bandwidth. That would seem 100% true. 160 MB/s= the equivalent bandwidth of playing 900 CD's at once...or 115 DVD's. Video uses roughly 9 times the bandwidth. With unrendered video and uncompressed audio, I'm sure 9x bandwidth is a gross understatement...because the audio on a CD isn't compressed. It's just a .wav file.

I work with a local Final Cut HD studio. They're running a terrabyte of SATA & it works very well for them. Keep in mind, when editing the audio & video from 3 cameras, FCHD is looking at only 6-9 different files at once...depending on if the audio is stereo or not. If we start stacking audio tracks beside the video, and add a plugin here or there, it doesn't very long at all before weird things start happening...like gapping.

However, once a video machine starts to bog or glitch you push the render button. This writes a new temp file to the HD with all of the current edits in it, so the machine doesn't have to compute what to playback on demand. It unloads the burden of displaying the video edits/fades/filters correctly in editing from the processor, and moves it to a single readable file on the hard drive.

When mixing AUDIO it's a way different ball game. I have 16 different audio files being accessed at one time. I also have DFHS/EWQLSO running off a midi track, and 10 different plugins running. Pretty normal situation here. So, my HD is attempting to pick and read a single 486k file from 36 gig of samples with each midi note and read 16 different audio files quickly enough to keep playback seamless, and access whatever little information should be needed from the 10 .dll files that the plugins are made of.

Bouncing/rendering tracks into submixes can help sometimes in audio...but if I make an EQ change on a guitar after I've bounced the orchestra, and it causes the guitar to start crowding part of the orchestra in the mix, all the orchestra tracks have to be re-eq'ed again in order for the guitar edit to work. Now I get to back up..not move forward. Workflow is temporarily backwards....so the longer I can go without rendering to a file, the quicker the mix is completed.

So, the time a disc takes to read one file, get to the other and read it seems naturally more performance hindering/enhancing in an audio rig than a machine built for video. I do not doubt anything you've said about video & am not trying to start an arguement/flame war/ or anything else. But I do think seek times are more important to Audio than they are to video, and that bandwidth is more important to video than audio.

SCSI still clobbers SATA with seek times..that is until 15 & 20k SATA are released.

Take care!
Todd



Not trying to argue with you at all.

[Exmun]

Todd,

I totally agree that seek times are important for audio... but I've not had half the issues that your last post suggested with 16 audio tracks and I'm using ATA 133 drives. Perhaps your example was just instructive. Even with ATA 133 drives I can comfortably playback 32+ files at 44.1/48 kHz without any playback issues. But I'm totally open to this conversation since all of this info helps me with my new computer plans. Especially if we're talking about 88.2/96k files.

[shaddai]

I totally agree that seek times are important for audio... but I've not had half the issues that your last post suggested with 16 audio tracks and I'm using ATA 133 drives. Perhaps your example was just instructive.

I didn't necessarily mean an ATA100/ATA133/SATA/SCSI drive would struggle with that specific combination of plugs/samples/audio files...it was just just to point out that there's a few more files being dealt with when editing audio. The quicker that the drive can get from one file to another can only do one thing: improve the amount of latency that is being caused by the drive.

Todd

[jcschild]

Originally Posted by shaddai

I didn't necessarily mean an ATA100/ATA133/SATA/SCSI drive would struggle with that specific combination of plugs/samples/audio files...it was just just to point out that there's a few more files being dealt with when editing audio. The quicker that the drive can get from one file to another can only do one thing: improve the amount of latency that is being caused by the drive.

Todd

Todd,
you can post all you want about specs, theory etc.

i have now posted 2 times about REAL WORLD APPLICATIONS.

i dont give a rats butt about what SCSI can do on paper.

again FOR Pro Audio SCSI is dead. there is nothing in audio you need SCSI for.

will an 8 drive raid array of SCSI outperform a 8 drive raid array of Sata
yes barely but again i say what the heck do you need it for Audio for.
unless your doing 192K and a whole lot of it.

but hey dont believe some one who builds these things every day and tests them
(not to mention always on bleeding edge and pushing past the point on what most Pro studio's need)

read this:
http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/20031114/index.html

and this is 2 yrs old. Sata has come a long way since.

but by all means if you want to spend more for more heat more noise and little or no benefit have at it.

i can tell you no Audio customer of mine has SCSI drives (ext fiber channel yes)

Scott
ADK

[shaddai]

I can see this is going to go downhill fast..

I wish you well.

Todd

[jcschild]

HI Todd,

sorry if i came accross inproperly, it was not my intent
will post more tomorrow no time now!

Scott

[Sergievsky]

Originally Posted by jcschild

Todd,
...there is nothing in audio you need SCSI for.

Synthogy's Ivory. Unless they update their disk streaming capability, I might need to take a look at SCSI again.

[theother]

I get a damn fast computer system built at the moment.

