Computer Hardware Question
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Posted on Jan 31, 2003 03:33 pm
Dan
Member Since: Nov 21, 2002
Howdy guys. Would an 80 gig hard drive at 7200 RPM be enough for a home recording computer? I am thinking of getting an 80 gig internal hard drive, and I actually have the cash right, my go out and buy one this weekend. I use Pro Audio 9, Fruity Loops 3, plus i would like to have some extra room for general purpose programs such as adobe acrobat, photoshop, nero, maybe a game or something.
The computer only has a 3 gig stock hard drive *eeep! 3 gigs* and to make matters worse, 1 out of the 3 gigs is unusable due to "bad sectors"
So 80 gigs= Good? or should i get more power? I can only do one project at a time on that computer now! Good Grief!
Thanks in advance, fellas
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Jan 31, 2003 04:32 pm An 80GB 7200RPM drive will be great. Whenever possible, I recommend that people have one drive for their OS and applications, and a separate drive for recording audio. I get much better performance that way. Another thing to consider is how you partition the 80GB drive. If it's going to be the only drive in the machine, I would leave it as one partition. I have found that in a single drive configuration, using multiple partitions causes some performance issues when recording audio. On the other hand, ff you leave the small drive in to run your OS and apps, and use the new 80GB for storage and recording, I would partition the 80GB into at least 2 partitions.
Jan 31, 2003 05:03 pm I agree with blueninjastar, I totally recommend the same setup. My PC is a little 6GB harddrive that contain Windows XP and all the programs. Then a nice fast 60GB for audio, video and any other project files.
If problems happen with your OS you can even wipe out and rebuild your OS easily without risking any of your project files since they are on a totally separate drive.
Partitioning often time does adversly affect performance when you are dealing with as much IO and disk use a multimedia work does...plus with modern OS's there are not the same limitations in partition size that older OS's had that necesitated partitioning in the first place.
Jan 31, 2003 06:34 pm Nevertheless, I usually like to partition my large drives into several smaller ones so that I can more efficiently keep them defragged. It takes a long long time to defrag a large hard drive such as an 80GB.
DanMember
Since: Nov 21, 2002
Jan 31, 2003 06:37 pm So i guess i will pick one up tomorrow...cause i cant handle another day of this! Thanks guys
WaltChief Cook and Bottle WasherMember
Since: May 10, 2002
Feb 01, 2003 12:23 am Since your current primary is in such bad shape, if you stumble across a little 10,20,or 30 at a computer show or whatever, even if it is only 5400 go for that too for your apps. Will make big difference haveing a dedicated drive for work files.
