Hard Drive recommendations? 10k vs. 7200

lsstrat wrote on 9/21/2007, 5:48 PM
I have been using standard 7200 rpm drives (2 internal, 3 firewire units) for storage and editing. I just went and got a WD Raptor 10krpm drive and want to use it to speed things up. I'm going to install VEGAS 8 and SOUNDFORGE 9 and possibly go back and reinstall ACID 6 and MAYA Ultimate.

What's the opinion from the forum?

1. Install all the new programs on the Raptor drive for faster program access and use the 7200 drives for video files OR

2. Install new programs on internal 7200 drive and use the 10k for video files OR

3. Use the 10K drive for both programs and selected video files to complete the projects and then transfer the .veg, .dar, and video clips to a storage drive after all editing, rendering, etc is complete.

4. Any other suggestions................................ I have one project with 400 gig of video and audio. BUT the project can be broken into ten individual segments for editing.


Thanks,
Jeff

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 9/21/2007, 5:56 PM
#1 is backwards. Program files are read rarely, and tend to be small. Why waste a fast drive on them? Video files get read constantly and are huge.

#2 is probably best.

#3 is a little odd. Why drag the fast drive down at all by reading anything but media files from it? Though, in actual fact, consider my answer to #1 and it probably wouldn't make any noticeable difference.

#4 Well, i do a lot of editing these days on a basic no-frills $550 laptop with a single 5400RPM drive. Vegas, Sound Forge, and ACID all run spiffy on it even when accessing multiple media files simultaneously. So, considering that, you may not have to worry much at all about which choice you make.
JohnnyRoy wrote on 9/21/2007, 7:16 PM
> 4. Any other suggestions................................ I have one project with 400 gig of video and audio.

Well... it's kinda too late for you (since you bought the 10K already) but would never buy a Raptor again. IMHO, it's a waste of money. Right now a 150GB Raptor is $189. That's $1.26 per MB. A 500MB 7200 is $109. That's $0.21 per MB. You can buy two (2) 500MB 7200 drives for $218 and use them in a RAID 0 and they will outperform the Raptor which costs 6x the price and have a terrabyte of storage for your 400MB project. Not what you want to hear but a suggestion to keep in mind for the future (because you will buy more drivers eventually)

~jr
Udi wrote on 9/22/2007, 1:02 AM
#4 - Place the paging file on the raptor, this is the most active file.

Udi
MH_Stevens wrote on 9/22/2007, 7:57 AM
Johnny is 100% right. For fast video storage you need RAID 0 and not a 1000rpm drive. RAID 0 gives both increased storage and speed. If you just got it I'm sure you can return it for two 500s and get a RAID controller. You will get what you need and probably some cash back.

Mike
lsstrat wrote on 9/23/2007, 2:12 PM
The drive is already in the computer and formated, but I'll know what direction to take next time.

Thanks much,

Jeff
FightingIllini1977 wrote on 9/23/2007, 2:53 PM
I'm going to be reconfiguring my setup and hardrives. Can someone explain what Raid-0 is and how I would go about setting it up ?
Coursedesign wrote on 9/23/2007, 6:53 PM
RAID-0 aka "striping" means that 2 or more disks are configured so that the writing is split up between multiple disks. This creates parallelism so that the time to write say 30 blocks of data takes only the time taken for 15 blocks on a single disk drive when using a dual-disk RAID, or the time for 10 blocks with a triple-disk RAID.

The flip side is that if one disk goes bad, you lose ALL your data.

It is also possible to combine this with other RAID configurations for mirroring (duplicating all data on a second drive automatically) or parity drives (where one or more drives are set aside for discovering and optionally even correcting errors, so that you can get both speed and reliability.

Most motherboards today have basic RAID support built-in (and Windows has software RAID built-in), but for best performance you need specialty hardware available on PCI-E cards for example.


The latest 7200 rpm drives are slightly faster than WD Raptor 10,000 rpm drives (of which I have a bunch) in most workstation use.

Geometry/mathematics win out in server situations (the higher rotational speed lowers random access time), but not in most NLE use.

flyingski wrote on 9/23/2007, 8:18 PM
Check the current edition of Maximum PC for an article on RAID
DataMeister wrote on 9/23/2007, 9:03 PM
In my own personal plans for a super system, I've always planned to use:

1. A Raptor 10K for the boot drive
2. A secondary (and much larger) 7200RPM drive for stock footage and stock audio.
3. Then setup a RAID 0 with 3 7200RPM drives for the projects.

Of course all past projects go onto a RAID 5 NAS for longer term backup.