Current wisdom, Windows 7

[Jay Q]

Hi SAWyers! Long time no see.

I have a new system and am wondering what the current wisdom is on recording tracks to a 2nd drive. Over the years, most advice I've seen on the matter says to record tracks to a 2nd drive, but Bob has said that it's just as well to record to the system drive. With today's systems, does it even matter? From a practical standpoint, it'd be nice to just put the WAVs in a folder with the EDLs, but I'm happy to keep recording to a 2nd drive if long-term performance will be better.

Here're the specs (that matter) for my system:
Windows 7 64-bit
Asus M4A88TD-M
AMD Phenom II x4 (4-core)
500GB hard drive
320GB 2nd hard drive
4GB RAM

Thanks, and I hope everyone is doing well.

[Craig Allen]

Hey Jay, long time. I still record to a 2nd drive, especially on my laptop (external USB drive), but I don't know if it really matters anymore. How many tracks are you talking about? Also, the Win7 and quad core may give you more problems than where you record.

[Bob L]

it'd be nice to just put the WAVs in a folder with the EDLs

You should be doing this no matter what drive you record to...

I tend to keep all my OS and programs on a smaller C partition so it can be easily imaged and restored with Acronis True Image in case Windows gets trashed... and keep all my data on larger partitions or separate drives... this has worked well for me.... this way, restoring the image does not affect the current data and sessions in any way.

Bob L

[Jay Q]

Hey Jay, long time. I still record to a 2nd drive, especially on my laptop (external USB drive), but I don't know if it really matters anymore. How many tracks are you talking about?

Hey Craig. Number of tracks varies; anywhere from 10 to 30ish.

Also, the Win7 and quad core may give you more problems than where you record.

Uh-oh. Well, it's a done deal. What is it about that config that's problematic?

it'd be nice to just put the WAVs in a folder with the EDLs

You should be doing this no matter what drive you record to...

I tend to keep all my OS and programs on a smaller C partition so it can be easily imaged and restored with Acronis True Image in case Windows gets trashed... and keep all my data on larger partitions or separate drives... this has worked well for me.... this way, restoring the image does not affect the current data and sessions in any way.

Bob L

I'm confused, Bob. It sounds like you say first that EDLs and WAVs should be on same disk, but then you say you keep all your data on larger partitions or separate drives. Perhaps you mean you put EDLs and WAVs on the secondary partition/drive. I typically kept EDLs on system drive and only WAVs on secondary. Can you clarify?

Thanks.

[Grekim]

edl's and waves in the same folder for a given song or project. Do not put them on your system partition in case you want to restore the system.

[UpTilDawn]

Hey Craig. Number of tracks varies; anywhere from 10 to 30ish.


Uh-oh. Well, it's a done deal. What is it about that config that's problematic?



I'm confused, Bob. It sounds like you say first that EDLs and WAVs should be on same disk, but then you say you keep all your data on larger partitions or separate drives. Perhaps you mean you put EDLs and WAVs on the secondary partition/drive. I typically kept EDLs on system drive and only WAVs on secondary. Can you clarify?

Thanks.

Yes, if you re-read what Bob says, he keeps his programs and OS on the system drive only... and like Grekim said, he keeps SAW edls and .wav files together, in dedicated per-project folders, on the secondary drive to safeguard losing them in case of a system crash or reinstall.

[Jay Q]

Got it. Thanks guys.

[Craig Allen]

Hey Craig. Number of tracks varies; anywhere from 10 to 30ish.

Officially, you should use another drive, but with 30 tracks, you should be fine on one drive assuming it's fast enough and you're not recording @ 128kHz or something.

Uh-oh. Well, it's a done deal. What is it about that config that's problematic?

Win7 works with SAW, and with SAC, but if you put them both together, there is about a 10% increase in load that you don't get in XP. I'm using both, so I went back to XP. Other than that, 7 is fine.

And SAW has always been happier with single or dual processors, so the quad core isn't idea, but should work. Look at the Force Single CPU option if you have any problems and that'll probably help.

[Jay Q]

Officially, you should use another drive, but with 30 tracks, you should be fine on one drive assuming it's fast enough and you're not recording @ 128kHz or something.

Win7 works with SAW, and with SAC, but if you put them both together, there is about a 10% increase in load that you don't get in XP. I'm using both, so I went back to XP. Other than that, 7 is fine.

And SAW has always been happier with single or dual processors, so the quad core isn't idea, but should work. Look at the Force Single CPU option if you have any problems and that'll probably help.

Thanks for the info, Craig. When you say "And SAW has always been happier with single or dual processors", can you elaborate? From what I understand, the worst that happens with extra CPUs is that apps just don't take advantage of them. Does something actually go wrong in SAW's case?

[Craig Allen]

Thanks for the info, Craig. When you say "And SAW has always been happier with single or dual processors", can you elaborate? From what I understand, the worst that happens with extra CPUs is that apps just don't take advantage of them. Does something actually go wrong in SAW's case?

Its more of a SAC issue, but could affect live monitoring. All the cores share the same memory, so if another core has a thread that accesses memory at the same point SAW/SAC tries to, it could cause a slipped buffer. It doesn't affect recording, just possibly monitoring. Not a big deal, but Bob's preference is for a signle core machine.