Harddrives, 7200 rpm or 10 000 rpm?

Gumption · 10th October 2006, 11:46 AM

I want tu run a RAID setup with my PTLE, do i need 10 000 rpm harddrives, or could it be done with 7200 rpm Harddrives? What would you suggest?
Thnx

Gumption

chaoticz · 10th October 2006, 12:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gumption

I want tu run a RAID setup with my PTLE, do i need 10 000 rpm harddrives, or could it be done with 7200 rpm Harddrives? What would you suggest?
Thnx

Gumption

my friend says that he made a mistake by getting couple 10k drives as those are very loud/noisy

AlexLakis · 10th October 2006, 12:30 PM

There have been several threads on this lately.

In my experiences, there has been no reason to use RAID 0 in a recording setup. Perhaps if I was mixing 120+ 192k tracks, there might be a reason, but you won't run into that using LE.

I use 3 drives in my DAW; Here's my drive setup:

System: 7200 IDE
Recording: 10K SATA
Samples/backup: 7200 IDE

Works just fine. Haven't had any problems, and I sometimes run 32 tracks with auxs with tons of plugins and VSTis at once.

Gumption · 10th October 2006, 02:51 PM

So Alex, is your 10 000 rpm drive noisy too, and wich drive do you have, western digital?
I explain myself, i actually have a 7200 rpm drive, but it's full and i need a new one. The 7200 rpm didn't give me any problems so far, i can run 32 PT LE tracks at 88.2 with enough plugs, but since i need a new drive, and i see pople talk about 10 000 rpm drives, i inquire. What benefits would such a HD bring me?

Regards

Gumption

tuRnitUpsuM · 10th October 2006, 03:32 PM

Hi Gumption

the main benefits of faster spindle speeds in hard drives is the faster seek times they allow...( the amount of time it takes the HD to locate the audio file(s) contained on the disc )... alot of people are buying 10k HDDs now because they have come down in price considerably since their inception... they were primarily designed for the enterprise market (servers, etc). Now the enterprise market have access to 15k rpm drives...so the 10k is becoming affordable.

7200rpm drives are plenty sufficient... they were once the enterprise drive.... before 10k... its the trickling down effect... if you don't plan on running a whole lot of tracks...it will do u fine...like you've mentioned... just increase the capacity and look for HDs with large caches... 16MB... you'll be fine... the 10k HD is alil noisier than the 7.2k ones... but most who use'em have also invested into ways to keep them quiet either by a HDD dampener or have enclosed the computer itself.

Just have to weigh the pros and cons for what you plan to do with it.

cheers

AlexLakis · 10th October 2006, 03:41 PM

What he said.

If your hard drive is the noisiest thing about your DAW, then you're doin' good.

I use Western Digital Raptor drives (74GB.) They're a little noisier than the IDE drives, but not by much. I don't hear them unless I have the case open, and that's when I'm sitting 2 feet from them.

I have an M-Powered rig at home that only has 1 drive for system, recording, samples...7200 IDE. I record with it and mix 32 tracks with plugins galore...no problems.

tuRnitUpsuM · 10th October 2006, 03:54 PM

AlexLakis

my apologys for line cuttin'......

Quote:

If your hard drive is the noisiest thing about your DAW, then you're doin' good.

well put....

cheers

StudioTinPanAll · 10th October 2006, 04:08 PM

i had the same question
and after some research it seems indeed raid is overkill and not safe
even 10.000 rpm is not needed unless doing +96 tracks
just get a 7200rpm, 16mb, 320GB for less than 100$
and while you're at it, get a second one for backups

grtz,

wim

fonman · 10th October 2006, 08:54 PM

My Raptor 10K RPM drives are higher pitched than my 7200 RPM drives, but I don't think they are neccessarily any louder. As a matter of fact, Since I swapped out my audio, and sample drives for Raptors, the overall noise level is down (probably due to less frequency stacking)
either way, with a little Owens Corning 703 in front and behind my PC, it is quiet as a church mouse.
By the way, I love the Raptors. Big improvement.

dkatz42 · 10th October 2006, 09:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tuRnitUpsuM

the main benefits of faster spindle speeds in hard drives is the faster seek times they allow...

