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Advice on how to proceed w/ Pro Edition storage
Last post Thu, Jan 27 2005 by JWL, 18 replies.
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Posted on Thu, Jan 13 2005 07:37
by Glenn Morrissette
Joined on Tue, Feb 11 2003, Burbank, CA, Posts 80
I just received my pro edition upgrade today, after biting the bullet and taking advantage of the recent holiday pricing. I'm running Logic/VSL on a dual 1.42 G4, and have nowhere near enough hard disk space free to install this behemoth. Of course, I knew this would be the case when I upgraded, but I just couldn't pass up that price. Anyway...I'm trying to figure out what the best storage approach is. I plan to upgrade to a G5 in the forseeable future and hope to move whatever storage mechanism I decide on to the new G5, so I guess that rules out IDE for my current setup. So...that leaves me with the choice of going with SATA w/ PCI interface or FW800. Is either of these a clearly better solution w/ VSL or are they pretty comparable?
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Posted on Thu, Jan 13 2005 18:26
by stupid8track
Joined on Thu, Mar 13 2003, Posts 230
Glenn

in my experience, you won't see much difference between 7200 rpm SATA and 7200 rpm ATA drive in a firewire case - just make sure you buy a firewire drive/case with the oxford 9xx chipset in it - that can make a sizeable difference in performance.

10K SATA is a step up from either, but is currently limited to 76 GB.

also, fw800 is really irrelevant for you as it is merely an interface - it is the drive inside which matters which, for now, will be the same in either fw400 or fw800. and seeing as a 7200 rpm drive isn't going to come close to flooding a fw400 bus anyway, no point in fw800. the interface doesn't make the drive faster - so it doesn't improve end performance.

also, in my experience, multiple drives don't improve performance. you can use them, but you won't be able to run more simultaneous instruments without dropped data. don't know why (it doesn't make sense) but that is how logic behaves with audio track data, too. same thing with RAIDs.

so, IMO, the best thing to do is get a large 7200 rpm firewire drive with oxford 911/922 chipset and get to work. no real point to buying firewire 800 at the moment, especially if it costs any more - because it won't improve anything. though many cases offer both 400 and 800 ports - which is convenient only because it gives you more options for connection. if it doesn't cost anything, it can't hurt to have both.

i've tested firewire drives with the oxford chipset and without - and the ones with the oxford chipset performed at 160+% of the ones without it (performance measured as the point at which data started being dropped).

hope this helps and congrats on the new setup
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Posted on Thu, Jan 13 2005 18:40
by Fred Story
Joined on Tue, Jul 08 2003, Charlotte, North Carolina, USA, Posts 257
Now THAT is the kind of helpful response that makes this forum one of my favorites.

stupid8track...you rock!

Fred Story

PS - I can probably guess...but I have to ask. What's the origin of your screen name?
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Posted on Thu, Jan 13 2005 22:47
by Laurent
Joined on Thu, Sep 05 2002, Paris, Posts 337
stupid8track, a SATA drive is much more faster than a FireWIre 400.
less connections, it's internal. Inside a G5 it rocks
Did you test any of them ?
And the FireWire 800 makes a huge difference compare to the FW 400.
The Drive doesn't just do it…
(tested with several 7200 rpm recent drives)
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Posted on Thu, Jan 13 2005 23:13
by Glenn Morrissette
Joined on Tue, Feb 11 2003, Burbank, CA, Posts 80
Thanks for the info stupid8track and Laurent. Somebody must be mistaken though...dare we hash this out further? Confused
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Posted on Fri, Jan 14 2005 06:27
by Glenn Morrissette
Joined on Tue, Feb 11 2003, Burbank, CA, Posts 80
What about SATA not via Firewire, but through a PCI SATA adapter a la something like this by Sonnet:

http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempo_serial_ata.html

I realize that either type of drive (SATA or ATA) via Firewire won't make much difference. But what about SATA via the Sonnet card above vs. SATA via Firewire?

