Record audio to internal drive ?

bman · Post by **bman** » Sat Aug 04, 2007 3:02 am

This has probably be covered, but, is it best to record on internal drive or to external drive....(new imac 20")..Thanks..

Frodo · Post by **Frodo** » Sat Aug 04, 2007 3:06 am

External-- always to be safe.

You can record to your internal drive, but your mileage WILL vary.

the internal drive is busy with virtual memory and other system tasks.

bman · Post by **bman** » Sat Aug 04, 2007 3:09 am

Thanks..What are the best drives..

Frodo · Post by **Frodo** » Sat Aug 04, 2007 3:14 am

For an iMac, there are not a lot of options except for firewire. I would avoid USB drives because they deliver data in package bursts-- chunks at a time-- and do not stream smoothly the way firewire drives do. This could otherwise result in glitchy audio.

I would take a look at G-Technology's G Drives
http://www.g-technology.com/Products/G-DRIVE.cfm

or Glyph's GT series:
http://www.glyphtech.com/site/index.html

zed · Post by **zed** » Sat Aug 04, 2007 4:17 am

And I would think you would definitely want to go with a drive that supports firewire 800. It is much faster than firewire 400.

Twice as fast, actually!

Oh oh... but make sure the iMac has a firewire 800 port... maybe it doesn't.

larryf · Post by **larryf** » Sat Aug 04, 2007 4:25 am

Hi...I have an iMac 24 ", got it in March. Congratulations on a fine purchase!

Don't futze around trying to record audio to the internal drive. It'd probably work for a single track recording. It did for me. But this is not the solution. You are begging for system crashes and dp's unexpected closes, right in the middle of recording.

You have to get a really good external hard drive for audio recording. And you may not have thought of this, but if you're going to use VI's, you want an external HD for that, too (although you could get by in the very short term with one external drive). So you'll have 2 HD's operating off the same FW port. Though there has been much skepticism, here and elsewere, about doing audio recording/playback and VI streaming off the same FW port, I've never had a problem, and it's a moot point anyway, because that is your only option with the iMac. Depending on the size of your projects, this architecture works quite well. I've had many projects with around 20 audio tracks in playback, plus streaming around 6 to 10 Kontakt instruments and Battery (including huge acoustic piano samples) plus recording a new track or two, and had absolutely no problem at all. I assume there is some reason why everyone thinks that FW cannot handle the load, but honestly I have never had a problem, and I've pushed it moderately hard. And, I have my audio interface on the same FW port, too, because, again, that is the only option with the iMac (except possibly using a USB port for the audio interface).

Now, one thing you need to think about is getting the best external HD's you can afford. There's quite a range, from the $400 and up Glyphs to the $129 mybook 500 gigabyte drive at Circuit City. This really is the key to getting the performance out of your setup. I started out with a cheapo eHD, and the streaming was spotty. Then I got another budget HD and it, too, was poor in performance. It was only after I stepped up to the Glyph 062 RAID0 that things started humming. That is a 7200 rpm Seagate dual drive with a 16 mb cache, and it is very, very fast, able to handle any typical project audio activity. Not to be a shill for Glyph - maybe there are other "higher end" solutions without a Glyph logo on it - but there's no doubt that a Glyph external HD will get the job done. You get what you pay for.

Anyway, the most important thing in using an iMac for audio work is to get good external drives, regardless of brand, and not to be suckered in by the lowball prices of offbrand HD vendors. that's my point.

best,

Larry

larryf · Post by **larryf** » Sat Aug 04, 2007 4:32 am

ps the Glyph 062 is a FW800 drive. Definitely get FW800, whatever you end up buying, not FW400.

larryf · Post by **larryf** » Sat Aug 04, 2007 4:39 am

...just checked out the G-tech site. For 500 gigs, the Gtech is $380 vs Glyph's $450. AND, the G-tech has 32 mg cache vs. the Clyph's 16. Same Oxford chip set. So...maybe the G-tech is a better deal. G-tech is a Hitachi drive, versus Glyph's Seagate, if that matters to you.

6 of 1, 1/2 dozen of the other, I guess

bman · Post by **bman** » Sat Aug 04, 2007 6:18 am

Once again, Thanks for your advise..Brian

mhschmieder · Post by **mhschmieder** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 6:34 pm

Guitar Centre's August anniversary sale pamphlet lists the 320 GB Glyph quad-interface GT050Q drive at $259 plus $50 mail-in rebate and the 500 GB drive at $369 plus $100 mail-in rebate. This matches FullCompass, the best prices on-line for Glyph, and as far as I can tell today, no one else offers the mail-in rebates.

Unfortunately, the Guitar Centre website lists the old price on the 500 GB drive, and doesn't mention the rebates. When I called the local store, they confirmed that none of the SF Bay Area stores carry the Glyph drives. They recommended checking the website periodically for updates and ordering once the info matches the August anniversary sale pamphlet.