To be completely pedantic, the spindle speed increase benefits rotational latency, not seek time (and when the disk manufacturers quote seek time, they *do not* include rotational latency.) So the total time to wait for data is the seek time plus the rotational latency.

A 7200 rpm drive has to wait, on average, 4.17 msec for the desired sector to rotate around and end up under the heads once they stop moving. At 10000 rpm, that's down to 3 msec.

Whether that additional 1.17 msec matters or not depends on a lot of other issues. Your Milage May Vary. ;-)

StrykeBack · 11th October 2006, 09:26 AM

I think the 10k drives are essential if your working with a lot of sample based instruments and what not. I dropped a raptor 10k 150 gig drive into my powermac g5 as its second drive solely for BFD, Ivory, symphonic orchestra, atmosphere, and a couple others as they arrive and I can have multiple instances of each of these all running at once in a song without a hitch.

I had 2 of the older 75 gig 10k raptors in my custom pc and they worked great as well. Note I was doing 40 to 50 plus tracks in cubase at 96k on the pc and that probably helped as well. now in PT on the mac i haven't ran into any erros on the firewire drives for audio and they are only 7200rpm.

aussie_techie · 11th October 2006, 10:12 AM

dont use raid it will just cause you problems
in general you hit the LE track limit long before a 7200rpm cant keep up. so there just isnt the need to pay out for 10krpm drive when you wont see any major advantage, if you want to spend the money fine but i would put it towards audio gear.

PapillonIrl · 11th October 2006, 12:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aussie_techie

dont use raid it will just cause you problems
in general you hit the LE track limit long before a 7200rpm cant keep up. so there just isnt the need to pay out for 10krpm drive when you wont see any major advantage, if you want to spend the money fine but i would put it towards audio gear.

Why the general hating on RAID ?

I have 2 SATA drives in a hot-swappable RAID setup (the one that mirrors data across both drives - can't remember if that's RAID 0 or RAID 1)

I always felt good about knowing if one drive went in the middle of a session, the other would take over and I could replace the faulty one.

Am I on crack ?

Nathan

amino · 11th October 2006, 01:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PapillonIrl

I have 2 SATA drives in a hot-swappable RAID setup (the one that mirrors data across both drives - can't remember if that's RAID 0 or RAID 1)

I always felt good about knowing if one drive went in the middle of a session, the other would take over and I could replace the faulty one.

RAID 1 (mirroring) is always good, but the major advantage of that is exactly the reason you meantion. It is reliability, not performance. And that's the only RAID I recommend for "normal use" if you don't want to buy several hard drives and go for RAID 0+1 or 1+0.

For DAW 7200 RPM disks are usually sufficient. The are other things that are more important than speed, for instance regular defragmentation, separate audio and system drives etc.

When it comes to noise I highly recommend everyone to do their absolute best to move the computer out of the studio. What good does it do there? It is just occuping space without paying any rent and it is more or less noisy no matter what disks you use. When you've done that you can invest in one or two nice 15000 RPM drives like the ones I have at work. No, you don't necessarily need them and they won't make everything faster, but they're not that expensive and some things will really speed up...

I wouldn't call them noisy either. Yes, they are noisier than the 7200 RPM I had before but they are a lot quieter than any drive older than five years or so.

aussie_techie · 11th October 2006, 01:17 PM

mirroring is RAID 1. real hardware controlled raid 1 is good, and i mean real hardware not onboard or software based. i certainly dont have a blanket hatred of raid. what annoys is is people saying they want raid without any kind of clarification of what type, usualy due to ignorence about the details of any raid system, in my experence when refering to raid without clarification they are usualy refering to raid 0 or 5 which are compleatly different from 1. alot of controllers can induce latency or force slower transfer speeds which will reduce your track count, raid controllers can cause problems particularly with pro tools (hence why digidesign say not to use it) and if not using a pure hardware controller pro tools will know and wont allow it to be a record volume.
there is alot of myth around about raid and unless you know what your getting into my advise is stay away from it.

also dont regard a RAID 1 volume as a backup as its not.