Laurent -- I see the source of confusion now. We're talking only about external drives. Certainly, I would expect an internal SATA drive on a G5 would perform better than an external FW400 drive.
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Posted on Fri, Jan 14 2005 08:59
by stupid8track
Joined on Thu, Mar 13 2003, Posts 230
Glenn and Laurent

yes, i tested the internal SATA on a G5 - both 7200 rpm and 10000 rpm - and from what i found, there wasn't a great difference in real world performance between SATA 7200 and firewire (ATA) 7200.

let me put it like this - in my test of simultaneous stereo EXS voices which could be played before data was dropped, i got the following numbers for various drives:

firewire 400 (non Oxford 911/922 chipset) - 35 voices
firewire 400 (Oxford 911 chipset) - 58 voices
firewire 800 (Oxford 922 chipset) - 58 voices
SATA - 64 voices
10K SATA - 82 voices
15K scsi - 92 voices

the relative power of the drives roughly mirrors the numbers i got for the number of 96K stereo files i could playback simultaneously in a real world test (with plugs) for these drives (i didn't test the non Oxford fw400 drive for this because i didn't yet own it):

firewire 400 (Oxford 911) - 14
firewire 800 (Oxford 922) - 14
SATA - 16
10K SATA - 25
15K scsi - 28

anyway, i personally don't think the 'increase' in performance of 7200 SATA over firewire justifies the cost. if someone else does, more power to them.

i hope this info is of some help to Glenn and anyone else considering a drive purchase for VSL.

Fred:

these forums have given me so much that it is nice to be able to give back where i can. i'm glad the post was appreciated.

best to all

edit: just to be clear - i only tested SATA internally on the G5. i am not aware of any firewire cases for SATA drives. but, even so, they didn't perform much betterh than fw400 - at least at 7200 rpm
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Posted on Fri, Jan 14 2005 18:06
by garylionelli
Joined on Wed, Jul 09 2003, Los Angeles, Posts 387
stupid8track wrote:


a 7200 rpm drive isn't going to come close to flooding a fw400 bus anyway, no point in fw800. the interface doesn't make the drive faster - so it doesn't improve end performance.



Exactly right!
Pro Tools Ultimate, Avid MTRX, Mac Pro 3.5 Ghz 6-Core (2014) 128 GB RAM, Mac OS Big Sur, Samsung SSDs
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Posted on Sun, Jan 23 2005 03:59
by JWL
Joined on Sun, Jul 20 2003, Posts 1274
stupid8track wrote:


also, in my experience, multiple drives don't improve performance. you can use them, but you won't be able to run more simultaneous instruments without dropped data. don't know why (it doesn't make sense) but that is how logic behaves with audio track data, too. same thing with RAIDs.


S8T--

I know this is almost a year later, but I put off updating all my studio gear because I'd spent most of 2004 on tour. It hasn't made sense buying a G5 if I would not be around to use it-- I'll be using my G4 867 single for just a short time longer, gladly.

Today, 22 Jan 05, I just bought the Pro Edition and had a LONG discussion with my dealer about HD sizes. I also bought a Glyph GT050 FW drive with the Seagate guts topping out at only 200 GB. The drive has come highly recommended as one of the best and quietest pro drives available. I also have a Glyph NetDrive at 120Gb.

Part of the discussion taps into your post, which I've quoted above. My dealer recommended I split the VSL Pro Edition between two FW drives because sending info down two pipes is more efficient. Somehow, I still think the Pro Edition will send my 867 processor into a form of nuclear meltdown. In any case, from what you've stated, there don't appear to be any real benefits of storing the VSL Pro Edition on two drives.

Have I misunderstood something here? I'd like to run this by my dealer (who I trust greatly). Mainly, I just want to understand before I needlessly start spending money. I'm still getting a great deal of work done on my G4, believe it or not.

To add to this, I still get conflicting information about the HD read limit on pre Mirror Door G4's. Some people say that this limit was addressed with Panther. Others still argue that nothing earlier than Mirror Door G4's will read anything over 120Gb. Plugging in this new Glyph 200 Gb will answer that question, but I suppose getting a G5 will lay it all to rest...

Ka-ching!!! Here we go again....

Peace,
JWL
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Posted on Sun, Jan 23 2005 22:55
by stupid8track
Joined on Thu, Mar 13 2003, Posts 230
JWL

sadly, in my experience, the failure of multiple drives to improve the streaming voice limit remains.

i tried recently some testing again with logic 7 with multiple firewire, firewire + SATA, and multiple scsi drives - in every case, multiple drives performed at the same level as a single drive (meaning data got dropped at the same voice count).

i understand your dealer's misunderstanding - because it makes no sense that multiple drives wouldn't improve performance. apple certainly doesn't announce that multiple drives don't help. it is further confused because you can playback/stream from multiple drives - so you would think it would be improving performance.