2x AMD Opteron's 270 Dual Core (total of 4 CPU's)

SuperMicro H8DCE Mobo in 19" Rack (internal 2x250GB)

4GB RAM

8x SATAII drives in external 19" rack (6x250GB, 3x500GB)

total HD capacity 3.5TB

UAD-1, TC Powercore MkII, RME MADI in the 3x PCI slots

Apple 30" display

This outperform pretty much everything out there and still be much cheaper than any basic PT/Mac rig.

[manning1]

the Other...
could i ask a simple favor of you ?
if you get a chance ......i would be highly interested in a simple performance timing of that opteron system of yours which looks so darn nice.
ie....record 3 minutes of an audio track....hilite whole track....then
using a pitch shift plug in process the whole track up or down an octave.
could you tell me if it beats 4 seconds to do the ptch shift ?
so far on this test the fastest ive seen is 4 secs on amd 64 or sempron.
kudos to you.....

[theother]

Originally Posted by manning1

the Other...
could i ask a simple favor of you ?
if you get a chance ......i would be highly interested in a simple performance timing of that opteron system of yours which looks so darn nice.
ie....record 3 minutes of an audio track....hilite whole track....then
using a pitch shift plug in process the whole track up or down an octave.
could you tell me if it beats 4 seconds to do the ptch shift ?
so far on this test the fastest ive seen is 4 secs on amd 64 or sempron.
kudos to you.....

I'd say that depends on what plugin you use. Do you mean the internal Cubase pitch shifter? If yes, you have to tell me which algorithm and what parameters.
Do we talk mono or stereo?

I will get the new system in about 3 weeks and then I can do the test.

[I Lurk]

Originally Posted by theother

I get a damn fast computer system built at the moment.

2x AMD Opteron's 270 Dual Core (total of 4 CPU's)

SuperMicro H8DCE Mobo in 19" Rack (internal 2x250GB)

4GB RAM

8x SATAII drives in external 19" rack (6x250GB, 3x500GB)

total HD capacity 3.5TB

UAD-1, TC Powercore MkII, RME MADI in the 3x PCI slots

Apple 30" display

This outperform pretty much everything out there and still be much cheaper than any basic PT/Mac rig.

This outperform pretty much everything, but this is not cheaper than a Mac. You cannot compare a Native/UAD DAW with a PT/Mac.

Beside, you would have to compare Opteron Single cores (two of them) to a G5 dual proc to be totally honest.

Now if you can wait a bit more, Apple will release Dual Dual Core G5 for around 3000$ (if rumours are true): and I wouldn't be surprised it will be even faster than your Opteron based PC for 50% less cash.

What do you think ?

regards

[theother]

Originally Posted by I Lurk

You cannot compare a Native/UAD DAW with a PT/Mac.

why not? I had a huge PT rig for almost 10 years and I don't miss anything.

Beside, you would have to compare Opteron Single cores (two of them) to a G5 dual proc to be totally honest.

Again, why? I have 4 CPU's. So this is what I compare it to. It's not so much comparing a Mac to a PC as just to make the statement that in my opinion DSP cards will be a thing of the past soon, and with such powerful systems as 4 AMD CPUs (and even more in the future) it's already possible now to have a powerful native VSTi system that can rival a ProTools Accel rig.

On 4 CPU's you can run a lot of URS plugins, especially with the new compressors coming. On the UAD-1 you have your UA plugins and on the Powercore you have the TC reverbs and Sonys if you like.

I can see a future where all the UAD-1 and Powercore stuff will be native/iLock. No DSP cards. This way we can eliminate the dreaded compatibility problems with PCI etc everytime a new machine enters the market.


cheers

[manning1]

theOther...
just want a rough idea.
just to make it easy for you with little hassle...i dont use cubase...but most pitch shifters are the same.
params...just use the pitch shifter in cubase.....3 minutes mono track....16/44.1.
set pitch shift for octave up or down. simplest setting....set cents for zero change.
thanks.
maybe when you stress test system further....you could post any other fx timings you come across.
you should have an amazing system there that will wallop anything i'm aware of.

[I Lurk]

Theother,

I'm not questioning the validity of Native over PT.

I thought you were comparing PC to MAC. I didn't get you were comparing native to DSP.

And on a side note, as the original poster was about to look for the fastest setup, why not waiting for the new G5 ?

my bad

[BrianT]

I'm running the system you describe now, except it's 2x 275 Opterons on a Tyan S2985 with a Magma, 4 UAD-1s, a pair of RME MADI cards, a Blackmagic Decklink, and a Highpoint 1820A SATA controller on PCI-X. That array tests at 175MB/sec, sustained.

I've been watching the debate on SCSI vs SATA. I would venture to say few people have had the chance to spend time working with the best of both, and how else can you really compare? I also see postings about "RAID is bad for audio" pretty frequently. That is not my experience, at all. Keep in mind that I've had the chance to play with a lot of different systems, including dual Giga Fiber to Fibre drives.

With 100+ tracks on a 1 hour program, plus video output to the Decklink directly from Nuendo, locate/play times from/to anywhere on the timeline are about 250ms. Basically, instant locate/play anywhere over the 1 hour span. From SATA RAID. Every person who has seen the system in action has been shocked by the speed and fluidity. THe most shocked are PTHD users on 15,000RPM Fibre channel, who wonder why their more expensive systems can't move this fast. I'm not trying to be unkind here, just give some sort of realworld comparison.