PapillonIrl · 11th October 2006, 02:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aussie_techie

mirroring is RAID 1. real hardware controlled raid 1 is good, and i mean real hardware not onboard or software based. i certainly dont have a blanket hatred of raid. what annoys is is people saying they want raid without any kind of clarification of what type, usualy due to ignorence about the details of any raid system, in my experence when refering to raid without clarification they are usualy refering to raid 0 or 5 which are compleatly different from 1. alot of controllers can induce latency or force slower transfer speeds which will reduce your track count, raid controllers can cause problems particularly with pro tools (hence why digidesign say not to use it) and if not using a pure hardware controller pro tools will know and wont allow it to be a record volume.
there is alot of myth around about raid and unless you know what your getting into my advise is stay away from it.

also dont regard a RAID 1 volume as a backup as its not.

Yeah, hardware controlled RAID 1 is what I'm using.

Not a backup ? I suppose it's not technically speaking, and I do back up the contents of the mirrored set regularly. But if DATA exists on two different media is that not considered a backup of sorts ? Oh...I think I see what you mean, corruption on on RAID 1 disk will be mirrored on to the other, right ?

p.s. have we hijacked this thread or is is still relevant over here ? If the original poster wants I'll start a new thread RE: RAID.

aussie_techie · 11th October 2006, 02:40 PM

while raid 1 gives a level of physical redundancy it doesn’t give logical redundancy. it simply means a system can continue if a drive fails, i use it my self on my server. it doesnt protect agest corrupt data, any software error will be replicated accross both drives. it doesnt protect agenst corruption or destruction. leaving backups as a seperate issue. going into data security is getting off topic.

PapillonIrl · 11th October 2006, 02:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aussie_techie

while raid 1 gives a level of physical redundancy it doesn’t give logical redundancy. it simply means a system can continue if a drive fails, i use it my self on my server. it doesnt protect agest corrupt data, any software error will be replicated accross both drives. it doesnt protect agenst corruption or destruction. leaving backups as a seperate issue. going into data security is getting off topic.

Thanks for clearing that up though. OK.

Back to the 7,200rpm vs. 10,000rpm HD thing.

Apologies, kinda jumped in there.

Here's a more relevant thread if anyone wants to contribute... RAID 1 and data security

Nathan

cornutt · 11th October 2006, 03:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dkatz42

A 7200 rpm drive has to wait, on average, 4.17 msec for the desired sector to rotate around and end up under the heads once they stop moving. At 10000 rpm, that's down to 3 msec.

Whether that additional 1.17 msec matters or not depends on a lot of other issues. Your Milage May Vary. ;-)

That's what I wonder about too. I'll admit I haven't looked at the specs on the latest drives, but on a lot of older drives, the head positioning time overwhelms the rotational latency. This is particularly true once the drive gets a bit fragmented. I'd have to question whether 10000 vs. 7200 really buys you much in a real-world situation.

dkatz42 · 12th October 2006, 07:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cornutt

That's what I wonder about too. I'll admit I haven't looked at the specs on the latest drives, but on a lot of older drives, the head positioning time overwhelms the rotational latency. This is particularly true once the drive gets a bit fragmented. I'd have to question whether 10000 vs. 7200 really buys you much in a real-world situation.

The faster rev drives are also very fast seeking (otherwise it'd be worthless.)

Keep in mind that seek times are quoted as "average" (whatever that means) but short seeks (say, to adjacent cylinders) are much faster than that.