but, in my experience, that is still not the case - dual 2 G5/OS 10.3.5 - with either streaming or basic audio track playback. IMO, it is something in how logic is coded. protools can make use of multiple drives (even LE), logic can't (unless running DAE/TDM - then i believe it can - but don't quote me on it as i haven't had a PT/TDM rig in years, so i can't confirm). but i believe PT and logic 'see' audio in different ways. i can't explain it any more than that, but that is my understanding.

anyway, i do believe your G4 is limited internally to ATA drives which are 128 GB or less due to something with the ATA/system interface (you can put a larger drive in, but it will only be recognized as 12Cool. i don't believe that your firewire drive will be limited in any way regarding size because i don't believe there is any 'limit' in the firewire port itself. i could be wrong because i haven't been on an older G4 in a while, but that is my guess. sorry i can't give you a guarantee.

i've got some old firewire 400 cases which don't allow for more than 128 GB to be recognized - but that is a function of the hardware in the firewire case, not the mac.

anyway, it is my opinion that multiple drives won't help you with voice count and that you should be fine with a 200 GB firewire drive. but please make sure you can return the drive in the event i'm wrong.

hope this helps and enjoy the new sounds.

cheers
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Posted on Sun, Jan 23 2005 23:30
by JWL
Joined on Sun, Jul 20 2003, Posts 1274
stupid8track wrote:
JWL

sadly, in my experience, the failure of multiple drives to improve the streaming voice limit remains.

i tried recently some testing again with logic 7 with multiple firewire, firewire + SATA, and multiple scsi drives - in every case, multiple drives performed at the same level as a single drive (meaning data got dropped at the same voice count).

i understand your dealer's misunderstanding - because it makes no sense that multiple drives wouldn't improve performance. apple certainly doesn't announce that multiple drives don't help. it is further confused because you can playback/stream from multiple drives - so you would think it would be improving performance.

but, in my experience, that is still not the case - dual 2 G5/OS 10.3.5 - with either streaming or basic audio track playback. IMO, it is something in how logic is coded. protools can make use of multiple drives (even LE), logic can't (unless running DAE/TDM - then i believe it can - but don't quote me on it as i haven't had a PT/TDM rig in years, so i can't confirm). but i believe PT and logic 'see' audio in different ways. i can't explain it any more than that, but that is my understanding.

anyway, i do believe your G4 is limited internally to ATA drives which are 128 GB or less due to something with the ATA/system interface (you can put a larger drive in, but it will only be recognized as 12Cool. i don't believe that your firewire drive will be limited in any way regarding size because i don't believe there is any 'limit' in the firewire port itself. i could be wrong because i haven't been on an older G4 in a while, but that is my guess. sorry i can't give you a guarantee.

i've got some old firewire 400 cases which don't allow for more than 128 GB to be recognized - but that is a function of the hardware in the firewire case, not the mac.

anyway, it is my opinion that multiple drives won't help you with voice count and that you should be fine with a 200 GB firewire drive. but please make sure you can return the drive in the event i'm wrong.

hope this helps and enjoy the new sounds.

cheers


S8T--

Once again, you words are wise and accurate. I have the Glyph 200 GB drive plugged in now-- and other than the expected loss of *actual* disc space (now down to 186 GB), my humble number crunching 867 single indeed reads in excess of 128 GB!

In any case, it was a good investment because a G5 is to come, as are larger drive capacities. I've never heard of anyone having "too much" hard drive space!

If the performance is the same with a single drive or multiples, then there really is no appreciable loss. That's encouraging news.

Other questions:

1) Have you experienced performance differences with FW drives attched in parallel (directly to the computer's ports) as opposed to in a series (FW drives chained front-to-back)? One thing I fear is that I've run out of FW ports and must resort to series connections. I also have one of the new Apple Cinema monitors and already have those FW ports loaded.

2) Have you actually timed the performances of one drive as opposed to two or more? The voice count was one aspect that interested me. The others pertain to load times into EXS and just where drop out points begin. (I think I had 40 instances of ESX at one point before it hemmoraged on me.)

3) I do confess that I have yet to get Logic Pro 7 (all this gear really adds up quickly! Upgrades are now running close to $10k.). Has there been any improvement to ESX-VSL load times? Can you share your experience with overall performance before and after getting a G5? I am aware that some of these concerns are inherent in Logic and not the Apple hardware and OS, but I'd like to get a better understanding of what will be improved and what will not by investing in a G5 and its RAM with Pro 7 and VSL PE.

