Old 09-09-2007, 03:11 AM   #1
Bebop52
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Default 2nd hard drive? Internal/external?

Hi, I have an ancient AMD 2400 PC with only a very small 40gig hard drive. Lack of processor power means I keep having to render audio stems of midi tracks with effects to free up cpu. But of course the audio files are pretty huge. So I need a 2nd hard disk. My question is, will an external one that plugs into a USB port do the trick, or will it be too slow? I've looked up stuff on the net, and installing a 2nd internal hard drive sounds a bit complicated, even though some are cheaper than the external USB ones, which seem as easy as just plug into a port and go. I cannot afford a new faster dual-core PC yet, and most new PCs in UK come with Vista and only with only a gig of ram. As I understand it, Vista takes an awful lot of ram to run, and I don't need it's bells and whistles. Just having much more hard disk space for audio files would enable me to carry on working with my old PC for the near future. Any advice please? Cheers.
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Old 09-09-2007, 05:32 AM   #2
manning1
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be.
pay a pc tech a few buks or a drinkie to install a internal 7200 rpm 16mb cache drive. they are 80 buks.
best advice i can give you.
(ps i'm visiting me mum in kent this month
she is 88. )

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Old 09-09-2007, 04:40 PM   #3
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Be....

Frankly, I would suggest you buy an external USB drive. Make sure the drive is at leasy 7200RPM....8 MB cache would be nice. You can but 160 GB USB drives for under $100 in the US>..not sure in the UK...

The drive could then house all of your Reaper music files, etc. And when you do buy the new PC, you jusy plug this into the new PC, and everythigns there...I love external drives.....

On the Vista front...yes...do NOT try to run Vista with less than 2 GB ...it is a hog....
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Old 09-09-2007, 06:36 PM   #4
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Vista not only use alot of RAM it takes up alot of HD space also. I along with many others don't plan on moving to Vista.

As far as your 'antique' PC goes, there's probably more life left in it than you think. Add as much RAM as the motherboard can handle, replace the 40gig HD with a new larger one (there are programs to copy your old drive to the new drive usually included with the new HD), add a large 2nd internal HD while you are in there. Then add an external HD to store your music files and backups of your other important data. The HDs should be at least 7200 rpm, 16mb cache (8mb cache would be okay).
If your mobo (and your wallet) can handle it... upgrade the processor, AMD chips can be had fairly inexpensive these days. This is just my opinion, the final decision is yours
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Old 09-10-2007, 01:44 AM   #5
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Apologies if I have not understood (either the Q or the As) but I think that Bebop is asking whether a USB external drive is OK to record and playback his individual audio tracks to/from as well as back up his mixes.

Basically can you get audio in and out of an external drive as quickly as you can an internal one?
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Old 09-10-2007, 04:21 AM   #6
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Yep Spike, that's exactly what I am asking. Backup of final stereo mixes is not a problem, I can use DVDs if necessary, but will an external hard drive plugged into a USB port play back individual multi-track stems as well as an internal one would? That is, as fast, so I don't get glitching problems if I have say 20 audio tracks to mix in Reaper, all stored on the external drive? I realise there is USB 2.00 which is faster than the old USB standard, but is it fast enough for multi-track audio playback? And being a computer dummy, I don't know how to find out if my my USB ports are USB 2.00 or not. Nearly all external drives on sale in UK have an 8mb buffer, not a 16mb one, another factor I guess. Most of 320gigs cost about 50 or 60 UK pounds. Peanuts, I know, but not when you are living on state benefits due to serious disability.

Incidentally, I never have any problem with ram - I only have 1 gig, and my old machine will only support 2 gigs, but I don't use big sample based stuff, so there is always tons of ram left even with pretty complex projects. Processor power runs out pretty quick though on my machine - a Compaq desktop AMD 2400+ single core (actually 2 ghz clock speed despite the name), which is why I have to keep rendering audio stems. Cheers to all for all the replies - I am extremely strapped for cash, being on disability allowance, which isn't enough to feed a hamster, let alone do digital recording with any kind of ease, so I am looking for the cheapest possible solution at the moment. Cheers all again.
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Old 09-10-2007, 05:26 AM   #7
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OK Bebop, glad to hear we are on the same wavelength .

Until somebody proper comes along I'm afraid I am going to guess (pretend guess is bold and underlined) that USB drive will not do it. I just can't see that it is going to be as fast as internal gear. The fact that the answers above mine didn't even consider that we might be talking about recording and playing back multi-tracks suggests that it is not a done thing. I think you might hear about it more if it was. Imagine the convenience of being able to show up with a USB or firewire drive full of multi-tracks ready for mixing or overdubs or whatever.

I did see on Harmony Central a thread started about whether, now that USB pen drives are getting bigger and cheaper, they could be used for this purpose. While it's still USB, it's solid state memory rather than a drive. The question was never really resolved on that thread so again someone proper might be able to weigh on that too.

Lastly Bebop, I am a buffoon of the highest order when it comes to most things but computers in particular and I managed to install a second hard drive .
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Old 09-10-2007, 06:13 AM   #8
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OK...lets look....if you go buy a PT rig, they only support external firewire, Oxford chipset to boot, very particular. The external firewire drives for PT users run at about 400 Mbps throughput. And according to Digi, that is sufficient for there use. They do not recommend internal drives, and absolutely do not support SUB.

I personally do not do lots of tracks...probably max out at 8 or 9 tracks with modest FX. So I am a light user in my estimation. But, from a throughput perspective, I really think you would find a USB 2.0 drive, running at least 7200 RPM, with 8 or 16 MB cache, to be quite fast....USB 2.0 runs at about the same speed as the Oxford firewire that Digi recommends, 400 Mbps, .....

Lastly, I know that money is always an issue...sounds like even more for you...look up your mothyerboard..or at least your system on the Internet and find out if any of the ports support USB 2.0...if not, USB 2.0 PCI cards for your PC are readily available for under $20 US.....

You could put a second drive in your system. There are lots of tutorials on the Internet. I just bought a new 120 GB drive for $45 US...so they are pretty cheap. If you do buy a second drive, it would be best if that drive were hooked inside your PC, on the motherboard, to the Secondary IDE controller....all PCs have 2 controllers on the motherboard for drives. Connecting the new drive to the Secondary controller will allow the drive to NOT Share the controller with the main drive. It gives it a separate drive channel for reads and writes.....

Look it up online...lots of resources out there.......
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Old 09-14-2007, 03:50 AM   #9
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internals are always cheaper
internals are faster then USB2 / Firewire
externals with eSATA are as fast as internals

500gb = 100 euro
both internal and external
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