I am thinking of adding my old drive (Seagate 3.2G 5400rpm) to my new
PC which include a Samsung SATA150 80G 7200rpm, but I am having second
thoughts:

1) I am concerned about the mismatch of performances between the two
drives; after a quick test the Samsung registered about 65MB/s
(read/write) while the old Seagate only recorded a mere 7.3MB/s.
Should I bother the hassle of installing the 'limping' Seagate
alongside the Samsung in order to "improve" overall audio recording
performance?

2) The initial idea was to use the Seagate as a "tape reel" and the
faster drive for the operating system. It seems that there are
conflicting suggestions about this subject...in fact many in this
forum suggest exactly the opposite (faster drive for audio).

3) I've also read that the pagefile is better be confined away from
the OS drive...
I was thinking of doing a small Pagefile partition (512Mb) on the old
Seagate and dedicate the rest for audio recording only. Will the
pagefile partition sited alongide the audio partition compromise the
performance?

4) I am contemplating to implement a SATA Raid system (and ditch the
old Seagate altogether) by adding an extra drive (another Samsung) for
a Raid(0) setup.
My motherboard (a Gigabyte GA-K8VT800pro) has an onboard SATA Raid
controller (and also an IDE Raid controller).
As the 2 Samsung will help each other in improving read/write
performance it seems that they are acting as a single unit therefore a
third drive would be ideal to separate the audio recording from the
OS?
Raid setups are still a new thing to me and any suggestion is
welcomed.

Thanks,

Alex

Alex wrote:
I am thinking of adding my old drive (Seagate 3.2G 5400rpm) to my new
PC which include a Samsung SATA150 80G 7200rpm, but I am having
second
thoughts:

1) I am concerned about the mismatch of performances between the two
drives; after a quick test the Samsung registered about 65MB/s
(read/write) while the old Seagate only recorded a mere 7.3MB/s.
Should I bother the hassle of installing the 'limping' Seagate
alongside the Samsung in order to "improve" overall audio recording
performance?

2) The initial idea was to use the Seagate as a "tape reel" and the
faster drive for the operating system. It seems that there are
conflicting suggestions about this subject...in fact many in this
forum suggest exactly the opposite (faster drive for audio).

3) I've also read that the pagefile is better be confined away from
the OS drive...
I was thinking of doing a small Pagefile partition (512Mb) on the old
Seagate and dedicate the rest for audio recording only. Will the
pagefile partition sited alongide the audio partition compromise the
performance?

4) I am contemplating to implement a SATA Raid system (and ditch the
old Seagate altogether) by adding an extra drive (another Samsung)
for
a Raid(0) setup.
My motherboard (a Gigabyte GA-K8VT800pro) has an onboard SATA Raid
controller (and also an IDE Raid controller).
As the 2 Samsung will help each other in improving read/write
performance it seems that they are acting as a single unit therefore
a
third drive would be ideal to separate the audio recording from the
OS?
Raid setups are still a new thing to me and any suggestion is
welcomed.

Thanks,

Alex

What is the manufacturer's specified data rate ?
The drive may need UDMA enabled on the drive,
in BIOS and in the OS. Without all 3 the drive
will operate at PIO.
I have an older Seagate as a backup drive and
it's slow, but not that slow. I think at boot
it shows UDMA 66.
Check Seagate's web for the UDMA util if it's
not showing UDMA in BIOS.

good luck
rd

Alex wrote:

I am thinking of adding my old drive (Seagate 3.2G 5400rpm) to my new
PC which include a Samsung SATA150 80G 7200rpm, but I am having second
thoughts:

1) I am concerned about the mismatch of performances between the two
drives;

Don't be. The Sata is on a different bus than your EIDE. You won't feel a
thing.


2) The initial idea was to use the Seagate as a "tape reel" and the
faster drive for the operating system. It seems that there are
conflicting suggestions about this subject...in fact many in this
forum suggest exactly the opposite (faster drive for audio).

Other way around. The Seagate would be okay for OS and Apps. The Sata
would work perfectly for the audio storage.

Will the
pagefile partition sited alongide the audio partition compromise the
performance?

To a degree. But I wouldn't do it any way. The pagefile tweak was oriented
towards slower drives. The idea was that instead of jamming up the buss
with pagefile calls, the Apps drive could hum along while the secondary
partition could take the pagefile hits.

