Interchanging hard drives for recording?

thefiremelted · Post by **thefiremelted** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 2:35 am

So I haven't been recording with my new computer yet, I'm waiting to get an onyx 1200f next year... woo that will be nice!

My current PC seems pretty legit. I got it earlier in the year and it has 2.6 ghz and 4 gigs of ram. The only problem is it's set up with Vista. I like vista, just not for when I'm trying to record... I also know that everyone says its best to have a computer dedicated only to recording.

Well, my computer only has 1 hard drive slot, so I never got to add on the 200 gig 7200 rpm drive from my last computer. This gets me thinking, what if I install the harddrive in my pc and switch the wires from drive a to drive b when I want to record? I figured that way I'd have a 200 gig hard drive with Windows XP and no bullshit applications.

Seems like a great idea to me, but the paranoid part of me wonders if this could be bad for the computer in any way? I wouldn't think this would put any actual strain on it, but you never know...

What do you guys think?

RodC · Post by **RodC** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 7:03 am

Leave your apps on one and use the other for data only.

Most DAW apps will like this better. Having a seperate drive to run/cache apps and one to write the audio to and read from can be faster. If you have IDE try to put them on seperate controllers.

vvv · Post by **vvv** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 10:10 am

Also, that way you avoid paying for a second OS.

If you aleady have a second OS (I prefer XP Pro), set it up as RodC says, and make the app drive double-boot, so you can choose the OS.

thefiremelted · Post by **thefiremelted** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 11:26 am

well my computer actually only as one SATA plug, so i can't have both drives plugged in at the same time. if i bought a big enough hard drive to do 2 partitions, i could dual boot. if i did that, would the xp boot load the software from my vista partition? i dont want antivirus/printer/firefox/etc getting in the way.

RodC · Post by **RodC** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 11:30 am

thefiremelted wrote:well my computer actually only as one SATA plug, so i can't have both drives plugged in at the same time. if i bought a big enough hard drive to do 2 partitions, i could dual boot. if i did that, would the xp boot load the software from my vista partition? i dont want antivirus/printer/firefox/etc getting in the way.

That sounds werid, I dont think I have seen a MB with only one SATA plug, Does it have IDE as well?

markmeat · Post by **markmeat** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 12:48 pm

You've likely got another SATA connection on the board next to the one that's there now... like he said above, one is rare... cables are cheap... follow the lead from the HD to the board, the other connection should be right next to it. Having the dual boot scenario described above will assign XP to one drive letter (partition) and the Vista to another... they will be totally seperate (my wife's laptop is setup this way... Vista for her, XP for me)... you can access file sback and forth between the two, but XP won't run anything off that Vista partition you don't tell it to.

MEAT

thefiremelted · Post by **thefiremelted** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 2:37 pm

The computer has no IDE, and I'm only seeing one SATA plug. Check it out:

RodC · Post by **RodC** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 3:06 pm

I believe that is the back of the HD. Follow that red cable down to the motherboard, right next to it I bet there is an extra connector or 3.

TheForgotten · Post by **TheForgotten** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 3:09 pm

Okay. Follow that SATA plug in the pic back to where it connects to the motherboard. THere should be anidentical slot on the motherboard for another SATA cable.[/b]

thefiremelted · Post by **thefiremelted** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 5:30 pm

haha, i know what i did wrong. that's the back of my cd burner! i feel pretty stupid about that, i thought there was a port or something for SATA power.. i really knew nothing about SATA until yesterday when i analyzed the hard drive connection. i'm used to the old school stuff.

here's the real input:

so i can plug in a hard drive to the yellow or blue input?

RodC · Post by **RodC** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 5:35 pm

Yep, and that looks like 2 IDE ribbon connectors right next to it.

thefiremelted · Post by **thefiremelted** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 5:56 pm

oh wow, good call rodc! haha, i've never felt like such an amateur before!

ok, heres my next question:

i've been looking at getting a raptor x drive to have 10,000 rpms for recording, and installing it in a 5.25" cooling system to mount on a 5.25" bay. i also have a makeshift way of mounting another hard drive if i wanted to.. so i could either install xp and record on the raptor x, or i could install my old 7200 rpm ide drive just to boot xp, and put all the recorded data on the raptor.

which would provide better computer performance? the ide drive is 200 gigs, so if it's better to boot xp from that, would it do any harm to partition a couple gigs for xp and then partition the rest for data storage for when im running vista and not recording?

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Interchanging hard drives for recording?

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