2 drives or 3?

[XenosoniK]

Hello, all. I am building a new DAW and I'm wondering if I need 2 drives or 3. My last PC had an OS drive with 2 partitions for a dual boot config, 1 audio drive for recording audio to, and 1 sample drive to stream samples direct from disk.

Am I doing this right by having 3 drives or do I really only need 2 drives? If the samples are loaded on the OS drive, would that hinder performance significantly or will I not be reading from the OS drive enough to warrant having a separate sample drive?

Thanks,

Xeno

[TimOBrien]

Depends entirely on how many samples you're streaming, if they are being loaded fully into memory or streamed as needed and probably a few other factors.

If you've got drive bay space, drives are SO cheap right now that you can't go wrong putting another one in there....

[arela]

When you build this PC yourself, you can always add HD's later.

[lionstar]

I would start with 2 drives if they are both SATA, Drive 1 for programs and Drive 2 for Audio. Can your mobo support more then 2 SATA drives, if it can then adding the an extra drive for samples sound like good idea you may need to change your psu to handle the extra load.

I have 2 drives and the performance it great their both 250Gb SATA, no bottle neck so far, i run Sonar 6PE, Project5 and Reason 3 with zero problems track wise.

Happy recording:)

[GZsound]

I would start with 2 drives if they are both SATA, Drive 1 for programs and Drive 2 for Audio. Can your mobo support more then 2 SATA drives, if it can then adding the an extra drive for samples sound like good idea you may need to change your psu to handle the extra load.

I have 2 drives and the performance it great their both 250Gb SATA, no bottle neck so far, i run Sonar 6PE, Project5 and Reason 3 with zero problems track wise.

Happy recording:)

I am discovering that having two SATA drives can lead to massive problems if a serious problem with Windows XP shows up.

I recently had both HD and memory chip problems and when I tried to load the Windows XP rescue console software from the CD, I was told I had NO HARD DRIVES installed. I am still trying to figure out how to solve that problem if my new main HD goes sideways on me.

I could not install Win XP from my install disk, couldn't format my main drive, etc. nothing... NO hard drives.. Even though I have two SATA drives installed.

Something about needing to load the disk array drivers from a floppy.. Pretty funny..no floppy drive in my computer either.

[lionstar]

The drives you installed, did you set the pin select on the back of the drive to Master for the os/program drive and select Slave on the second drive.

To check if the connections are working boot up the PC and go into the Bios you can check to see if the drive appear as primary and secondary HDD, if they do then i would reinstall XP as a fresh install from the CD.

I hope this helps sort out your problem.

All the best.

[GZsound]

The drives you installed, did you set the pin select on the back of the drive to Master for the os/program drive and select Slave on the second drive.

To check if the connections are working boot up the PC and go into the Bios you can check to see if the drive appear as primary and secondary HDD, if they do then i would reinstall XP as a fresh install from the CD.

I hope this helps sort out your problem.

All the best.


Thanks.. In the good old days of IDE drives, your suggestion would be correct.. However the SATA drives don't work that way apparently. They are on a "channel" and work as an array not master and slave.

The bios recognizes the two drives, Windows recognizes the two drives, but for some silly reason, the install CD of Windows XP requires the installation of an OEM driver from a floppy..

What is really interesting is that in my device manager, Windows has the two drives listed as SCSI drives even though they are SATA and not SCSI.

I think the problem is that SATA is too new and Windows too far behind the curve. I simply cannot figure out how to get what I need to make Windows recognize the SATA drives..

But THAT problem was solved by a tech who replaced my main drive and the bad stick of ram and loaded my copy of Windows XP Home on the new drive.

How he did it is a mystery to me.

[XenosoniK]

I went ahead and got 3 drives since they were ons sale.

GZSound, i had some problems setting up windows as well. I had to install a floppy drive just to use the disk that came with my motherboard. You have to press F6 at the right time when installing windows in order to install the drivers. I did this and windows was able to recognize and install to my Sata drive. but i'm still having problems setting up AHCI...

[GZsound]

I went ahead and got 3 drives since they were ons sale.

GZSound, i had some problems setting up windows as well. I had to install a floppy drive just to use the disk that came with my motherboard. You have to press F6 at the right time when installing windows in order to install the drivers. I did this and windows was able to recognize and install to my Sata drive. but i'm still having problems setting up AHCI...

Explain that again real slow...

