OS and Hardrive setup advice

[Mot Bollox]

I'm in the process of setting up a DAW based around a using a PII 400, wave terminal 192L (I haven't purchased this yet) , sonar 1.0, a 40g WD Hardive and an older 4g Maxtor

I've been told that I need at least win 98se
for the soundcard. Any advice on whether 98se or Xp would be better for my setup?

Also any advice on the best way to setting up my hardrives? Partitioning etc?

Thanks

[xtern]

Go w/ win98SE, XP will be too resource hungry for you pc.

You can partition your OS n' apps on the primary and audio file on the secondary, might help a little bit with speeds.

[Herman Munster]

You should upgrade to Sonar 1.31 if you can as it fixes a number of issues from version 1.0.

Also, get at least 256M of ram (more if you can swing it), and optimise your pc for audio (this is especially important in your case, with the slowish processor).

Regards,
Herm

[knowdoubt]

Set your 4 Gig as OS/Apps on primary IDE & put the 40 gig on the secondary IDE for audio files. You may want to partition the 4 Gig into 1 Gig for OS & 3 Gig for Apps merely for system restore convenience (not a performance optimization). Setup like this you can backkup a Ghost image (using the program 'Ghost')of your C (OS) partition after youve installed all your apps & if your system ever gets funky & you feel you need to reinstall the OS & everything it makes it very quick & convenient because you just have to restore the ghost image instead of going through the instal procedure for everything. You can still do a decent amount with a PII-400 but I hope you got it for a song (pun intended), because you could buy a fair amount more power these days pretty cheap.

[This message has been edited by knowdoubt (edited 02-28-2003).]

[Mot Bollox]

I bought the computer years ago so cost isn't an issue I'm just "upgrading" it a little.

One question does the audio drive include the audio program (sonar ) on it or does that go on the apps drive?

[knowdoubt]

The audio program (Sonar) goes on the Apps drive. The audio drive is just for the actual audio wave files. You'll need to tell Sonar to record to the audio drive. Refer to Sonar's help files for how to do that.

[mrmoviescore]

I dont think you really need to partition the 4GB hdd at all, like they said its for convience cause it wont optimize your pc at all, but its nots that much more convinent.

Always use the Second HDD for Audio, what speed is the HDD?

[Mot Bollox]

The WD 40gig is 7200rpm
I assume the maxtor is 5400rpm

[knowdoubt]

Originally posted by mrmoviescore:
I dont think you really need to partition the 4GB hdd at all, like they said its for convience cause it wont optimize your pc at all, but its nots that much more convinent.

Always use the Second HDD for Audio, what speed is the HDD?

IMO separating OS & Apps is a lot more convenient & sensible for the sake of system restore. Separating the OS & Apps allows you to make a much smaller Ghost image of a complete system restore as you can Ghost your OS & all the registry entries & DLL files that the Apps install to the OS (no need for the bulk of the app files which will be installed to the 2nd partition). Also (more important) any work files accumulated that may have been saved to the App directories &/or partition will not then be overwritten with a system restore, so there will be no need to back them up before restoring. This Ghost image is then small enough to store on a single CDR or you can even store it on the 2nd partition (Apps partition) or audio drive. If ever you want to do a system restore (reinstall your OS & Apps) you simply restore your OS partition with the Ghost image you've stored on CDR or another partition & there's no need to reinstall each app separately. Of course with the OS & Apps on 1 partition you could Ghost it all & store it on the Audio drive but this could be a much larger Ghost image (depending on what apps) & thus not as efficient use of space, plus any work files stored on the OS/App partition will be lost with the restore so they would have to be backed up 1st (big pain in the butt).

In either case though, for IE & Outlook Express you still may need to backup your Internet favorites & your email accounts & address book before a restore as some of that is stored in the OS partition.

Again, performance isn't effected one way or the other so why not go for the restore benefits?

[This message has been edited by knowdoubt (edited 03-05-2003).]