As I blathered endlessly in another thread, DAWs are worst-case applications for drive operations due to the fact that they simultaneously read lots of files (which means lots of head motion) so the primary criterion for drive selection should be seek time and rpms--the data transfer rate is pretty uninteresting as the requirements are pretty modest (100 tracks at 24/96, if the heads could possibly handle it, is only 28.8MBps.)

tuRnitUpsuM · 12th October 2006, 09:12 AM

dkatz42

Quote:

To be completely pedantic, the spindle speed increase benefits rotational latency, not seek time (and when the disk manufacturers quote seek time, they *do not* include rotational latency.) So the total time to wait for data is the seek time plus the rotational latency.

tis why i mentioned "allowed" was really referring to total time of said HDs.... rotational and seek (head )...

...i shouldve elaborated... im with ya... just felt was over-kill for the poster. but seek time could be understood in the context for "most" assume thats the "Total time" reference... and instead of confusing....i thought id just work it.

cheers

olzzon · 12th October 2006, 11:08 AM

The Cache is also important, especially for DAW´s.
Go for a 16Mb version.

I wouldn´t count on a Raid for PT LE.
Anyway, someone told me that the seeking time was higher on a raid system, than on a single disk, so you may not gain anything for that anyway. This is what i´ve been told, i haven´t tested it myself.

Gumption · 12th October 2006, 11:45 AM

To everyone: thanks for your suggestions. Actually i meant a raid1 setup, with two mirrored drives. I think i'll let it be, and just get 2 drives, one for backup, and don't bother with raid. I'm still not sure about 10 000 or 7200 rpm, but i might just take 1 10 000 rpm internal, and an external 7200 rpm back-up drive, wich i can carry with me when i travel. I could get a western digital 10 000 rpm drive, are they worse than the maxtors? I thought they where better? Thanx again for all the input....

Ladia - Audeum · 12th October 2006, 08:27 PM

Hi,
I was working as a Server Tech for about 12 years before I entered the professional audio field and have a lot of experience with all kind of Raid setups.

Really you don't need any Raid setup for your LE system.
Just make sure that you do your backups responsibly.
For data drives I'd recommend a new SEAGATE 72.10 SATAII (7200rpm 16 MB cache, perpendicullar writing, native comand queing.etc..)
very reliable (5yr warranty), and Quiet. (used by Glyph in their new eSATA enclosures).

Maxtor is much louder than Seagate or WD, but also pretty reliable, works just fine for external backups.
WD Raptor is good and pretty much only drive from WD I'd recomment to anyone who needs 10k HDD. I'd not recommend any other WD for Audio setup where reliability and performace is a key requirement.

So, the final word from me is: Go and buy two Seagate 72.10 drives and Enjoy your Audio creations without worry of failing drives and corrupte data.

Ladia - Audeum

www.audeum.com

ZFire · 13th October 2006, 07:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ladia - Audeum

For data drives I'd recommend a new SEAGATE 72.10 SATAII (7200rpm 16 MB cache, perpendicullar writing, native comand queing.etc..)
very reliable (5yr warranty), and Quiet. (used by Glyph in their new eSATA enclosures).
www.audeum.com

Anandtech recently did a thorough benchmark of the Seagate 7200.10 versus the Western Digital SE16 (both 320 GB, Sata II, 16Mb cache, 7200rpm).

The Seagate edged out the WD in most of the tests, EXCEPT for the one benchmark that seems to most closely parallel a DAW playback:

"Our IPEAK based File Transfer benchmarks indicate how well a drive performs in a strictly read or write operation with a limited number of files (29) but a large amount of data (7.55GB). The test is designed to ensure continual write or read operations across a large section of the drive and requires constant head and actuator movements along with caching large amounts of data."

The Western Digital had 4 times the read throughput that the Seagate managed! Which made Anandtech speculate that the Seagate might even have some sort of firmware issue. (The WD SE16 was particularly good at this test, and was even faster than a WD Raptor 150gb)

I decided to play it safe and go with the Western Digital SE16 for the system I am currently building. Four times the "headroom" of the Seagate in circumstances that seem pretty likely for digital audio, plus it is quieter and runs cooler. Just hope its reliable...