You can install Windows to SATA drives simply by pressing F6 and the drivers will install? Do you mean that AFTER you installed a floppy drive, you could press F6 and install the drivers from the floppy?

I don't have the drivers OR a floppy and I'm not sure where to get the drivers..

The disk that came with my motherboard is a CD.

[itsplayed]

The drivers should be found on the MoBo install CD. These need to be transfered to a floppy and installed with widows by pressing the F6 key when prompted. You will come to a screen asking you to press ‘S’ to load additional controller drivers or to press ‘ENTER’ to continue with the installation. Be sure you press ‘S’ to load your SATA controller drivers. After pressing ‘S’, you will be prompted to insert a floppy disk with the updated drivers. The installation process specifically looks at the A: (floppy) drive for the updated drivers. This is a limitation imposed by the installation routine. You cannot load the drivers using any other media.

[GZsound]

Thanks very much for the information. Now all I need to do is buy a floppy drive and install it..

arrrgh..

[ecc83]

I got into a situation some 2yrs ago where my main pc would not "see" the cd drive and I needed to run the winxp disc. Fortunately the pc was networked to another one and when I set this cd drive to share, the other pc read it and I got out of the hole!

I find the comments about floppy booting very disconcerting, neither of my pcs have floppy drives, in fact it has virtually disappeared from new machines here in UK at least.

This leads me to think that there MUST be a way to do without them?

Dave.

[itsplayed]

I got into a situation some 2yrs ago where my main pc would not "see" the cd drive and I needed to run the winxp disc. Fortunately the pc was networked to another one and when I set this cd drive to share, the other pc read it and I got out of the hole!

I find the comments about floppy booting very disconcerting, neither of my pcs have floppy drives, in fact it has virtually disappeared from new machines here in UK at least.

This leads me to think that there MUST be a way to do without them?

Dave.

Yes there is, but the procedure is quite involved. You can create an XP install disk with the drivers in place. Here's a guide to the procedure, but installing that floppy drive is soooo much easier and the cost is negligible....
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1703

[ecc83]

Ok then, can I use a floppy in a caddy and usb?
Dave.

[itsplayed]

Ok then, can I use a floppy in a caddy and usb?
Dave.

Yes, the floppy in the caddy via USB should be recognized as an 'A' drive.

[ecc83]

Most kind. I shall get one p.d.q.

Ta, Dave.

[itsplayed]

Your welcome Dave, but just to be sure you'll not have an issue....boot into the BIOS and make sure your MoBo sports the boot from 'USB FDD' option....most boards today do. Otherwise, you'll need to go with an internal unit.

I have just found this interesting bit of important info for you. It would seem that your choices on a USB floppy device may be limited for the purpose of installing the SATA controller driver set. Look here....
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/916196/

[ecc83]

Very sorry, I was not clear. I do not have a SATA drive or any problems at the mo'. I have just downloaded sisoft and I shall check the usb boot situation.
To prove you are never finished with pc's, Sis tells me I should use a separate graphics card!

[itsplayed]

Very sorry, I was not clear. I do not have a SATA drive or any problems at the mo'. I have just downloaded sisoft and I shall check the usb boot situation.
To prove you are never finished with pc's, Sis tells me I should use a separate graphics card!

Not a problem, it's always good to be prepared. As far as a seperate graphics card is concerned, I could have told you that! :p lol. SiSoft Sandra is a great utility just the same. Anyway, I managed to track down one of the USB floppy models listed as compatible for you or anyone else that may be interested in doing the same....
http://www.gearxs.com/gearxs/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=27L4226

[SilentBob]

GZsound:

Do you have SP2 on your XP? I just built a new pc with XP SP2 and installed to a SATA drive with no problem.

A friend of mine who was also building a (the same) PC had a problem though. Windows seemed to assume that it was looking for an IDE drive and gave problems when it didn't see it. I think he just had to change something in the Bios.

[GZsound]

GZsound:

Do you have SP2 on your XP? I just built a new pc with XP SP2 and installed to a SATA drive with no problem.

A friend of mine who was also building a (the same) PC had a problem though. Windows seemed to assume that it was looking for an IDE drive and gave problems when it didn't see it. I think he just had to change something in the Bios.

Yes, I have SP2 installed. It appears the fix is to buy and install a floppy drive, get the SATA drive drivers from Maxtor, install them from the floppy drive and then HOPE my Windows XP install disk can find the stupid drives and install the recovery console.

All in all it's pretty frustrating.