4) I am contemplating to implement a SATA Raid system (and ditch the
old Seagate altogether) by adding an extra drive (another Samsung) for
a Raid(0) setup.

Raid isn't really needed with the sizes of drives you can buy now. I would
use removable harddrive bays instead of a raid array. Everything is fast
enough these days that you don't gain as much with a raid array.

performance it seems that they are acting as a single unit therefore a
third drive would be ideal to separate the audio recording from the
OS?

Definitely have the OS drive on a different channel than the audio
storage. I would put an EIDE drive ( 120GB EIDE drives at Bestbuy are
only $49 after rebates) on EIDE Channel 1 Master as the apps and OS drive.
A second EIDE for long term storage or sample storage on EIDE channel 1
slave. A DVD writer as EIDE Channel 2 master. Then 1 or 2 SATA drives as
project drives.
Unless you are into some heavy duty video projects, I would be too
concerned with raid setups.

PapaNate

"Alex" wrote in message
om

I am thinking of adding my old drive (Seagate 3.2G 5400rpm) to my new
PC which include a Samsung SATA150 80G 7200rpm, but I am having second
thoughts:

Well you should. This is like asking whether or not you should add a Briggs
and Stratton lawn mower engine to your 2005 Mustang.

A 80 GB hard drive is worth less than $80, so the space on your old Seagate
is worth less than $3.20. Only contemplate a move like this under extreme
duress.

lose the 5400rpm drive, step into this millenium.

www.newegg.com

get a seagate barracuda. get the full consumer version rather than the
oem, because it comes with a nice 80-wire ribbon cable. worth it.

In article writes:

I am thinking of adding my old drive (Seagate 3.2G 5400rpm) to my new
PC which include a Samsung SATA150 80G 7200rpm, but I am having second
thoughts:

2) The initial idea was to use the Seagate as a "tape reel" and the
faster drive for the operating system. It seems that there are
conflicting suggestions about this subject...in fact many in this
forum suggest exactly the opposite (faster drive for audio).

I'd suggest that. The operating system disk doesn't have to do much of
anything once the program is loaded. But these days, 3.2GB is barely
enough to load Windows. There are so many modern disk drives you can
buy (at least in the US - I don't know where you are) for $50 or less
that it doesn't make sense to use an old drive for anything but a
doorstop.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

Subject: second Hard Disk for audio too old?
References:
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"RD Jones" wrote in message roups.com...

What is the manufacturer's specified data rate ?
The drive may need UDMA enabled on the drive,
in BIOS and in the OS. Without all 3 the drive
will operate at PIO.
I have an older Seagate as a backup drive and
it's slow, but not that slow. I think at boot
it shows UDMA 66.
Check Seagate's web for the UDMA util if it's
not showing UDMA in BIOS.

good luck
rd
Thank you all for your replies.

I still don't know why I assumed that the faster drive should
accomodate the OS and relegate the audio partition on the older and
slower drive?
Anyhow, thank you for putting me in the right frame of mind.

I have just checked the data rate; the old Seagate (model ST33210A)
support UDMA2 (33Mb/s). The mode is enabled and it shows correcly in
the system.
BTW, the benchmark suggests 60Mb/sec for the Samsung which has a
potential of 150Mb...so the mere 7.8Mb/sec for the old drive might be
due to the benchmark testing: I am using Dacris Benchmark 5.

In fact the old Seagate has always performed quite well in the last
7-8 years...it is just a bit noisy and yes 3.2Giga are not enough
these days (Yet, I just managed to install WindowsXP Pro and a few
programs on top of it...no problems).

I think I am going to install Windows98 (FAT32 seems to be faster than
NTFS on small partitions) on the old Seagate and a big audio partition
in the Samsung.
Then, partitioning the Samsung even further for extra OSs e.g. XP Pro
and XP64 for Web and graphic applications and maybe another OS
partition (maybe XP64 when the software is ready?)for audio programs.
This way I would be able to see the full picture...i.e. is that old
'limping' Seagate worth having it or would the new spunky Samsung be
faster running on its own?

But there is another issue. It is suggested to use 64k clusters for
audio files; yet, I cannot see them as FAT32 doesn't reconise NTFS. It
seems that if I decide to install Windows 98 onto the Seagate I would
have to create a FAT32 audio partition on the Samsung.

Seen it all before?
Please let me know about your views.
Alex