2nd Internal Hard Drive

[jaysunice]

So I just purchased a second internal hard drive for my Mac G5.

As of now, I have Logic Pro 7 and all of my soft synths running on the original Mac hard drive.

However, I do save all of my Logic Projects and their respective audio files on an external firewire Glyph drive.

I purchased my new (300 GB) internal drive with the intent on loading FXpansion's BFD onto it, as well as, several other space intensive programs.

I'm wondering if I would gain anything by moving Logic and my Soft Synths over to the new drive as well? What is the best configuration? Moreover, what is the best way to move everything over there? Or should I just uninstall and then re-install?

[KingDaddyO]

I'm not a Mac person but in the 'PC' world, it's almost always better to separate the OS from the Apps (programs) and Data. With just one disc, you would do this by creating a minimum of 2 disc partitions (1 for boot, 1 for everything else).

If you really want to get fancy, you could create 2 partitions on your 2nd disc., one for APPS & 1 for DATA. You would then always specify a custom software installation and select this partition/volume (or whatever the Mac OS calls it) for the program target install directory.

Even better if you can extend the concept to multiple physical discs (as you appear to be doing), instead of just multiple partitions on a single disc. In your case, I would partition the 2nd drive for Apps & Data. You could then create a safety backup of the DATA partition using the free space on your 1st disc, or better yet, your external storage thingy... since that could be stored offsite (i.e., somewhere safe from fire, other catastrophic events). Sort of a poor man's low-cost but effective insurance policy. Easy to implement & use too (backup software often sucks)!

Benefits of separating the OS, APPS, & DATA:
- You can use a much smaller sized disc for the BOOT drive, thereby increasing system performance by simply reducing the number of cylinders, tracks, sectors, etc. that have to be processed during disc I/O operations. System utilities are also improved with smaller 'lawns to mow'.
- Read-write performance is improved by separating the OS from everything else
- System maintenance is less complicated, since everything is compartmentalized
- Catastrophic OS failures or complications are isolated from the APPS & DATA
- APPS & DATA are much easier to backup, since everything has it's own dedicated partitions (this is a huge plus, as most people are either too forgetful, lazy, or simply overwhelmed by the complexity of backing up their data, to bother doing it on a regular basis)

It can be a real P.I.T.A. sometimes to setup custom filepaths for your applications data storage, but as with everything, putting the majority of the pain & sweat into the front-end process will usually reward you over the long term, as you have built a better foundation for the future. Installing upgrades or adding new hardware, etc., should all benefit from this approach. I always make a complete snapshot of an apps folder & the complete registry, before performing an upgrade. If the bloody thing then blows up & all hope seems lost, simply restore the old version into the same filepath, and you are usually back to where you were before things went badly. And as an added benefit, you can rest easy, knowing that your DATA was safe all along... even though the APP or the OS was coughing up blood

I don't have any experience with the s/w you've listed, but these guidelines should apply in almost any situation. Good Luck!

[SKoT_FX]

FX recommendation for BFD owers with 3 drives:

1st drive: OS / apps
2nd drive: audio track data, and other streaming samples
3rd drive: BFD data, non-streaming samples

Reason: This reduces the competition for bandwidth, and spreads out the IO load.

The OS may want to swap RAM pages to disk, write logs, and generally muck about in an operating systemy way. The applications can also live on this drive (or any other) happily, because they will tend to load once into memory, and be done with it.

Your audio tracks will be streamed by your host/sequencer application, and having a drive dedicated to streaming that will be useful.

BFD will also be streaming heavily, so keeping BFD data on a separate drive to the host streaming is important to avoid competition for access to the disk.

[Cover'd]

Resurrecting this thread after a search...

Been thinking about separate drives for O/S, Sample Libraries and Audio Files. What is general wisdom these days..?

I'm not sure I go with the partitions theory as above to improve performance - surely there's still only one spindle for these partitions..? It may help to keep things separate and clean for O/S re-installation etc, but performance-wise, I can't see that being of real benefit

When looking to run song length audio files along with sample libraries, I can see a theoretical benefit in these all being called from separate sources - both separate even from that of the system drive... but is it just theoretical? Are drives, RAM and CPUs working well enough these days for things to operate nicely with no real benefit in having every element on it's own drive..?

I'm lining up a Macbook Pro with an Express 34 eSATA card hooked up to an external drive. Will be running some Audio Files (probably no more than two or three stereo tracks per song), alongside some MIDI info for external units, whilst also looking to trigger BFD samples live at the same time and am now wondering about the possible merits vs overkill scenario of separate drives

Assuming there is enough justification for separate drives, would running two external drives through the same two port Sonnet Express Card effectively defeat the object by causing a bottleneck there? Would a vacant FW400 port be the better way to hook up an additional drive if the Express port is already in use..?

[357mag]

Something to consider is there are all kinds of tweaks and adjustments and configurations a person can do to his machine in an effort to maximize performance. But in the end you may only get a 3% performance increase. Even though it exists technically, on a practical level you won't notice a difference while you use your computer.

I used to partition many years ago, but since there are so few programs on my machine I don't anymore. And I keep my personal data on a flash drive which is backed up on another external drive.

[Virtuoso]

Originally Posted by Cover'd

would running two external drives through the same two port Sonnet Express Card effectively defeat the object by causing a bottleneck there?

Hi Clive - good to see you on here.

eSATA has plenty of bandwidth for two drives. The maximum data rate is 375MB/s - much more than you'll need to run two external drives and way more than you need just to run a few stereo tracks and some BFD/Kontakt samples. I doubt you'll need two external drives but you can't really go wrong here - try it with one and if you have problems, just get another.

