Re: update on DAW PC questions (long)

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> So my first few questions are:
> 1) Is my plan reasonable?

It can work.

> 2) How shall I partition the DAW and general use OS? I have 50G to
> split between them (10G being used for WinSE). 3) Splitting the DAW
> and general use OS's into two separate boot partitions is a good
> idea, right?  This lets me customize the settings for each of the
> usages independently of the other.  Are there any issues having two
> WinXP partitions?

Nothing but the obvious.

> My next questions maybe somewhat controversial.  What are your views
> on Firwire vs. USB2.0?

They both work swimmingly.

> I know Firewire is faster in reality, but I
>  believe they are both fast enough for the number of audio channels I
> want.  My main concern is longevity.  From my understanding Firewire
> is the pro-video standard, so I can see how it may become the
> pro-audio standard as well.  However, USB 2.0 has Intel behind it, so
> ALL the mobo's out there will have it.  It'll be around a long, long
> time.

Only time will tell for sure.

> My next questions all deal with Fat32 vs. NTFS.  I know there has
> been alot of info and banter about this, and I've read a lot of
> those.  I don't want to start a flame war.  I just want some updated
> information to help weed through the mis-information out there. For
> background, this is a single user home computer.  I have no need for
> encryption or security.  Stability is nice (but does this come from
> WinXP or NTFS?) but speed is paramount for DAW from what I gather.
> So speed is my main concern.  Do you agree?

Hard drives are now fast enough that speed isn't a serious problem in
virtually every case.

A defragged FAT32 or NTFS drive is far faster than a fragged one. The file
systems have different performance profiles - each does some things a little
better. NTFS is more practical to use on large hard drives, and these days
every new drive is a relatively large drive.

> People have complained that NTFS is slower than Fat32.

Depends what you are doing.

> However, this
> may be due to the 512 byte partition WinXP uses by default. From my
> understanding, if you change this to 4k partitions, then the Fat32
> advantage largely goes away.  Is this true?  I will be formatting a
> new HD, so none of that 'convert FAT32 to NTFS' garbage for me.

The conversion program IME works well, so I don't know about this "garbage"
thing.

> On the other hand, I still hear people say that Fat32 is faster for
> 'smaller' HD's and NTFS for larger HD's.  Is this still true even
> with the 4k NTFS partitions?  What is 'smaller'?  Since WinXP won't
> format +32G in Fat32, many people use this as the limit for 'small'.

I've got machines with both kinds of partitions in them. Frankly I don't
notice much over-all difference in performance for audio. I do notice the
fact that if XP stops without a proper shutdown, the restart is delayed
because of the FAT drive.

> However, I also saw 12G somewhere.  Anybody have any comments on this
> topic?

Just use NTFS and enjoy, providing you don't want to access the data with
your Win98 system. I kept some FAT drives on my dual-boot system for just
that reason.

> I was going to have my 120G partitioned into several logical disks.
> One (or more) for DAW and the rest for general use.  Any suggestions?

I'm generally against partitioning. I tend to work in terms of whole drives.

> How much would I need for the DAW data?  Is having the data on a
> separate HD from the OS a good idea?

Let's put it this way. My favorite audio application is Cool Edit (AKA Adobe
Audition). It is much faster when two drives are available. This is because
a lot of what it does amounts to be sequential file copying. Sequential file
copying is generally much faster between two drives than on just one.

> I thought manually controlling the paging file (using equal min and
> max settings) was no longer necessary in WinXP.  Is this a holdover
> from the 'good ol' days' or is this still recommended?

I find that permanent swap files are a good thing. Right now I allocate a 1
GB permanent swap file with 1 GB dynamic overflow. Having the swap file in a
sweet spot on the boot drive (or other drive as appropriate) seems to be a
good thing. A non-fragmented swap file still seems to be a good thing.

>In NTFS  (assuming I go this way), is it still a good idea to have a
separate
> partition just for the paging file to minimize fragmentation?  If so,
> how much space did you reserve?  In Win98SE I have 500M and every
> once in a while it is not enough.

You don't need a separate partition, just a little planning.

> Turning off ACPI worries me a little.  I have never messed with this
> before.  Is this still recommended practice or is this still a myth
> from 'the good ol' days'?  I have an ACPI compliant mobo that I got
> about 1 year ago.  According to
> http://www.musicxp.net/installing_tips.htm configuring the
> installation as "standard" may actually reduce performance on an ACPI
> mobo.  Maybe I don't care since I'm not going with a PCI audio
> interface.  Any comments?

I haven't found ACPI to be a problem lately.

> The defrag that comes with WinXP does *not* defrag the MTF in NTFS
> (some consider this key in maintaining hi-speed performance for
> NTFS).  Third-party defrag programs do.  Do you use them?  Which do
> you recommend?

I use standard MS defrag.

> Some say to definitely turn the Task Scheduler service off.  Others
> say that the pre-fetching operation inherent in the Task Scheduler
> warrants leaving it on.  What is the current thought on this?

No problems with it on.

> Last Question (for now), what was the problem with the VIA chipset?

It wasn't as Intel compatible as we would have liked.

> Is it still a problem with modern systems?

The latest VIA chipset systems seem to be a whole lot more compatible.