Audio on internal 7200 HD?

[perandre]

I primarily use a Macbook for music, and have an external Lacie HD for audio & samples. BUT...if I replace the standard internal HD with a 7200 drive, is this just as good as using an external? Or will there at some point be a problem not to have a dedicated audio HD?

[StudioTinPanAll]

i think it's best to have seperate drive for system and for audio
7200rpm will speed up your system,
but best keep audio on seperate drive

grtz,

[thenewyear]

An internal 7200rpm drive should be fine depending on your requirements. I would make a dedicated audio partition though.

I have done 5 simultaneous 96kHz tracks to my MacBook's internal (partitioned 5400rpm drive) & then run synths within Reason adapted with no problems.

[perandre]

So partitioning the internal HD will be just as good as connecting an external one?

My experience with using external firewire-disks for samples is mixed, btw. It takes more time to load samples from my Lacie than from my internal one, because the external needs to "come to life" every now and then to get the wheels spinning... And sometimes it's like EXS (Logic) is a bit hesistant before it loads the files from the Lacie. Could be a Logic-issue, though.

Thanks for your opinions, guys!

[aussie_techie]

partitiong the internal is NOT as good as a dedicated disk. if the OS volume doesnt need to be read/wrten to while recording it will be better however if the OS volume does need read/write which includes simple paging/swap fuctions then performance will be worse.

i do record direct to my internal disk when using it as a backup live recorder (quick format the partition every time) however thats only 2-4 tracks at 44/48KHz for small track counts its certainly fine but for serious track counts and higher sample rates when errors arnt exceptable you do need an external disk. if you can put up with an ocasional error its not such a big deal but for decent track counts of a critical recording its a different story.

[Will]

If you get rid of the external then your system will become slower, remember that there are things going on on your internal drive that you might not know about - virtual ram is the first to spring to mind.

The first time I used an external with my system after only using the internal drive my system speed increased by about a 1/4. Plus it is a lot safer error wise like aussie_techie says.

You could use your internal drive for samples and your external for the main audio tracks. This might speed everything up as it will spread the bandwidth load across the two discs.

Will.

[perandre]

My Macbook broke down some time ago, now it's back...

Internal HD for instrument-samples seems like a good thing. My loop-library is too big for an internal, but it's nice to have instrument-samples available for live-playing.

Will there be a noteworthy difference between an internal, say, Hitachi 5400rpm 160gb and a Hitachi 7200rpm 100gb when it comes to speed? I'm only talking about loading and streaming samples, now, not overall performance.