Music Studio Build

[Xstatic]

I have a thread in another section with the whole build but for this section I want to ask about HDD's. I have 3 things that I need. I need a drive for the OS, 1 for the Apps and 1 for the music track storage. Here is my question...Do I need a separate drive for the apps and os? Or will it be fine with both on the same drive? I am planing on useing a 150gig Raptor for the os and have a dual boot. One boot for the studio stuff and one for regular everyday stuff and surfing the net. Should I get another raptor and just put the apps on it? If I put the apps on the the drive with the os I don't want anything slowing me down. I don't know if the reading and writeing for the apps will be slowed down by the os reading and stuff.

Also would it be better by going with 2 7200 rpm drives in raid over a 10k rpm drive? Is the difference big enough to worry about? Or is the raptor still better? I don't think I need a drive faster than 7200 rpm for the storage as none of the builds on the audio sites use raptors for the storage. But most of them don't give in-depth details as to how they have the system setup.

Also since noise is a HUGE factor in this build, how loud are the raptors? And do they get hot? Will I need a fan to keep them cool? This is a Studio build. This is not something that is just going into my office for cheep recording. I have a actual studio. I just plan on building my own this time instead of going with the over priced pre-built studio pc. So noise needs to be as low as possible.

Thanks in advance for your help.

[HaGa11aZ]

i'm not quite sure of most of your questions, but can you direct me to your other thread? i'm curious of your build... I've got a home DAW with an EMU 1616m... still trying to get everything figured out though.

as far as the noise goes, unless you're using audio cables that are in close proximity to your PC, I wouldn't worry about it. For example, anything concerning delicately insulated wires are routed to my dock bay, which is about 3 or 4 feet away from the PC, and the dock interacts with the PC by an specially insulated ethernet cord.

However, you may help isolate the sounds coming from inside your PC with special sound absorption case pads.

[hafa]

One Raptor for the OS and apps will be adequate. A second one dedicated to apps would provide minimal additional speed and be way over the point of diminishing returns.

For the storage subsystem, I'd recommend a RAID 10 array with 320 or 500GB 7200.1 Seagate perps. While the cost will be a bit high, you'll enjoy massive storage, high speed writes and reads (read: throughput) and excellent data security.

If you're planning on running Vista on this box, consider getting a 4MB high-speed USB drive to take advantage of ready boost (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/features/details/readyboost.mspx).

[Xstatic]

If you're planning on running Vista on this box, consider getting a 4MB high-speed USB drive to take advantage of ready boost (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/features/details/readyboost.mspx).

I won't be using Vista. It's a big no-no right now for music.

[dropadrop]

You mean a studio with paying customers? Consider RAID 1 or RAID 10. It would not be a huge investment, but calculate how much a few day's of downtime will cost you in direct loss of revenue and reputation.

7200rpm drives are pretty fast, but the Raptor is of course faster. However for you the most important thing is how much the drive can stream data (since you will probably be working with pretty large audio-files). The biggest strength of the Raptor is fast seeks, most noticeable with small files. The new big 7200rpm drives like the 500GB Western Digital AAKS or Samsung T166 should be able to handle about 20-30 mono audio-tracks at a time (16bit / 44100), probably more.

If that's your thing getting a Raptor for the operating system can be ok. Personally I'd get two pretty fast 500GB drives for audio and mirror them (RAID 1). If having a day's downtime would be expensive, I'd mirror the operating system too.

In regards to noise, it really depends on what case you have. The Raptors have pretty loud seeks which can be clearly audible in a case that does not provide suspension for the drives. I had a 150GB Raptor in an Antec P180 and it was pretty silent.