Ultimate DAW PC. Cheap, quiet, stable, robust.

[parlormusic]

OK...


I will be doing a fresh installation of XP Pro on the Dell with 2 Raptors and no other HDs. My understanding is that I need the SATA driver on a floppy when I start the XP installation so the Dell can recognise the Raptors. The link you gave me seems to be a "Dataguard" software program. Doesn't seem like it's the right thing. Could you clarify at all? I'm a newbie to DAWs (this is my first one I'm setting up from scratch).

Another issue is that the drivers Dell provides on their website are for "Promise" SATA drivers. Users on the Nuendo forum state that Promise SATA controllers route through the PCI (even though they are dedicated connections on the mother board) Does this make sense? I thought I wanted to avoid routing through the PCI to leave that open for my audio card (Lynx AES16)? They suggested using Intel SATA drivers instead but I don't understand how that would make a difference. Isn't the routing on the motherboard a hardwired circuit and not changed by this driver or that?

The more I learn the more confused I become...

OK, I didn't realize that you will be having your OS on a Raptor as well. Try the WD utility "Data Lifeguard Tools 11 Diagnostic". It creates a bootable floppy so you can format the HD etc. upon bootup. Or maybe get ahold of WD tech support for direction.

If that doesn't work, try using an IDE HDD for your OS & applications. A typical 7200rpm IDE drive is more than adequate for running applications. Save the Raptors for recording & playback.

[bad_dude_69]

i've been looking into getting a 10000 rpm drive. would i benefit from using one only as my secondary (media) drive? how would i go about replacing my primary (40G 7200rpm) drive with one of these puppies?

[parlormusic]

i've been looking into getting a 10000 rpm drive. would i benefit from using one only as my secondary (media) drive? how would i go about replacing my primary (40G 7200rpm) drive with one of these puppies?

Having a seperate drive for recording & playback media is pretty much a no brainer if you want the best performance. Set up the second drive as a "storage" drive. Then you can copy over your audio & video files over to that.

[bad_dude_69]

thanks, but i realize my post wasn't totally clear. i have a 60GB 7200RPM 2nd hard drive right now that i use for media, though i'm considering replacing it with a faster one. my first question was whether i would experience a great improvement in speed from only replacing my 2nd drive since all my apps run from my primary drive. my second question was re: whether it would be easy to replace my primary drive, since it runs the os and what not.

[parlormusic]

thanks, but i realize my post wasn't totally clear. i have a 60GB 7200RPM 2nd hard drive right now that i use for media, though i'm considering replacing it with a faster one. my first question was whether i would experience a great improvement in speed from only replacing my 2nd drive since all my apps run from my primary drive. my second question was re: whether it would be easy to replace my primary drive, since it runs the os and what not.

Unless you'll be replacing your 2nd drive with a SATA or SCSI drive, then I don't think you'd gain much in performance. For your second question, it won't be difficult to replace your main OS drive if you use a "drive copy" utility to clone your old drive to your new one. This is actually what I do for my OS backup drive. Ya never know when Windoze decides to act up, but when it does, I have a quick backup solution.

[high tek]

ihavecomp, why would you need to replace your primary drive?
is 40 gigs not enough for you OS/apps?

it seems you shoudl replace your secondary with a larger one if anything.

[bad_dude_69]

i have an external 200GB drive that i back up old sessions to. my main reason for wanting to replace either drive is to up it to 10000RPM, with lower seek time, higher mem and what not. are the 10000RPM drives not significantly faster?

[mrc]

Hi,
For Audio applications and the OS, the reads to the drive are fairly limited, once the os and apps are up and running. The real load is on the tracking drive. You are streaming samples to and from it as you are recording and listening back, during tracking. This is where an extremely fast drive makes a difference. If I understand what I've read, you have a 40 gig 7200rpm C: drive and a 60 gig 7200rpm audio (tracking) drive, and a 200 gig gig external that you back up to. If you need the performance of the Raptor for more tracks, it might be worth it, if you have a Sata bus. You could then use the 40 as it is, use the 60 for streaming samples, if you use a streaming sampler or vsti (or reverse them, depending on your needs), and use the Raptor for Audio tracking, along with the 200 gig as you have been...
Remember the 3g Sata contollers are out on the Nvidia 4 boards, and perhaps others, so the drives will shortly follow, if they aren't available yet. That will make the 1.5g stuff a has been, so a price drop should follow. Look at the price of large Sata 160 gigs, way less than $100 US on the street.
Good Luck
mrc

[misterock]

What about a Dell PowerEdge SC420? Will this work?

http://www1.us.dell.com/content/product ... l=en&s=bsd

Curious about the fact that it says:

"Dell does not support the use of a graphics card on the SC420."

