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Arny Krueger
 
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Default update on DAW PC questions (long)

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So my first few questions a
1) Is my plan reasonable?


It can work.

2) How shall I partition the DAW and general use OS? I have 50G to
split between them (10G being used for WinSE). 3) Splitting the DAW
and general use OS's into two separate boot partitions is a good
idea, right? This lets me customize the settings for each of the
usages independently of the other. Are there any issues having two
WinXP partitions?


Nothing but the obvious.

My next questions maybe somewhat controversial. What are your views
on Firwire vs. USB2.0?


They both work swimmingly.

I know Firewire is faster in reality, but I
believe they are both fast enough for the number of audio channels I
want. My main concern is longevity. From my understanding Firewire
is the pro-video standard, so I can see how it may become the
pro-audio standard as well. However, USB 2.0 has Intel behind it, so
ALL the mobo's out there will have it. It'll be around a long, long
time.


Only time will tell for sure.

My next questions all deal with Fat32 vs. NTFS. I know there has
been alot of info and banter about this, and I've read a lot of
those. I don't want to start a flame war. I just want some updated
information to help weed through the mis-information out there. For
background, this is a single user home computer. I have no need for
encryption or security. Stability is nice (but does this come from
WinXP or NTFS?) but speed is paramount for DAW from what I gather.
So speed is my main concern. Do you agree?


Hard drives are now fast enough that speed isn't a serious problem in
virtually every case.

A defragged FAT32 or NTFS drive is far faster than a fragged one. The file
systems have different performance profiles - each does some things a little
better. NTFS is more practical to use on large hard drives, and these days
every new drive is a relatively large drive.

People have complained that NTFS is slower than Fat32.


Depends what you are doing.

However, this
may be due to the 512 byte partition WinXP uses by default. From my
understanding, if you change this to 4k partitions, then the Fat32
advantage largely goes away. Is this true? I will be formatting a
new HD, so none of that 'convert FAT32 to NTFS' garbage for me.


The conversion program IME works well, so I don't know about this "garbage"
thing.

On the other hand, I still hear people say that Fat32 is faster for
'smaller' HD's and NTFS for larger HD's. Is this still true even
with the 4k NTFS partitions? What is 'smaller'? Since WinXP won't
format +32G in Fat32, many people use this as the limit for 'small'.


I've got machines with both kinds of partitions in them. Frankly I don't
notice much over-all difference in performance for audio. I do notice the
fact that if XP stops without a proper shutdown, the restart is delayed
because of the FAT drive.

However, I also saw 12G somewhere. Anybody have any comments on this
topic?


Just use NTFS and enjoy, providing you don't want to access the data with
your Win98 system. I kept some FAT drives on my dual-boot system for just
that reason.

I was going to have my 120G partitioned into several logical disks.
One (or more) for DAW and the rest for general use. Any suggestions?


I'm generally against partitioning. I tend to work in terms of whole drives.

How much would I need for the DAW data? Is having the data on a
separate HD from the OS a good idea?


Let's put it this way. My favorite audio application is Cool Edit (AKA Adobe
Audition). It is much faster when two drives are available. This is because
a lot of what it does amounts to be sequential file copying. Sequential file
copying is generally much faster between two drives than on just one.

I thought manually controlling the paging file (using equal min and
max settings) was no longer necessary in WinXP. Is this a holdover
from the 'good ol' days' or is this still recommended?


I find that permanent swap files are a good thing. Right now I allocate a 1
GB permanent swap file with 1 GB dynamic overflow. Having the swap file in a
sweet spot on the boot drive (or other drive as appropriate) seems to be a
good thing. A non-fragmented swap file still seems to be a good thing.

In NTFS (assuming I go this way), is it still a good idea to have a

separate
partition just for the paging file to minimize fragmentation? If so,
how much space did you reserve? In Win98SE I have 500M and every
once in a while it is not enough.


You don't need a separate partition, just a little planning.

Turning off ACPI worries me a little. I have never messed with this
before. Is this still recommended practice or is this still a myth
from 'the good ol' days'? I have an ACPI compliant mobo that I got
about 1 year ago. According to
http://www.musicxp.net/installing_tips.htm configuring the
installation as "standard" may actually reduce performance on an ACPI
mobo. Maybe I don't care since I'm not going with a PCI audio
interface. Any comments?


I haven't found ACPI to be a problem lately.

The defrag that comes with WinXP does *not* defrag the MTF in NTFS
(some consider this key in maintaining hi-speed performance for
NTFS). Third-party defrag programs do. Do you use them? Which do
you recommend?


I use standard MS defrag.

Some say to definitely turn the Task Scheduler service off. Others
say that the pre-fetching operation inherent in the Task Scheduler
warrants leaving it on. What is the current thought on this?


No problems with it on.

Last Question (for now), what was the problem with the VIA chipset?


It wasn't as Intel compatible as we would have liked.

Is it still a problem with modern systems?


The latest VIA chipset systems seem to be a whole lot more compatible.





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