I will also be scouring the forum for other posts on this topic to avoid redundancies-- and to overtax your generosity!

4) My last issue of curiosity (for the day) is in wondering if there are any advantages to using VSL Pro with Kontakt or Halion in my own case... Does that mean, for example, that if I could use Kontakt in Digital Performer that I can access VSL outside of Logic? Of course, the big issue here is file formatting. I've been able to convert Giga format into EXS with great success (including keymaps) and was just wondering what kind of money pit I've dug for myself with the ESX format... Have I invested my way out of the Kontak/Halion route?

Again, I will be searching other threads for more info, but man!! I just feel SO far behind. Playing "catch up" is no fun.

Thanks again-- and again,
JWL
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Posted on Sun, Jan 23 2005 23:32
by JWL
Joined on Sun, Jul 20 2003, Posts 1274
(Last post was cut off--)

4) My last issue of curiosity (for the day) is in wondering if there are any advantages to using VSL Pro with Kontakt or Halion in my own case... Does that mean, for example, that if I could use Kontakt in Digital Performer that I can access VSL outside of Logic? Of course, the big issue here is file formatting. I've been able to convert Giga format into EXS with great success (including keymaps) and was just wondering what kind of money pit I've dug for myself with the ESX format... Have I invested my way out of the Kontak/Halion route?

Again, I will be searching other threads for more info, but man!! I just feel SO far behind. Playing "catch up" is no fun.

Thanks again-- and again,
JWL
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Posted on Tue, Jan 25 2005 18:46
by stupid8track
Joined on Thu, Mar 13 2003, Posts 230
JWL

sorry for the delay -- i was away for a couple days. to the questions:

1. i haven't noticed any performance differences with parallel vs. serial - but i haven't tested it a great deal either, and not in a good amount of time. but, again, you'll start dropping data before you'll flood the bus, so i wouldn't worry about it too much.

2. not exactly sure what you are asking by "timed the performance of one drive as opposed to two or more". if you are asking if i have actually compared voice count performance of one vs. multiple drives, then the answer is yes, many times. regarding load times of EXS - i don't recall noticing any 'improvement' in speed with multiple drives, but confess i wasn't testing for it, either. i will say that Redmatica's EXS Manager software is a godsend for speed EXS loading (redmatica.com)

3. regarding logic 7 - there have been reports of improvements in EXS load times, but since i already use EXS Manager, i haven't noticed. A G5 allows you to use more RAM with Logic. with a G5, you can use 3+ GB of RAM for Logic, vs. around 1.7 GB with a G4. currently OS X and programs are limited to 4 GB of RAM space (in total). but the G4 is limited to 2 GB of RAM. so you will be able to load almost double the sample heads into RAM with a G5. beyond that, there isn't much VSL improvement with a G5, since VSL/EXS doesn't use a lot of CPU (plugins do - you can use many more effects on a G5)

4. i'm really the wrong guy to ask regarding kontakt/halion. i've got kontakt but haven't thought about using it with VSL, just because i use EXS. i believe they have a kontakt forum here - probably best to ask around there. it could be that there are tremendous improvements, or nothing but headaches - i just don't know.

hope this helps
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Posted on Tue, Jan 25 2005 21:36
by Laurent
Joined on Thu, Sep 05 2002, Paris, Posts 337
stupid8track,
thanks for all you valuable and detailled infos.
You're right, I was only talking about the internal ATA drives.
I thought the FireWire800 has far more speed than the FW400.
Juste copy some files from let say the internal drive to a FW800.
It's about twice the speed compare to the FW400.
(have done the testing in a very short amount of time on only 2 computers, so it's not a big deal…)
You answered the question many Logic and VSL users are asking:
Should we separate the VSL on 2 drives, performances on one, all other stuff on the other ?
You wrote there is not that much difference.
But did you experience the same as me ?
Bouncing offline with Logic a lot of VSL instruments makes my hard drive like he wont survive.
it's like he's reading everywhere the streaming samples as fast as it can, and that seems to be very painful for the drive.
Do you think we may have some other solutions ?
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Posted on Wed, Jan 26 2005 03:30
by Glenn Morrissette
Joined on Tue, Feb 11 2003, Burbank, CA, Posts 80
Ok...I've settled on getting an external SATA drive on which to install my Pro Edition. I've ordered the drive and Firmtek's external SATA card (I still have a G4), and I'm trying to settle on an external enclosure. Question -- I see lots of sites for enclosures that don't explicitly indicate Mac support. Is this an issue with enclosures, or will any SATA enclosure work on either platform?
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Posted on Wed, Jan 26 2005 06:07
by JWL
Joined on Sun, Jul 20 2003, Posts 1274
stupid8track wrote:
JWL

sorry for the delay -- i was away for a couple days. to the questions:

1. i haven't noticed any performance differences with parallel vs. serial - but i haven't tested it a great deal either, and not in a good amount of time. but, again, you'll start dropping data before you'll flood the bus, so i wouldn't worry about it too much.