[parlormusic]

What about a Dell PowerEdge SC420? Will this work?

http://www1.us.dell.com/content/product ... l=en&s=bsd

Curious about the fact that it says:

"Dell does not support the use of a graphics card on the SC420."

The SC420 does not have a AGP graphics slot. Bummer.

[Phiz]

I recently purchased a 400SC off ebay. I have yet to try to bog it down, but generally it seems quite snappy. I must say that while it is pretty quiet, its not as quiet as I had been lead to believe. The 400SC faq states something like "you have to put your ear right down next to the case to hear it." In my bedroom I have no problem hearing the fan from 10 feet away when my heater isn't blowing air. It should be quiet enough for rock overdubs, but if I was doing acoustic music, then it might be borderline.

My other problem was that when I tried installing WinXP at first it took about 6 hours. Much to long. After pulling out all non-stock hardware, trying again and then poking around on google for a few hours, I managed to figure out that I received my computer with the L2 cache turned off. (In the bios one of the CPU options was set to 'compatibility' instead of 'normal', which effectively turned off the L2 cache.) After correcting that I got WinXP to install in a sane ~25 minutes.

I also managed to get a 17" Dell LCD for $190, and I'm really liking that. I got a Matrox G450 dual head video card, so I'm hoping some day I'll have a matching pair, but for now the money will be better spent on microphones.

[Mr. Dipity]

I recently purchased a 400SC off ebay. I have yet to try to bog it down, but generally it seems quite snappy. I must say that while it is pretty quiet, its not as quiet as I had been lead to believe. The 400SC faq states something like "you have to put your ear right down next to the case to hear it." In my bedroom I have no problem hearing the fan from 10 feet away when my heater isn't blowing air. It should be quiet enough for rock overdubs, but if I was doing acoustic music, then it might be borderline.

- What cpu does it have?

The 3.0 GHz ones came with a louder fans

- What drives do you have in it?

THe loudest thing in my 400's are the drives now. I added an additional 400 gig sATA drive, and suddenly my machines weren't any more.

Back when I have one 75 SATA drive in them, I managed to record a vocal track in the booth with one of the machines still on without realizing it. Couldn't hear it on the track either.

[Phiz]

I got the P4 2.8GHz, which is still supposed to have the quieter fan. I have an 80GB Seagate Barracuda SATA drive in there. I haven't done a careful test with the SATA drive on and off, but I have run it in both of those configurations and don't recall a noise floor difference.

I have to clarify. It isn't loud. Any noise in the room will easily mask it, and I have to actually stop and try to listen to hear it from a far. However, if I was recording something acoustic, I'd be a little worried about it poking through on the the tails. I'm sure with a little placement or baffling even that could be dealt with. I have yet to find it a permanent home, so it is currently in the middle of my room, and that probably doesn't help the situation.

[Mr. Dipity]

FWIW, one of my two 400SCs died last night. The motherboard has gone out, usually refused to boot, gives me a different 'recent booting failed at XXXX' message each time, and now comes up with 'MFG jumper installed' and 'Keyboard fused his failed' (sic), and won't boot at all. This is not a rectifiable failure - AFAICT, the motherboard is junk. Cool!

I've never had a motherboard fail on me before, or anything actually, except hard drives and cd-rs. Case in point is sitting next to it - all my previous, computers, one of them 7 times as old, still chugging along. Funny, especially because I was always so wary of them, and considered the Dells the 'reliable' ones. Nice for it to wait such a short time after the warranty went out, too.

And to make matters worse, I'm not going to be able to simply replace the motherboard with one off-the-shelf, either - the whole damn box has to go, unless I buy more Dell gear...

YMMV, I'm sure there are plenty of other happy Dell users out there, and the other 400SC is sitting next to it still quietly humming along, but you can put me for a thumbs down on these boxes from now on :<

EDITSometimes it boots, sometimes it doesn't. Not exactly an improvement, since it takes about 20 minutes to get it to boot. I'm not to enthused about the idea of leaving it on when I'm not around either. Superstition, sure - it's not like it's a power supply issue - but still, there's lots of -unbacked up- data on it right now.

[parlormusic]

YMMV, I'm sure there are plenty of other happy Dell users out there, and the other 400SC is sitting next to it still quietly humming along, but you can put me for a thumbs down on these boxes from now on :<

Yeah, that's a bummer. But you'd give thumbs down on these boxes because of one incident out of how many out there? This sort of thing happens with all PC manufacturers. You just happen to be one of the unlucky few to experience this.