[realmusicians] Re: Hard Drive Choices

  • From: Chris Belle <cb1963@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: realmusicians@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sat, 26 Nov 2011 11:36:33 -0600

Well, take your pick amongst class compliant cheap audio devices, don't know if you'll get that plus storage on one thumb drive, but they make everything now perhaps something like one of the portable recorders, but even those you have to switch between data mode or sound card mode.


Nvda portable is a good choice, that's the version I always use, leaving it on another partition than my system drive and just making a short cut or typing the command to run it as needed.

At 12:47 AM 11/26/2011, you wrote:
What I'd like is NVDA Portable and some kind of audio device on a thumb drive.
What an emergency tool that would be.
You could plug it into any computer and work right away, like in those library computers. nothing much is installed on the host computer, though I find that NVDA portable does leave a few files behind after you pull the thumb drive out.

On 11/26/2011 12:16 AM, Chris Belle wrote:
hard-drives are all experiencing artificially jacked up prices now
because of the flooding in China, and even though western digital was
the only one hit really hard, everybody's trying to get a little extra
pie right now.

Those samsung drives are cool too, and quiet, the baracudas's aren't
very quiet from what I understand, and even though I have a separate
tracking room, keeping the noise down in the control room is always a
good thing where critical listening happens.

Caddy's have always been a good idea even when you had to screw a piece
on to the drive, and when i couldn't get another one when they were sold
out, I got an esata external caddy instead as another option.

That's good too, and it also acts as a usb caddy.

when hooked up as esata, it acts just like an internal drive, the
computer doesn't know any different.

the only difference in esata is the kind of connector, it terminates in
a sata connection inside the machine anyway.

so, how ever you do it, your golden.

If the bios really does go away soon, usb 3 may end up being as good as
a sata connection as they claim bi directional transfers and if we don't
have to deal with hand off routines between windows and the bios, then
usb will be an easy boot option instead of having to rig things to get
it to happen in windows.

Casper can make a usb bootable drive, but it's not something I'd trust
except to resore backups.

I actually had xp running off a thumb drive once just for funnies.

It ran slow, but it ran.

I don't know what voodoo casper is doing to make that happen, but this
is where having to mix and match and make older and newer technology
work together didn't work so well.

In some cases, it's beter to let the bios handle things, in others, let
windows deal with it.

for instance, leaving ahci mode turned off in the bios makes it a hell
of a lot easier to install xp without having to deal with textmode drivers,
allowing your sata connectors to immulate ide which windows knows about.

I think with windows 7, daw vendors are starting to allow windows to
handle that stuff since the performance is slightly better, but many daw
vendors still like to turn off ahci mode.

Also, translation issues since these drives are getting so big, it's
simply not possible to store the big numbers in the bios with small memory,
you should go read about this stuff sometimes, it'll make your head spin
and wonder how any of this stuff ever worked in the first place?

It truly in a crazy situation where we have 1980s technology trying to
play with 2011 technology and just sort of half assed working.

At 10:54 PM 11/25/2011, you wrote:
Since Chris told me how fast his SamSung SpinPoint F3's are, I looked
into them, and they're revolutionary for sure.
The F3's were the first to put 500 gigs on a single platter, so the 1
TB drive only has 2 platters, while others have 4 or 5.
2 platters means less spinning mass, fewer mechanisms inside, smaller
motor, way quieter, quicker seek time, and possibly longer life.
They are shown for $59 to $79 at various places, but when you go
there, they're on back order, with no certainty as to when more will
come in.
NewEgg says they'll ship today, for $169.99.
Gee Thanks, I think I'll hang on a bit and learn what happens,as SATA
3 drives impact the market.
There's already a new SATA 3Barracuda for $120, with 6 gigs per second
transfer, not 3 like SATA 2 drives, and 64 meg cache.
Today I found a SATA 3 compatible header that goes in a PCIA slot.
I don't know its price yet, but what if you could get the sata 3 drive
plus the sata 3 adapter for the price of a sata 2 drive.
All the stuff advances every day, and sellers will often price older
technology at higher prices than the latest stuff.
I found 5400 rpm F1 and F2's at $160 to $170, as much as the 7200 rpm
F3's, and F3's with 16 meg cache priced as high as F3's with 32 meg
cache.

One thing I'm convinced of now, even a single caddy, or docking
station is a great and very affordable idea, then you can pick up
extra drives as you find them at good prices, do backup images like
Ross McGregor is doing, and, most of all, isolate Reason 6 and that
nasty Code Metor on a drive by its lonesome, so it can't screw up
everything else.
Even though I don't really mind Unplugging the mouse and keyboard,
Reason ignition key, monitor plug, power plug, removing both case side
panels, that's 4 screws to take out and put back in, removing 4 more
screws that hold the drive, that's 8 more moves, unplugging stubborn
cables from the drive's back and plugging them back into the new
drive, replacing both case sides, replacing all the cables, how can
all that compare to a couple of seconds for plugging the bare drive
into the caddy?

Indigo L

For all your audio production needs and technology training, visit us at

www.affordablestudioservices.com
or contact
Chris Belle
cb1963@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
or
Stephie Belle
stephieb1961@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
for customized web design


For all your audio production needs and technology training, visit us at

www.affordablestudioservices.com
or contact
Chris Belle
cb1963@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
or
Stephie Belle
stephieb1961@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
for customized web design


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