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Post by Omicron9 on Apr 15, 2022 12:11:50 GMT -6
Greetings.
I'm not sure if I can explain/describe this very well, but here goes. For my two studio dedicated laptops, each has two internal hard drives. The C: drive contains the OS and applications. I record to the D: drive. No issues, no glitches or digital errors or dropouts. All is perfect.
Prior to adding the 2nd hard drives and recording to the C: drive, tracks would have glitches, clicks, pops; digital errors. Two hard drives, in my experience/world, eliminated those issues.
I see some newer high-end laptops seem to be limited to a single internal hard drive. Does anyone know if partitioning that single drive into two (in other words, the two partitions show up as drives C: and D:, even tho it's one physical drive) would have the same effect as having two physical hard drives? Again, IOW: all OS and applications are on C:, and you're recording to D:.
Anyone ever try something like that? If so, what were your findings?
TIA,
-09
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Post by yewtreemagic on Apr 15, 2022 12:34:51 GMT -6
Sadly no, partitioning a single drive is actually likely to make your audio glitching even worse.
With two drives, every call to a system file or application file will happen on one drive, while audio reads and writes will happen on the other one, without any interference between the two.
With a single drive partitioned into two areas, each call by the operating system will cause the read/write heads to jump to one area, while calls to the audio partition will result in a jump to an entirely different area of the drive. This is actually even worse performance-wise than having everything on a single partition, since then at least the jumps might often be physically smaller.
If it's possible, a better solution might be a second external drive for audio, assuming you have a fast connection between that and the laptop.
Hope this helps!
Martin
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Post by Omicron9 on Apr 15, 2022 12:42:28 GMT -6
Sadly no, partitioning a single drive is actually likely to make your audio glitching even worse. With two drives, every call to a system file or application file will happen on one drive, while audio reads and writes will happen on the other one, without any interference between the two. With a single drive partitioned into two areas, each call by the operating system will cause the read/write heads to jump to one area, while calls to the audio partition will result in a jump to an entirely different area of the drive. This is actually even worse performance-wise than having everything on a single partition, since then at least the jumps might often be physically smaller. If it's possible, a better solution might be a second external drive for audio, assuming you have a fast connection between that and the laptop. Hope this helps! Martin Thank you, Martin. I wonder what would happen if the drive wasn't a spinning platter drive, but an SSD; either SATA or M2. -kk |
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Post by the other mark williams on Apr 15, 2022 13:32:23 GMT -6
Sadly no, partitioning a single drive is actually likely to make your audio glitching even worse. With two drives, every call to a system file or application file will happen on one drive, while audio reads and writes will happen on the other one, without any interference between the two. With a single drive partitioned into two areas, each call by the operating system will cause the read/write heads to jump to one area, while calls to the audio partition will result in a jump to an entirely different area of the drive. This is actually even worse performance-wise than having everything on a single partition, since then at least the jumps might often be physically smaller. If it's possible, a better solution might be a second external drive for audio, assuming you have a fast connection between that and the laptop. Hope this helps! Martin Thank you, Martin. I wonder what would happen if the drive wasn't a spinning platter drive, but an SSD; either SATA or M2. -kk While it’s generally best practice to not record onto the same drive where the applications are stored, if that drive is a large SSD, it is doubtful you will run into any problems. SSDs are a different world than spinning platters. |
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Post by svart on Apr 15, 2022 14:29:32 GMT -6
I don't see how a modern SSD would have issues with read/write timings. It was an issue on old spinny HDDs because the read and write heads were both on the same armature and the mechanical latency determined the minimum system latency so that heavy writes or reads would dominate and you'd have glitches.
Modern SSDs can do this in parallel as far as I know and have hugely increased R/W speeds overall anyway.
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Post by popmann on Apr 15, 2022 15:07:32 GMT -6
A modern SSD is PERFECTLY ok to do projects on...I mean you're not doing like 200 tracks 384khz, right? I don't know once you get out into some left field uuge resolution, but...I ran projects on my fast system drive on the new machine. 32/96 (the 32 float at the time due to a Mixbus bug)...40-50 tracks? I bring it up the since fixed bug, because those were relatively HUGE disk IO projects because of that...and didn't even raise the disk meter off 0 except for milliseconds scrubbing around...
This is antique half truth wisdom along with "more RAM makes the computer faster"...
Now, I WILL say...it's cleaner from a file management/backup standpoint to have your project files on secondary drive. And honestly, unless you're doing high edit density combined with 96k+, USB3 (and certainly USBC) is FINE.
Audio projects are completely different in the "need" versus virtual instruments, which are ABSOLUTELY gimped by an external USB drive. DAWs can preload and buffer audio files as needed to keep it smooth. Versus virtual instrument libraries that can't and have to stream samples AS you play them "live" in the process buffer's time.
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Post by mattbroiler on Apr 16, 2022 10:57:43 GMT -6
Single ssd is more than adequate no doubt however I think adding another drive does work better, certainly no worse In those situations I use an external usb 3.0 to sata drive adapter (with UASP) paired with an ssd and that makes an easy fast reliable storage drive (must be connected to high speed usb port not usb 2.0). These STartech adapters work well: www.newegg.com/startech-com-usb312sat3cb/p/N82E16812400693?Item=N82E16812400693 |
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Post by lpedrum on Apr 16, 2022 12:52:19 GMT -6
For years I recorded and mixed with the internal two drive setup as you describe. However, last year I bought an M1 Mac mini with one internal SSD and have been using an external SSD as the project drive. There's no noticeable performance difference to me and it works like a charm.
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Post by notneeson on Apr 16, 2022 13:28:33 GMT -6
Fun story:
My first Pro Tools setup was the first gen. m-box circa 1999. I had used Sound Designer II prior to that, didn't own it but it got my very interested in DAWs.
