The Logic Off Topic list

Hi all
I Just got a couple new hardrives for my Logic PC DAW, and have 
technical questions that maybe some of you can answer...

1. When formatting the hard drive, I'm asked what size file clusters 
I want.. what is best for a dedicated audio drive? what about the 
OS/programs drive?

2. I'm considering employing my 2 new 40 gb drives in a raid stripe 
configuration for dedicated audio. Will raid 0 be benificial or 
detrimental for audio? 

Thanks in advance for any feedback...
Ed

System: 
Logic 5.2 w/ various vsti's
P4 2.24 ghz
Gigabyte GA-8IHXP mobo
256 rambus 1066 (will be increased when prices drop..)
Echo Mona
Matrox G550
1xIBM 4Ogb for OS/programs
2x maxtor 40gb for audio

>   From: "ed_tarantino" <edtarantino@...>

>Hi all
>I Just got a couple new hardrives for my Logic PC DAW, and have 
>technical questions that maybe some of you can answer...
>
>1. When formatting the hard drive, I'm asked what size file clusters 
>I want.. what is best for a dedicated audio drive? what about the 
>OS/programs drive?

Hi Ed, you didn't mention the OS so I assume you're formatting FAT32.

I generally use 32K clusters for the audio drives.
The DOS format command looks like this:
FORMAT D: /Z:64

And use 8K clusters for the OS/system drive.
FORMAT D: /Z:16

Been doing it like this for a long time, what options do you have, are you
using formatting software?

Howard

Howard,
oops.. sorry. I'm running Win2000, so I'm formatting to NTFS (is that 
the right acronym? can't remember..) seems you can select size of 
file clusters when formatting, umm can't remember size options. From 
your suggestion, I assume smaller clusters are better for audio?
Thanks,
Ed

> Hi Ed, you didn't mention the OS so I assume you're formatting 
FAT32.
> 
> I generally use 32K clusters for the audio drives.
> The DOS format command looks like this:
> FORMAT D: /Z:64
> 
> And use 8K clusters for the OS/system drive.
> FORMAT D: /Z:16
> 
> Been doing it like this for a long time, what options do you have, 
are you

> using formatting software?
> 
> Howard

"ed_tarantino" <edtarantino@...> wrote:

>I'm running Win2000, so I'm formatting to NTFS (is that 
>the right acronym? can't remember..) seems you can select size of 
>file clusters when formatting, umm can't remember size options. From 
>your suggestion, I assume smaller clusters are better for audio?

No -- drive defrags and disc read/write operations are faster with bigger
clusters. So use smaller clusters on your system drive and big ones on your
audio drive.

Regards,
Murray

Would you guys mind following the normal LUG convention of putting LAW/LAM in 
the header so we mac users don't have to read all of your PC-only stuff - and 
vice-versa of course.

Jeremy Martin wrote:

<<Macs have to use formatted hard drives too, right? Or can you just not
specify the cluster size on a Mac? The specific command line programs to
run to format the drive in Win2k/XP is LAW specific but the optimal
cluster size etc is probably cross platform info.. >>

Hi Jeremy,

Not to argue, but rather to prevent further confusion, there's no such thing
as cluster size under Mac OS prior to OS X, someone, please, correct me if
I'm mistaken. This led me to another question: can someone explain if we are
about to see this under OSX? Since OSX supports UFS (never worked with that,
therefore the question), does that have anything similar to cluster size
Windows users have to specify, or will it be handled the same way we, Mac
users are used to working with? Any comments are highly appreciated.

Best,

Andy

--- In logic-ot@y..., Andy Hardwake <digitalmechanics@m...> 
wrote:
> Jeremy Martin wrote:
> 
> <<Macs have to use formatted hard drives too, right? Or can 
you just not
> specify the cluster size on a Mac? The specific command line 
programs to
> run to format the drive in Win2k/XP is LAW specific but the 
optimal
> cluster size etc is probably cross platform info.. >>
> 
> Hi Jeremy,
> 
> Not to argue, but rather to prevent further confusion, there's no 
such thing
> as cluster size under Mac OS prior to OS X, someone, please, 
correct me if
> I'm mistaken. This led me to another question: can someone 
explain if we are
> about to see this under OSX? Since OSX supports UFS (never 
worked with that,
> therefore the question), does that have anything similar to 
cluster size
> Windows users have to specify, or will it be handled the same 
way we, Mac
> users are used to working with? Any comments are highly 
appreciated.

Before someone else corrects me, my second question should 
read: "since OSX, along with Mac OS Extended, also supports 
UFS, does this mean we are about to see the similar thing as in 
Windows, or will it be handled in a traditional pre-OSX way?

Best,

Andy

Macs have block size. I used SilverLining to format a firewire disk the other 
day and you can choose how big the minmum blocks are 2k, 4k, 8k, ...,64k.

>   From: TazmnianDv@...

