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Tom Wood
July 1st 03, 09:57 PM
Hi All,

I am setting up a system to capture voice recording into Wavelab, a
two channel application. In terms of audio, that's all the system has
to do. Among other stuff it is:

Single 2.4Ghz Xeon
Intel® 875P Chipset: 800/533MHz FSB
512MB Dual Channel 400MHz DDR
Dual-Channel UltraDMA 133 IDE Controller
Dual-Channel Serial ATA controller
Promise MultiRAID: 2 UltraATA 133 Ports / 2 SATA Ports

I can either add one more large hard drive for the audio data, or add
two smaller drives in a RAID for about the same price. Which setup is
better for the relatively simple job of capturing a voice recording -
one drive or two in a RAID?

Thanks,

TW

John L Rice
July 1st 03, 10:23 PM
Hi Tom,

Very nice computer. With a fast hard drive in that system you would be able
to easily record 24 tracks at once or play back 100 tracks at once, with an
emphasis on easily. So for two track work any modern drive will be fine.
AllStarShop is a good place to buy drives :
http://www.allstarshop.com/shop/subsection.asp?dept%5Fid=45

I've used the IBM Deskstar drives a lot with very few problems. Hitachi
took over making these drives so the next time I buy a drive I'm going to
give Hitachi a chance. No matter what brand you get the best value seems to
be for 120 GB 7200 RPM IDE drives.

Best of luck!

John L Rice


"Tom Wood" > wrote in message
m...
> Hi All,
>
> I am setting up a system to capture voice recording into Wavelab, a
> two channel application. In terms of audio, that's all the system has
> to do. Among other stuff it is:
>
> Single 2.4Ghz Xeon
> Intel® 875P Chipset: 800/533MHz FSB
> 512MB Dual Channel 400MHz DDR
> Dual-Channel UltraDMA 133 IDE Controller
> Dual-Channel Serial ATA controller
> Promise MultiRAID: 2 UltraATA 133 Ports / 2 SATA Ports
>
> I can either add one more large hard drive for the audio data, or add
> two smaller drives in a RAID for about the same price. Which setup is
> better for the relatively simple job of capturing a voice recording -
> one drive or two in a RAID?
>
> Thanks,
>
> TW

Laurence Payne
July 1st 03, 11:44 PM
>I am setting up a system to capture voice recording into Wavelab, a
>two channel application. In terms of audio, that's all the system has
>to do. Among other stuff it is:
>
>Single 2.4Ghz Xeon
>Intel® 875P Chipset: 800/533MHz FSB
>512MB Dual Channel 400MHz DDR
>Dual-Channel UltraDMA 133 IDE Controller
>Dual-Channel Serial ATA controller
>Promise MultiRAID: 2 UltraATA 133 Ports / 2 SATA Ports
>
>I can either add one more large hard drive for the audio data, or add
>two smaller drives in a RAID for about the same price. Which setup is
>better for the relatively simple job of capturing a voice recording -
>one drive or two in a RAID?
>

This system is ludicrously over-specified for the job :-)

No need for RAID, unless data security is paramount.
Using the system drive for audio would be fine. A separate partition
would keep things tidy. There's no disk access required for program
or system while recording into WaveLab - if Windows did take it into
it's head to make a small disk access, it won't interfere with
recording one stereo track.

Haven't you got an old Pentium 500 or so lying around? Put a
decent-sized disk into it, and use all that power for something that's
worth it.

Tom Wood
July 2nd 03, 03:38 AM
> This system is ludicrously over-specified for the job :-)

Okay, that's good to hear. The main system that this is going to be
connected to is optimized for 3D animation and video editing. I knew
-that- system was even more ludicrously over-specified for audio, so I
didn't check into the minimal requirements for audio alone.
Unfortunately, the video editing program won't tolerate a high end
sound card in the same box. So, by getting something like this, I can
use it for the audio capture, and also use it as a rendering node for
the 3D application. (I can ethernet the task of rendering a scene to
this computer while I continue modelling, or make both computers work
on a scene under deadline.)

BTW, I'm going to recommend that the computer vendor look into the
audio market, because I've noticed a lot of similarity between the
concerns.

www.boxxtech.com

No connection except I live in Austin too.

Thank you everybody for your help.

TW

(Posting from Google because Win98 on my old system decided it didn't
like Outlook newsgroups)