15K SCSI or 10K Raptor?

[Birdseye]

I am an audio composer/producer. The Hard drive is a massive bottleneck for me, and I am seeking a significant upgrade from WD and Maxtor 7200 RPM drives.

The needs for audio performance is very different from that of Games or other tests I see in benchmark reviews. I need some help deciding what the best option is, but first I will spell out some of the needs specific to my scenario:

- The OS is running on a seperate HD, but all music-related data is running on this next HD I have to pick.

- up to 32 track of constant audio streaming (playback)

- 2-8 tracks of 96Khz 24 bit are recorded simultanously. Mostly I max at 5-6 tracks at a time for recording

- Low latency performance is crucial for *playback*. The audio buffer for playback sometimes can be as low as 1.5MS but in practice is more like 6-12MS. I'm guessing that RAM is actually more crucial in this latency test, considering HD seek time can't keep up with a 1.5MS buffer. I can raise the latency if necessary (measured based on the \"buffer size\") when recording acoustic instruments, but I would prefer not to if possible.

- Lots of temp files are written or modified when audio files are edited. Some of this is in real time, sometimes the application forces audio to stop and then the file is written

- The CPU is also pushed very hard during *playback* usually at around 60% but sometimes at up at 90% (while the HD is also being pushed too by the track count). CPU is not pushed hard during recording.

- CPU performance being decreased by hard drive access is a BIG concern.

- The time it takes to export the final track is not a concern. The main concern is glitch-free performance during playback and recording

I have heard from several members of the audio production community that RAID in particular is not stable for audio production -- lots of reports of 'glitches' where the audio is not continuously streamed. Based on this anecdotal evidence, I am not considering RAID.

What I am debating is whether or not to go with the 150GB Raptor Drive (74 is too small) or to go with 150 GB SCSI 320 drives. It's VERY important that the hard disk not decrease CPU performance, as added CPU strain #1 will cause me to reduce the number of effects I can use in real time and #2 is likely to cause more 'glitches' or 'unsmooth playback'. This is why SCSI seems particularly attractive, largely based on my memory that IDE/SATA drives use up more CPU, while SCSI doesn't take up nearly as much CPU performance. I don't know if that's true or if it's an old geek's tale.

- I am also wondering if onboard motherboard SATA is faster or has better/smoother performance than using a PCI solution (currently I don't have an SATA port on my motherboard).

- If SCSI is the way to go, can you reccomend some controllers? I really don't know which controller to pick.

Thanks for your time,
Brian

[fliptw]

SCSI. spend the money. Xciter or stress would be the people to ask about scsi controlers.

You also might want to look at going to a SMP system.

[Krom]

I second SCSI, if it is that demanding you might even think of RAID. And X2 on the SMP as well.

[Mobius]

Might want to consider the 250GB Raptor drive. It's faster than a RAID array. Check it out.

[fliptw]

RAID will do nada for latencey reduction, which is what he's after

[Krom]

I saw benchmarks on Anandtech in the raptor 150 article that a RAID0 almost cut the average read service time in half, but that was under a very heavy load and likely because it was bigger reads that took advantage of the bandwidth boost.

If you really want to get the latency out of it, get one of those solid state serial ata drives, you put 4-6 GB of PC2100 in it and use that as your temp drive while you are actively working on something. Probably cost about the same as SCSI, but if you can work in a 4 GB space those drives have lower latency and more bandwidth then anything else.

Though you would also want to invest in a battery backup for it since the internal batteries that they come with normally only last a few hours. And backing it up regularly to a non-volatile storage medium is a requirement.

[Zantor]

The Raptor will have a higher transfer rate and great seek times, but according to my knowledge, the SCSI drive will outperform the Raptor in random seeks.

[Ferno]

when you use the u320 scsi's, no other type of drive even comes close.

[MD-2389]

when you use the u320 scsi's, no other type of drive even comes close.

Not to mention that it has 5,000RPM over the raptor, which will make its seek and read times QUITE a bit faster. Zangarath, you need to stop pulling crap out from nowhere.

[ccb056]

ramdrive

[Birdseye]

do you know of any RAMdrive programs to partition some RAM, beyond buying a gigabyte i-ram?

[Krom]

Bleh @ RAMdrives, halfassed solution. The gigabyte I-ram looks and acts to windows like an actual hard drive and it doesn't eat into your system memory. Just pack it with the biggest cheapest (but still brand name) DIMMS you can find.