Optimum drive configuration for DP7

[Gone To Lunch]

The DP 7 manual says on p117 "..you can store audio files for a single DP project on several different hard drives. This can help improve the overall performance of your system because it distributes the intensive disk accessing burden across more than one disk.."

I have just bought DP7, MOTU 828 mk3 and a "pre-enjoyed" quad G5, OS 10.5.4, and have decided to put new HDs in, (it can take two) and want to know the technicalites of presumably read/write efficiency re OS, application, sample libraries and all the rest of it, in order to get the best out of my DP ?

So which files where ? is there an optimum G5 quad configuration regarding where OS, audio and Apps live across two drives ? Is it (or not) better to spread out OS, applications, libraries etc across disk(s) differentially, or just duplicate ?

Is two 500MBs better than one TB ? Why ? How to design a backup restore plan from various drives...?

Do external drives have a role here ? (As well as for back-ups.)

[Frodo]

and want to know the technicalites of presumably read/write efficiency re OS, application, sample libraries and all the rest of it, in order to get the best out of my DP ?

Different people have reported different experiences with different manufacturers of hard drives, so as soon as I've recommended a particular type of drive that has worked for me someone else might have their own reasons for avoiding that drive.

However-- 7200 rpm or faster is the most important thing to remember.

So which files where ? is there an optimum G5 quad configuration regarding where OS, audio and Apps live across two drives ? Is it (or not) better to spread out OS, applications, libraries etc across disk(s) differentially, or just duplicate ?

DP itself should reside on your System Drive (because is has to). All of your VIs and plugins will also reside on your System Drive in the Library>Plugins folder.

Your DP projects (along with the audio files associated with that project) should probably remain together for ease of managing projects over time. I would keep the DP projects with their respective audio off the System Drive-- perhaps on a firewire drive. I would then recommend that your second internal be used for virtual instruments.

Is two 500MBs better than one TB ? Why ?

Yes, because the larger the drive the longer the seek time when streaming audio or sample libraries.

How to design a backup restore plan from various drives...?

For a PPC Mac like yours, I would look into backup and maintenance utilities like Retrospect or similar-- as well as Disk Warrior.

Do external drives have a role here ? (As well as for back-ups.)

Yes. As mentioned above, external firewire drives can come in handy for adding another data path apart from your second internal. Another option is to look into a PCI (e or x) card for the purpose of adding an eSATA or RAID series of drives. These can allow for 20 drives to be connected to your PCI (e or x) slot, which would offer somewhat better performance than even an external firewire drive.

The important thing to remember is that by spreading different types of data across different drives, each drive doesn't have to work so hard seeking and transferring data. Also, if those drives are connected to different data paths from one another, each data path will have less data traffic clogging the data buss. As mentioned, the different data paths include:

1. Internal SATA
2. External SATA
3. Firewire

USB2 is fine for archiving, but not for streaming.

Hope that helps.

[Shooshie]

There's a lot of info to write about that. I'm not of the mood right now to address this completely, but I've done so many times in the past. Why don't you search the forum for "Hard Drives" and see if you can find what I or several others have written about distributing the load across multiple drives?

Shooshie

[Shooshie]

Wups... never mind. Thank you, Frodo. Our posts slipped in one after the other.

Shoosh

PS: one more thing... use your imagination to trace the paths of data, and the order that DP is calling it. Try to load your drives so that things being called simultaneously are on different drives.

[Gone To Lunch]

Thank you all for your help. Much appreciated...

I'm now going drive shopping.

[Gone To Lunch]

Frodo, I have a question :

You suggested that :

DP itself should reside on your System Drive (because is has to). All of your VIs and plugins will also reside on your System Drive in the Library>Plugins folder....

I would then recommend that your second internal be used for virtual instruments.

Given that I will have a 3-drive set up :

Int Sata 1 = system & DP
Int Sata 2 = libraries etc
Ext Firewire = Project folder inc audio

So should I put the VIs on the system drive, or the second internal drive ?

[jloeb]

There are at least two components to a virtual instrument that plays samples:

1) the software engine that invokes the samples, i.e. the plugin itself (for example, the PLAY Symphonic Orchestra AU plugin), which is small in size

2) the sample library that the plugin streams from disk and plays back (i.e. Symphonic Orchestra brass, percussion, string and woodwind sample libraries), which is large in size.

When Frodo says the VI's should reside on your system disk, he is referring to the plugins themselves, which are (and, as far as i know, have to be) installed in the system library in your Plugins folder.

When he says your second drive should be dedicated to your virtual instruments, he means the sample libraries that those VI's in your system folder will stream.

Frodo, I have a question :

You suggested that :

DP itself should reside on your System Drive (because is has to). All of your VIs and plugins will also reside on your System Drive in the Library>Plugins folder....

I would then recommend that your second internal be used for virtual instruments.

Given that I will have a 3-drive set up :

Int Sata 1 = system & DP
Int Sata 2 = libraries etc
Ext Firewire = Project folder inc audio

So should I put the VIs on the system drive, or the second internal drive ?

[Gone To Lunch]

Thank you so much for taking the trouble to explain, it is very helpful.

For the last six years I have been using DP 2.7 on an even older G4, and am now upgrading to DP 7.

(Technical) things have certainly moved on in the meantime!

And some of my hardware are now collectors items on ebay.

Thanks again