Anyway, the computer available to me at the time was an early iMac, the Bondi blue one with a single internal drive. This was before firewire, and USB drives weren't viable for sessions until much later, probably USB 2.0. No SCSI on an iMac, of course.
In order to get a viable session drive going, I disassembled the iMac, disconnected the CD-R drive and used it's IDE buss to run a drive that I kept on an umbilical cord that came out of the slot where the CD-R drive used to go.
Crazy, but it worked quite well until I could afford a G4 a few years later.
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ericn
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Post by ericn on Apr 16, 2022 22:08:03 GMT -6
I don't see how a modern SSD would have issues with read/write timings. It was an issue on old spinny HDDs because the read and write heads were both on the same armature and the mechanical latency determined the minimum system latency so that heavy writes or reads would dominate and you'd have glitches. Modern SSDs can do this in parallel as far as I know and have hugely increased R/W speeds overall anyway. I’m not disagreeing Chris, but I think the optimal language here is not a modern SSD but his drive. We both know it’s easy to exist in the very broad world of the theory. But my gut ( and you know my gut l) says his drive has a problem. |
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Post by Omicron9 on Apr 17, 2022 8:05:37 GMT -6
Thanks for all the info, everyone.
But to be extra-clear here: I'm asking about using a single laptop SSD drive for tracking. In other words, OS, apps, and tracking all to the same SSD.
My question is not "can I use an SSD for tracking."
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Post by notneeson on Apr 17, 2022 10:39:41 GMT -6
Thanks for all the info, everyone. But to be extra-clear here: I'm asking about using a single laptop SSD drive for tracking. In other words, OS, apps, and tracking all to the same SSD. My question is not "can I use an SSD for tracking." I agree that it’s likely to work. I’ve run sessions off the internal SSD on my MacBook Pro and it’s been ok. Have not stress tested though. But, I don’t see any good reason not to use external drives though, your C drive will fill up fast doing full productions and that’s a bigger issue than read/write times in this day and age. Unless maybe it’s a field recording or something. |
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Post by Omicron9 on Apr 18, 2022 14:34:28 GMT -6
Thanks for all the info, everyone. But to be extra-clear here: I'm asking about using a single laptop SSD drive for tracking. In other words, OS, apps, and tracking all to the same SSD. My question is not "can I use an SSD for tracking." I agree that it’s likely to work. I’ve run sessions off the internal SSD on my MacBook Pro and it’s been ok. Have not stress tested though. But, I don’t see any good reason not to use external drives though, your C drive will fill up fast doing full productions and that’s a bigger issue than read/write times in this day and age. Unless maybe it’s a field recording or something. I've tried external drives for tracking and experienced clicks/pops/glitches. A 1-TB internal SSD would take me a long time to fill, as I'm usually tracking between 2 - 6 tracks per session. And I would move tracks off that drive when the session was finished. Thanks again for all the shared thoughts/experiences, everyone. -09 |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 18, 2022 14:56:42 GMT -6
Thanks for all the info, everyone. But to be extra-clear here: I'm asking about using a single laptop SSD drive for tracking. In other words, OS, apps, and tracking all to the same SSD. My question is not "can I use an SSD for tracking." You'll be fine but back it up daily in case you want to reflash the internal drive because something happens. |
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Post by notneeson on Apr 19, 2022 13:21:57 GMT -6
I agree that it’s likely to work. I’ve run sessions off the internal SSD on my MacBook Pro and it’s been ok. Have not stress tested though. But, I don’t see any good reason not to use external drives though, your C drive will fill up fast doing full productions and that’s a bigger issue than read/write times in this day and age. Unless maybe it’s a field recording or something. I've tried external drives for tracking and experienced clicks/pops/glitches. A 1-TB internal SSD would take me a long time to fill, as I'm usually tracking between 2 - 6 tracks per session. And I would move tracks off that drive when the session was finished. Thanks again for all the shared thoughts/experiences, everyone. -09 Well, sounds like you have a solution then. But just for the record, the issues you describe are not endemic to tracking to external drives, which is a very standard practice in pro audio. Must be something particular to your setup. |
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Post by pessoa on Apr 21, 2022 1:54:32 GMT -6
I did not know recording to a different partition can cause problems. Might have to move my projects and samples over to C:...
Pops and crackles seems mostly to come from overloading the cpu doing other stuff on the computer while listening though.
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Post by reddirt on Apr 21, 2022 2:59:17 GMT -6
As notneeson says, it should never be a prob with crackles/pops tracking to external drives and in fact would be the industry standard way. As to tracking to on board that also works and I do it when recording quick remote gigs and save files as back up to thumb drives. I have done a whole album that way of max 4 tracks at once with no signs of issues.
My preference though is to take the stress off the onboard 7200 spinner drive ( it's an old machine) and use an outboard - Firewire and USB. Ive no SSD experience which would be faster again.
Hope this helps.
Cheers, Ross
P.S. was not using partitions
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Post by BenjaminAshlin on Apr 21, 2022 3:40:59 GMT -6
Why anyone would have a spinning disk in their computer for anything other than backup is beyond me.... Recording onto a single SSD is fine, audio files sizes are small compared to video.
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Post by christopher on Apr 21, 2022 9:01:14 GMT -6
A friend warned me that cracks and pops are from the industry switching to USB years ago. I looked up the bandwidth vs FireWire/thunderbolt/pci and it made sense to me. I try to stay away from USB 2 as much as I can. USB 3 is 10x faster, so that is the one manufacturers should be using imo.
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Post by Omicron9 on Nov 28, 2022 19:44:16 GMT -6
Reviving an older thread: For those of you tracking to outboard drives (USB-C, etc): what type/brand of drives are you using? Ever any dropout issues?
Many thanks,
-09
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