>Macs have block size. I used SilverLining to format a firewire disk the
other 
>day and you can choose how big the minmum blocks are 2k, 4k, 8k, ...,64k.

 Right, that's all your doing with on the PC. When formatting using the
 command: FORMAT D: /Z:64   the D: drive is being formatted in 32k blocks.

 Large block sizes are beneficial for audio only drives.

H

http://www.dakotacom.net/~hwooten/
http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/167/cool_breeze.html

Harold wrote wrote:
>>Macs have block size. I used SilverLining to format a firewire disk the
>other 
>>day and you can choose how big the minmum blocks are 2k, 4k, 8k, ...,64k.
>
> Right, that's all your doing with on the PC. When formatting using the
> command: FORMAT D: /Z:64   the D: drive is being formatted in 32k blocks.

Does anyone know what the corresponding commands are for WIn2000/XP?

> Large block sizes are beneficial for audio only drives.

Yes -- this is simply because the minimum amount of disk space that can be
assigned to a file -- no matter how small -- is one block. This means you
waste a lot of space on every small file on your system drive. Since Audio
files are typically large anyway and performance is what is needed this
disadvantage is unimportant on an audio drive.

Regards,
Murray

> > Large block sizes are beneficial for audio only drives.
> 
Yes -- this is simply because the minimum amount of disk space that 
can be assigned to a file -- no matter how small -- is one block. 
This means you waste a lot of space on every small file on your 
system drive. Since Audio files are typically large anyway and 
performance is what is needed this disadvantage is unimportant on an 
audio drive.
> 
> Regards,
> Murray

Hi,
Great feedback from everyone, but could I get some clarification 
based on this (now cross-platform?) thread:

Based on this discussion, large block formatting is preferable for 
audio only drives. So, I should format to 32k or 64k?

The OS/programs drive should be as small block as possible. Or is it 
better to just use the default size? (I don't actually remember what 
that size is for NTFS)

Finally, will a raid 0 striping setup for audio drives help 
performance or cause potential problems? (drop outs, etc?)

(I'm running win2000, NTFS with late model IBM and Maxtor IDE 
drives.. my mobo has onboard raid, hence the question)

Thanks,
Ed

>From: "ed_tarantino" <edtarantino@...>

>Hi,
>Great feedback from everyone, but could I get some clarification 
>based on this (now cross-platform?) thread:
>
>Based on this discussion, large block formatting is preferable for 
>audio only drives. So, I should format to 32k or 64k?

On your audio drive, yes.

>The OS/programs drive should be as small block as possible. Or is it 
>better to just use the default size? (I don't actually remember what 
>that size is for NTFS)

NTFS will choose it's default block size according to the size of your drive.
So, on your system drive the default will work fine.

>Finally, will a raid 0 striping setup for audio drives help 
>performance or cause potential problems? (drop outs, etc?)
>
>(I'm running win2000, NTFS with late model IBM and Maxtor IDE 
>drives.. my mobo has onboard raid, hence the question)

Don't know.

Howard

http://www.dakotacom.net/~hwooten/
http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/167/cool_breeze.html

Ed Tarantino wrote:

>Finally, will a raid 0 striping setup for audio drives help 
>performance or cause potential problems? (drop outs, etc?)
>
>(I'm running win2000, NTFS with late model IBM and Maxtor IDE 
>drives.. my mobo has onboard raid, hence the question)

RAID level 0 increases disk read and write performance and increases drive
size -- and is very commonly used for video editing . Most audio people get
so many tracks from a 7200 RPM drive they hardly need the extra performance
obtainable with RAID 0. If you were doing  a lot of tracks at 24/96 you
might like the extra head room and perhaps spooling samples up from virtual
memory might benefit too EXS24/GigaStudio. 

The common or garden ATA 100 controller in most Intel /VIA/ SIS etc
chipsets for Athlon/P4 is not sitting on the PCI bus. It is usually in the
south bridge chip so it is not contending with your audio card for PCI
bandwidth. When you buy a board with a low budget Promise or Highpoint RAID
controller or even put one of the good  ones (eg 3Ware's Escalade units or
the Adaptec ATA RAID cards) in a PCI slot,  all the traffic to your RAID
drives or anything else using those ports runs over the PCI bus. Depending
on the drivers etc and whether they play nicely with other cards on the PCI
bus you could get conceivably get clicks. However, many on PC-DAW seem to
be using them without any audio related problems

I suggest you ask on that list: PCDAW@yahoogroups.com

There are quite a few people knowledgable about PC hardware for DAWs there.

A word of warning:  There was a great horror story earlier this month on
PC-DAW written by an Italian guy who lost a  Highpoint RAID 0+1 setup
because he disconnected the power to one of the array drives temporarily
(because he needed to copy some data from another drive). He lost the
entire array -- 76 Gig of data including entire projects for clients and
all his own stuff. The responses blamed Highpoint so watch out if you go
this route.

Regards,
Murray