How many partitions are you using and how much space are you allocating for OS, programs, data?

I figure this is the easiest way to do this:




Disk 0 has two separate installations of XP, one for general fuckery, the other for recording.
Disk 1 is set up for RAID 1.

I would have to check, but I have lots of partitions -- dual boot Ubuntu and XP, each of which have a few partitions for temp and other nonsense. Maybe 7 or so on my one drive and then separate partitions for different types of data on my other drives. Maybe a dozen total?

I have 4 drives in my Mac Pro

3 are set up to be the OS-APPS drive in a RAID 5 configuration (3 drives striped for fast data throughput)

the other drive is called WORKSPACE and I use this as my scratch disk, and where I save files.

Having the solo scratch disk makes audio and video stuff tons faster.

Since there's not exactly redundancy or failover with this, I have an external drive, a Firewire 800 drive that does back ups on a rotating schedule of my OS and WORKSPACE (minus Apps and Cache Files). I haven't settled on Time Machine, rsync or Super Duper! as the back up app of choice- they are all good.

So far this has kept disasters at bay. Once you get your system built to your liking, pull a Ghost image or Mac Disk Image of it if you are ever in the predicament of having to rebuild it.

You need a SATA Hardware Raid Card to do this config unless you are using software RAID

160 Gb boot drive
500 Gb drive (2 250Gb partitions, 1 for Audio, 1 for video)
250 Gb Archive drive, no partition.

All Sata 300, All internal.

n-eight wrote:Disk 0 has two separate installations of XP

Why would you need two separate XP installs on disk? I would use virtualization software like VMware or Virtual PC to run that second XP install.

I agree with mr.arrison.

Best line of defense against a disaster is to have one drive (or just a designated partition, I suppose) that you make incremental backups to on some sort of set schedule. Even if it's just a reminder in your calendar program.

You can lessen the pain of a disaster. It simply takes one good one to show you what not to do a second time.

bassness wrote:

n-eight wrote:Disk 0 has two separate installations of XP

Why would you need two separate XP installs on disk? I would use virtualization software like VMware or Virtual PC to run that second XP install.

the second installation is for audio recording purposes only. no internet, no extraneous software, no unneeded services. bare-bones, except for reaper and whatever VST instruments I want to run.

How would recording performance be if I ran a stripped down version of XP in VMware or something? I've never explored virtualization. It seems like it would be slower than a completely separate installation.

Do you guys find any genuine advantage is having a 'clean' recording installation and dual-boot?

I ran for years like that, but about 6 months ago I killed it and just went for a single boot with everything (including recording/editing software) on it. I find I get far more done now that I don't have to switch between boots, and it makes updating so much simpler.

I don't find anti-virus software/net connection has any real detrimental effect on recording/editing performance, and my PC is quit old now (P4 2.4, 1gig ram)...

I have a feeling that (like those endless service edits that some people still perform) that this stuff is slightly anachronistic.

i have four.
- 1) boot partition with xp and all the main software (100gb)
- 2) "stuff" partition (all my mp3s, video, audio, and stuff) (350 gb)

this way when i need to reinstall xp or doing something i just move everything to partition 2 and i just erase number 1.

- 3) ubuntu
- 4) ubuntu swap partition