If you think SATA is not a match for SCSI (for audio and video, at least) and/or that RAID is bad for audio, it might be time to rethink that stance. No one that's seen this quad Opteron with SATA RAID system has failed to comment that it's the fastest moving DAW they've ever seen. Hey, when your editing and trying to get creative, the more this stuff can become an extension of your mind and hands, the better, IMO. For me, speed is a big part of that.


Regards,
Brian T

Originally Posted by theother

I get a damn fast computer system built at the moment.

2x AMD Opteron's 270 Dual Core (total of 4 CPU's)

SuperMicro H8DCE Mobo in 19" Rack (internal 2x250GB)

4GB RAM

8x SATAII drives in external 19" rack (6x250GB, 3x500GB)

total HD capacity 3.5TB

UAD-1, TC Powercore MkII, RME MADI in the 3x PCI slots

Apple 30" display

This outperform pretty much everything out there and still be much cheaper than any basic PT/Mac rig.

[theother]

Originally Posted by BrianT

I'm running the system you describe now, except it's 2x 275 Opterons on a Tyan S2985 with a Magma, 4 UAD-1s, a pair of RME MADI cards, a Blackmagic Decklink, and a Highpoint 1820A SATA controller on PCI-X. That array tests at 175MB/sec, sustained.

I've been watching the debate on SCSI vs SATA. I would venture to say few people have had the chance to spend time working with the best of both, and how else can you really compare? I also see postings about "RAID is bad for audio" pretty frequently. That is not my experience, at all. Keep in mind that I've had the chance to play with a lot of different systems, including dual Giga Fiber to Fibre drives.

With 100+ tracks on a 1 hour program, plus video output to the Decklink directly from Nuendo, locate/play times from/to anywhere on the timeline are about 250ms. Basically, instant locate/play anywhere over the 1 hour span. From SATA RAID. Every person who has seen the system in action has been shocked by the speed and fluidity. THe most shocked are PTHD users on 15,000RPM Fibre channel, who wonder why their more expensive systems can't move this fast. I'm not trying to be unkind here, just give some sort of realworld comparison.

If you think SATA is not a match for SCSI (for audio and video, at least) and/or that RAID is bad for audio, it might be time to rethink that stance. No one that's seen this quad Opteron with SATA RAID system has failed to comment that it's the fastest moving DAW they've ever seen. Hey, when your editing and trying to get creative, the more this stuff can become an extension of your mind and hands, the better, IMO. For me, speed is a big part of that.


Regards,
Brian T

Coool! That makes me feel real confident about my new rig that I'm about to get soon.

[wolffy]

Originally Posted by theother

I get a damn fast computer system built at the moment.

2x AMD Opteron's 270 Dual Core (total of 4 CPU's)

SuperMicro H8DCE Mobo in 19" Rack (internal 2x250GB)

4GB RAM

8x SATAII drives in external 19" rack (6x250GB, 3x500GB)

total HD capacity 3.5TB

UAD-1, TC Powercore MkII, RME MADI in the 3x PCI slots

Apple 30" display

This outperform pretty much everything out there and still be much cheaper than any basic PT/Mac rig.

Holy crap dude! How much $$ did it cost to assemble this monster? Please include the cost of your main sequencer software (i.e. add $1000 for Logic). I'm just curious--I just spent some time pricing out some hypothetical super machines and realized that I'm poor.

[BrianT]

Originally Posted by theother

Coool! That makes me feel real confident about my new rig that I'm about to get soon.

What DAW software? It's important that your app(s) be multithreaded in order for you to take advantage of the power. We use Nuendo, and it's multithreading is done extremely well, as of rev 3.1. I hear good things about Sonar in that regard, but not so good things about Samplitude at this point.

Make sure your DAW app has been verified with 4 physical CPUs. Before rev 3.1, Nuendo/SX did not work properly with 4 cores. Now it's great, but make sure to check for compatability with all your software. Also, UAD-1 driver rev 4.0 adds improvements in this regard as well.

If there is software you MUST have that doesn't play well with 4 cores, you could install only 1 CPU until they get that straight and still be working with a very powerful machine in the meantime.

[I Lurk]

Originally Posted by wolffy

Holy crap dude! How much $$ did it cost to assemble this monster? Please include the cost of your main sequencer software (i.e. add $1000 for Logic). I'm just curious--I just spent some time pricing out some hypothetical super machines and realized that I'm poor.

9000 $ /10000$ ?

not that cheap

[theother]

Originally Posted by BrianT

What DAW software? It's important that your app(s) be multithreaded in order for you to take advantage of the power. We use Nuendo, and it's multithreading is done extremely well, as of rev 3.1. I hear good things about Sonar in that regard, but not so good things about Samplitude at this point.

Cubase 3.1. No problem with 4 CPU's. Now all we need is 64-bit for Steinberg and RME to address more RAM then we are in heaven. (almost)