I had just decided to go with newertechnologies ministack v3 a few weeks back, after confirming that the 750 GB drive from Western Digital is best-in-class (they use a Maxtor drive for the 500 GB model), but was waiting until this week to place the order as I don't like pre-ordering in case release schedules slip (they were officially released on Friday).

But now I am inclined to go with the brand that I know and trust (Glyph), with these greatly reduced prices, depending on availability and the terms of the rebate (I have had a somewhat spotty history with not receiving rebates in the past, though usually the problem gets ironed out through persistence). A 500 GB drive will do for now, but the 750 GB drive would last me longer. No big deal really, as prices fluctuate constantly.

My current 400 GB Glyph single-interface GT050 is the most reliable (and quiet) drive that I have ever owned. It is possible that newertechnologies has applied some of the same lessons with the ministack v3, but I have yet to hear any feedback from audio/video professionals.

The G-Tech is convection-cooled only from what I can tell. That makes me a bit nervous, but they get high ratings from audio/video professionals.

EZQuest makes similar drives using the Hitachi mechanism, and I recently sold my 320 GB backup drive in anticipation of buying a larger main drive and swapping out my 400 GB Glyph to become my new backup drive. The EZQuest was a bit noisier than the Glyph but quite reliable.

There are build-your-own enclosures, but when I priced out the Total Cost of OEM drives with enclosures, they came pretty close to "professional" solutions from newertechnologies and the newly-marked-down Glyph drives. The G-Tech drives seem the most expensive "professional" solution at this point in time, but prices are always subject to change...

I am no longer having the issues that I reported a few weeks back, so expect that my newly-swapped-out TC Electronic Powercore Firewire unit has greatly improved my unfortunate but unavoidable setup of an iMac with three Firewire devices sharing two on-board FW400 ports. With a FW800 quad-drive, I am hoping to improve things further by putting the RME Fireface 800 first in the chain followed by the FW800 drive (this is not possible with the FW400 drive due to the Fireface only having a single FW400 port and my computer having no FW800 ports).

I am doing lots of orchestral scoring these days, especially making heavy use of Vienna Instruments, and have had no glitches to speak of. I tend to track as I go as I have a pretty clear idea of where things are going anyway, but even so, I think this is good testimony to a Firewire setup being workable on even a long-term basis, and certainly superior to the internal drive which is quite busy with other tasks.

Frodo · Post by **Frodo** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 6:43 pm

mhschmieder wrote:... I think this is good testimony to a Firewire setup being workable on even a long-term basis, and certainly superior to the internal drive which is quite busy with other tasks.

Amen.

zed · Post by **zed** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 6:46 pm

larryf wrote:...just checked out the G-tech site. For 500 gigs, the Gtech is $380 vs Glyph's $450.

Gosh these prices all seem awfully high. I know the price of a higher quality enclosure costs a little more, but sheessh.

I'm up in Canada, and I just bought a couple 500GB Sata drives for only $135 each (Seagate Barracudas). That is in Canadian dollars!

And for much less than the prices larryf mentioned above I also got a Weibetech external enclosure traydock (for which I give 2 thumbs up):
http://www.wiebetech.com/products/RTX100.php

mhschmieder · Post by **mhschmieder** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 6:53 pm

I think the Oxford chip, whether the FW400-only 911 chip or the quad-interface 924 chip, is a significant part of the enclosure add-on price, but so is the vibration-resistant architecture.

If you add up the total cost of a home kit for an EXTERNAL drive vs. an internal drive (whether ready-to-install or OEM-only), I think you will find that the markup is less than 25% of total cost.

mhschmieder · Post by **mhschmieder** » Tue Aug 07, 2007 2:16 pm

The Guitar Centre website now has the updated pricing information for the Glyph drives, along with the PDF forms for the rebates. The rebates are good until 30 September 2007.

mhschmieder · Post by **mhschmieder** » Tue Aug 07, 2007 2:31 pm

One of the sites for comparing hard drives and other hardware (vs. just reading user reviews on n ewegg.com or looking at third-party comparison charts from that other source that I have not yet tracked down), is Tom's Hardware (http://www.tomshardware.com).

here is a good read on the WD Caviar drive used in newertechnologies ministack v3 750 GB drive (released last week):

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/07/06/ ... hard_disk/

Hard drive companies are constantly leapfrogging each other every nine to twelve months, and WD seems to currently have the edge over Seagate, just as Hitachi crept ahead last year. We all win

.

To me, this reinforces reliability as the main factor in choosing a drive. I still see conflicting information on that score, but the more important criteria may be return policies (newegg.com is excellent for this) as well as warranty period (Seagate still trumps the others on this spec).