[Cover'd]

Andy! We get everywhere don't we..?

Yeah, I think you're right with that mate (as usual) - the only thing I'm trying to understand is how a drive can access two different areas at the same time with just the one spindle..? Granted, I don't have a grasp on the mechanics of that or how the system can load what it needs into RAM (ie the main audio file) yet access different samples as and when needed without pausing (albeit momentarily) to do so

It could be that the required project samples are drawn into RAM, but how will it know which ones will be needed in the case of BFD triggered samples..? Surely it doesn't load the lot?!?! Well no, it can't

See..? I can't nail it down so I guess it will be a suck it and see case but whilst going through the whole process of identifying and ordering gear, it would be good to get a handle on the kit required to compliment every other part to avoid a glaring weak link (which, it appears, could well be me! )

[Virtuoso]

Different samplers work in different ways, but the ones which stream from the hard drive usually cache a very small amount of the start of each sample in RAM (just enough to get around the hard drive latency) and then once they know which notes you're playing they stream the rest of the samples from the hard drive. It might sound complex and prone to problems, but processing power, memory capacity, drive speeds and software sophistication have come a long way since the days of the Akai S900! Modern samplers take this sort of thing in their stride.

As for the rest - audio files are tiny. The data rate of a stereo 24 bit audio file at 44.1KHz is only 265KB/s so even with a single slow hard drive running at 60MB/s, you should still theoretically have enough bandwidth for over 200 tracks - again way more than you need.

If you need to put your mind at rest before you blow a load of money, call up somewhere like Digital Village and ask them to demonstrate a MacBook doing all the things you need. They will be able to show you just how hard you can push them before they start to crumble and I think you'll be surprised.

[KingDaddyO]

Originally Posted by Cover'd

Andy! We get everywhere don't we..?

Yeah, I think you're right with that mate (as usual) - the only thing I'm trying to understand is how a drive can access two different areas at the same time with just the one spindle..? Granted, I don't have a grasp on the mechanics of that or how the system can load what it needs into RAM (ie the main audio file) yet access different samples as and when needed without pausing (albeit momentarily) to do so

It could be that the required project samples are drawn into RAM, but how will it know which ones will be needed in the case of BFD triggered samples..? Surely it doesn't load the lot?!?! Well no, it can't

See..? I can't nail it down so I guess it will be a suck it and see case but whilst going through the whole process of identifying and ordering gear, it would be good to get a handle on the kit required to compliment every other part to avoid a glaring weak link (which, it appears, could well be me! )

A single drive spindle can't access more than one disc sector concurrently, although it can access more than one sector very fast. But even when using a system with just one drive, portions of the OS are preloaded into RAM, so depending on the overall performance of your system, you don't necessarily have to 'fight' the OS when running a single drive system. So the whole strategy of separating the OS from the apps & data to gain performance is subject to the law of diminishing returns. And given the constant advancements in technology (higher performance cpus, dual cores, faster ram, SSD storage, etc) performance vs. cost will continue to improve.

We'll soon be using SSD for storage (solid state drives) . Once that technology is mature enough to provide adequate storage at reasonable cost, mechanical drives will be relegated to nearline & archival storage tasks.

For my money, the best bang for the buck is to just do whatever works best for you. Then get a second external drive (the same size or or larger) and create a full system image (I use Acronis True Image on the PC platform, not sure what similar utility is available for the Mac platform). Then regularly backup your unique data. And anytime you make major changes to your system or to your apps, create another system image, keeping the previous one for redundancy sake.

[Cover'd]

Thanks chaps That's all good to know


Andy - I did drop into DV actually - they weren't overly convinced it could be done - one suggestion was that to make it work, we'd need a Macbook for each member! Although to be fair, I think the chap had the wrong end of the stick at that particular point

The gear is slowly coming together - will be ordering some more tomorrow. Had a change of heart on BFD and have swung to SD2.0 and lowered the Fifeface 800 to an Echo Audiofire 8

Really looking forward to getting stuck into all this and it's really injected some anticipation and impetus into the band! As far away from 'pure' as this all is, it's having a great effect and the drive for creativity has been given a real injection of life. Once the system is set, I don't want to have to think of all this stuff any more - it'll be time to focus fully on the music from thereon in... just the way it should be of course

Here's hoping your previously sage advice that this is what Mac brings to the party is proven to be right

[Virtuoso]

Originally Posted by Cover'd

Had a change of heart on BFD and have swung to SD2.0

In that case you have no worries about streaming for the drums. SD2 somehow loads all the samples into RAM using some hyper-efficient memory compression. I think the default standard kit takes about 580Mb and the full kit just under 1Gb of your system RAM.

As it's just for live gigs where you probably don't need all the flexibility (and hassle) of SD2, you might also want to look at the much cheaper EZDrummer. It uses some of the same samples as SD2, but at 16bit rather than 24bit. The samples are also pre-processed and sound great out of the box, so no need to run the individual channels through compressors, reverbs, EQs etc. It works with Toontrack Solo just the same way SD2 does. Of the addon sound packs, Nashville is the best sounding in my opinion. (Don't be put off by the name - it's not just for country and it's an excellent sounding kit).

[357mag]

Your decision to go with Superior Drummer instead of BFD is probably a good one. Yeah it uses memory instead of disk streaming just like EZ Drummer does. I was considering BFD at one time but man I read so many people having problems and issues with it I decided to ditch it.

[Cover'd]

It's installing now I hope you're right (...and I think you are )