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/sho...px?i=2803&p=11

BeerHunter · 13th October 2006, 07:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ladia - Audeum

Really you don't need any Raid setup for your LE system.

I think this comment is rather debatable. Fault tolerance is the purpose behind RAID. If your HD fails in the middle of a tracking session you may not be in a position to say "you guys gotta come back tomorrow after I get a new drive installed, and oh ya, the killer tracks that you guys just did will have to be done again".

**George Necola** · 13th October 2006, 08:02 PM

dont forget to COOL those 10'000 RPM drives!! good airflow required

or they will

(burn burn burn.. ring of fire.. )

my Raptor-Raid runs fine..

cheers

brandy · 13th October 2006, 10:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by George Necola

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10th October 2006, 11:46 AM	#1
Gumption Gear interested Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 21	Harddrives, 7200 rpm or 10 000 rpm? I want tu run a RAID setup with my PTLE, do i need 10 000 rpm harddrives, or could it be done with 7200 rpm Harddrives? What would you suggest? Thnx Gumption

10th October 2006, 04:08 PM	#8
StudioTinPanAll Gear addict Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Antwerp Posts: 314	i had the same question and after some research it seems indeed raid is overkill and not safe even 10.000 rpm is not needed unless doing +96 tracks just get a 7200rpm, 16mb, 320GB for less than 100$ and while you're at it, get a second one for backups grtz, wim __________________ Studio TinPanAlley

12th October 2006, 08:27 PM	#24
Ladia - Audeum Gear maniac Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Columbia , SC Posts: 153	10k VS 7200 HDD Hi, I was working as a Server Tech for about 12 years before I entered the professional audio field and have a lot of experience with all kind of Raid setups. Really you don't need any Raid setup for your LE system. Just make sure that you do your backups responsibly. For data drives I'd recommend a new SEAGATE 72.10 SATAII (7200rpm 16 MB cache, perpendicullar writing, native comand queing.etc..) very reliable (5yr warranty), and Quiet. (used by Glyph in their new eSATA enclosures). Maxtor is much louder than Seagate or WD, but also pretty reliable, works just fine for external backups. WD Raptor is good and pretty much only drive from WD I'd recomment to anyone who needs 10k HDD. I'd not recommend any other WD for Audio setup where reliability and performace is a key requirement. So, the final word from me is: Go and buy two Seagate 72.10 drives and Enjoy your Audio creations without worry of failing drives and corrupte data. Ladia - Audeum www.audeum.com

10th October 2006, 12:30 PM	#3
AlexLakis Lives for gear Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Annapolis, MD/L.A. Posts: 3,612	There have been several threads on this lately. In my experiences, there has been no reason to use RAID 0 in a recording setup. Perhaps if I was mixing 120+ 192k tracks, there might be a reason, but you won't run into that using LE. I use 3 drives in my DAW; Here's my drive setup: System: 7200 IDE Recording: 10K SATA Samples/backup: 7200 IDE Works just fine. Haven't had any problems, and I sometimes run 32 tracks with auxs with tons of plugins and VSTis at once.

10th October 2006, 02:51 PM	#4
Gumption Gear interested Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 21	So Alex, is your 10 000 rpm drive noisy too, and wich drive do you have, western digital? I explain myself, i actually have a 7200 rpm drive, but it's full and i need a new one. The 7200 rpm didn't give me any problems so far, i can run 32 PT LE tracks at 88.2 with enough plugs, but since i need a new drive, and i see pople talk about 10 000 rpm drives, i inquire. What benefits would such a HD bring me? Regards Gumption

10th October 2006, 03:41 PM	#6
AlexLakis Lives for gear Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Annapolis, MD/L.A. Posts: 3,612	What he said. If your hard drive is the noisiest thing about your DAW, then you're doin' good. I use Western Digital Raptor drives (74GB.) They're a little noisier than the IDE drives, but not by much. I don't hear them unless I have the case open, and that's when I'm sitting 2 feet from them. I have an M-Powered rig at home that only has 1 drive for system, recording, samples...7200 IDE. I record with it and mix 32 tracks with plugins galore...no problems.