2. not exactly sure what you are asking by "timed the performance of one drive as opposed to two or more". if you are asking if i have actually compared voice count performance of one vs. multiple drives, then the answer is yes, many times. regarding load times of EXS - i don't recall noticing any 'improvement' in speed with multiple drives, but confess i wasn't testing for it, either. i will say that Redmatica's EXS Manager software is a godsend for speed EXS loading (redmatica.com)

3. regarding logic 7 - there have been reports of improvements in EXS load times, but since i already use EXS Manager, i haven't noticed. A G5 allows you to use more RAM with Logic. with a G5, you can use 3+ GB of RAM for Logic, vs. around 1.7 GB with a G4. currently OS X and programs are limited to 4 GB of RAM space (in total). but the G4 is limited to 2 GB of RAM. so you will be able to load almost double the sample heads into RAM with a G5. beyond that, there isn't much VSL improvement with a G5, since VSL/EXS doesn't use a lot of CPU (plugins do - you can use many more effects on a G5)

4. i'm really the wrong guy to ask regarding kontakt/halion. i've got kontakt but haven't thought about using it with VSL, just because i use EXS. i believe they have a kontakt forum here - probably best to ask around there. it could be that there are tremendous improvements, or nothing but headaches - i just don't know.

hope this helps


Thanks, S8T. It does help indeed.

Today, I made the leap to the G5 2.5 Ghz with 3.5 GB RAM. Also picked up Logic Pro 7. This investment alone will solve a multitude of problems.

I'll not worry about kontakt or other platforms for reasons stated above.

Responses:

1) Makes sense...

2) That's what I meant. I will place the Performance Set on a different drive, since it was suggested in the manual-- and since the two fw drives on hand at the moment are enough to store the data, it won't be necessary to buy a larger single fw drive just for VSL. I am looking into a second SATA for other purposes.

3) Check! If it weren't for the twin 256 Gb sticks that ship with the G5, I might have gone for a full 4 GB right away. 3.5 should suffice for now-- 1.75 GB for each processor.

4) All questions about VSL with other platforms have been retracted. I may find a need for Kontakt in the near future, but not for VSL.

Thanks again for your help!
JWL
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Posted on Wed, Jan 26 2005 06:52
by stupid8track
Joined on Thu, Mar 13 2003, Posts 230
JWL

congratulations on a great system - you are going to love it.

and using two drives certainly won't hurt performance. if you've already got em, use em.

congrats again
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Posted on Thu, Jan 27 2005 02:49
by JWL
Joined on Sun, Jul 20 2003, Posts 1274
Thanks, S8T.

Let's hope it's an investment in joy, because I'm reeling a bit from the expense. Today I even went a step or two further and picked up French Oboe and Epic Horns.

The G5 arrived today and I'm about to install the extra RAM, but the fw drives are still connected to the G4 and have been extracting 24 hours a day for 4 days!! I still have 4 discs remaining in the Pro Ed. Performance Set to complete-- which I might complete with the G5 in hopes of a noticeable speed bump with extracting and copying.

There is SO much left to do and "almost" too much to keep up with. The PT must be updated as well as certain sample files listed in the user area. I must also resort the contents of all the part 1/part 2 folders.

Until Redmatica arrives, Logic will have to be set to scan two drives to connect samples with instrument files. It took forever in os 9, a few hours in os x, so again here's hoping that the G5 and Logic 7 will prove their worth in this department.

The waiting is KILLING me!!

The upside about UnRarX-- it's tons faster than Stuffit and indeed extracted files which Stuffit claimed to be "corrupt" (my least favorite computer word after "execute"). Smile

The downside is that I've not been able to get UnRarX to batch convert. Stuffit does allow me to leave the studio for very LOOOONG periods of time.

How nice it will be to make music again....

regards,
JWL
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