10th October 2006, 08:54 PM	#9
fonman Gear nut Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Orlando Posts: 88	My Raptor 10K RPM drives are higher pitched than my 7200 RPM drives, but I don't think they are neccessarily any louder. As a matter of fact, Since I swapped out my audio, and sample drives for Raptors, the overall noise level is down (probably due to less frequency stacking) either way, with a little Owens Corning 703 in front and behind my PC, it is quiet as a church mouse. By the way, I love the Raptors. Big improvement.

11th October 2006, 09:26 AM	#11
StrykeBack Lives for gear Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 507	I think the 10k drives are essential if your working with a lot of sample based instruments and what not. I dropped a raptor 10k 150 gig drive into my powermac g5 as its second drive solely for BFD, Ivory, symphonic orchestra, atmosphere, and a couple others as they arrive and I can have multiple instances of each of these all running at once in a song without a hitch. I had 2 of the older 75 gig 10k raptors in my custom pc and they worked great as well. Note I was doing 40 to 50 plus tracks in cubase at 96k on the pc and that probably helped as well. now in PT on the mac i haven't ran into any erros on the firewire drives for audio and they are only 7200rpm.

11th October 2006, 10:12 AM	#12
aussie_techie Lives for gear Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Perth, Australia Posts: 2,040	dont use raid it will just cause you problems in general you hit the LE track limit long before a 7200rpm cant keep up. so there just isnt the need to pay out for 10krpm drive when you wont see any major advantage, if you want to spend the money fine but i would put it towards audio gear.

11th October 2006, 01:17 PM	#15
aussie_techie Lives for gear Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Perth, Australia Posts: 2,040	mirroring is RAID 1. real hardware controlled raid 1 is good, and i mean real hardware not onboard or software based. i certainly dont have a blanket hatred of raid. what annoys is is people saying they want raid without any kind of clarification of what type, usualy due to ignorence about the details of any raid system, in my experence when refering to raid without clarification they are usualy refering to raid 0 or 5 which are compleatly different from 1. alot of controllers can induce latency or force slower transfer speeds which will reduce your track count, raid controllers can cause problems particularly with pro tools (hence why digidesign say not to use it) and if not using a pure hardware controller pro tools will know and wont allow it to be a record volume. there is alot of myth around about raid and unless you know what your getting into my advise is stay away from it. also dont regard a RAID 1 volume as a backup as its not.

11th October 2006, 02:40 PM	#17
aussie_techie Lives for gear Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Perth, Australia Posts: 2,040	while raid 1 gives a level of physical redundancy it doesn’t give logical redundancy. it simply means a system can continue if a drive fails, i use it my self on my server. it doesnt protect agest corrupt data, any software error will be replicated accross both drives. it doesnt protect agenst corruption or destruction. leaving backups as a seperate issue. going into data security is getting off topic.

12th October 2006, 11:08 AM	#22
olzzon Gear Head Join Date: Sep 2005 Posts: 32	The Cache is also important, especially for DAW´s. Go for a 16Mb version. I wouldn´t count on a Raid for PT LE. Anyway, someone told me that the seeking time was higher on a raid system, than on a single disk, so you may not gain anything for that anyway. This is what i´ve been told, i haven´t tested it myself.

12th October 2006, 11:45 AM	#23
Gumption Gear interested Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 21	To everyone: thanks for your suggestions. Actually i meant a raid1 setup, with two mirrored drives. I think i'll let it be, and just get 2 drives, one for backup, and don't bother with raid. I'm still not sure about 10 000 or 7200 rpm, but i might just take 1 10 000 rpm internal, and an external 7200 rpm back-up drive, wich i can carry with me when i travel. I could get a western digital 10 000 rpm drive, are they worse than the maxtors? I thought they where better? Thanx again for all the input....