Best utilization of 2 hard drives ??

[tmann]

Hi -

I've setup my P4 3.0 GHz machine with 2 SATA hard drives (each 200 MB). By reading through other posts in this forum, I've gathered that I can speed things up by dividing the work between the 2 drives...but I'm having trouble finding exactly what should run on my C drive and what on the E drive. Here's my current situation:

Drive C:
- Windows XP
- All video tools (Premiere, TMPGenc, DVD Lab, Nero, etc)

Drive E:
- Transfered (captured) files from miniDV cam or analog source
- Premiere 'project' files
- Premiere scratch
- AVIs from Premiere
- Encoded MPEGs from TMPGenc
- Pretty much any other file used in a video/audio project

Is this the best way to utilize my 2 hard drives? I know some folks think there isn't much gained in terms of speed, but even if it's miniscule I'd still like to do things right to reduce bottlenecks, etc.

Would it make more sense, for example, to export AVIs form Premiere onto the C drive, and then encode those AVIs into MPEGs on the E drive? That way the source and the output from the encoding process are on different drives. Or is it more important to have the files on one drive, and the software that's doing the encoding (TMPGenc) on the other drive?

Thanks,
tmann

[harley2ride]

Hi -

I've setup my P4 3.0 GHz machine with 2 SATA hard drives (each 200 MB). By reading through other posts in this forum, I've gathered that I can speed things up by dividing the work between the 2 drives...but I'm having trouble finding exactly what should run on my C drive and what on the E drive. Here's my current situation:

Drive C:
- Windows XP
- All video tools (Premiere, TMPGenc, DVD Lab, Nero, etc)

Drive E:
- Transfered (captured) files from miniDV cam or analog source
- Premiere 'project' files
- Premiere scratch
- AVIs from Premiere
- Encoded MPEGs from TMPGenc
- Pretty much any other file used in a video/audio project

Is this the best way to utilize my 2 hard drives? I know some folks think there isn't much gained in terms of speed, but even if it's miniscule I'd still like to do things right to reduce bottlenecks, etc.

Would it make more sense, for example, to export AVIs form Premiere onto the C drive, and then encode those AVIs into MPEGs on the E drive? That way the source and the output from the encoding process are on different drives. Or is it more important to have the files on one drive, and the software that's doing the encoding (TMPGenc) on the other drive?

Thanks,
tmann

I'm sure that you will get different thoughts on this, but basically my setup is fairly similar. All of my software and os is on one drive, and all of my files on another. Even if you put your avi on your C: drive, then encoded to your D: drive, you would have software running on your C: drive, including your os, and encoding software that would take something away from the process. Now if you had 3 drives, and went at it from that direction, you might see a slight improvement.

[MysticE]

Per MS' advice you may want to put another PageFile on the second drive.

[BobK]

Even if you put your avi on your C: drive, then encoded to your D: drive, you would have software running on your C: drive, including your os, and encoding software that would take something away from the process. Now if you had 3 drives, and went at it from that direction, you might see a slight improvement.

I've found that when converting (encoding- or otherwise changing a file and re-writing it), the process goes much faster if I put the original file on one drive and encode (convert) to the second drive.

It seems to me if you're reading one file to convert, and writing the converted file to the same drive then that drive is trying to read and write to/from the same drive constantly. If one file is on the same drive as the OS it's not constant since at least some of the OS and software data is stored in RAM. Even if that's not correct, my experience shows that it's still faster.

[redwudz]

I have two computers that use 3 SATA drives each. Boot, Edit, and Archive. But as far as encoding, the speed your drives transfer at is not really a factor. It helps for editing and for capturing, but the bottleneck in encoding is the CPU and partially the RAM and bus speeds.

Hard drive transfer rates aren't that much an issue. Watch your HD activity light while you are encoding. It's not being used continually.

I would stick with your present setup.

[Bjs]

With any processing , the rule is to not read and write to the same drive , this cause's bottleneck's .

As for processor speed , buss specifics , this dose not even come into the question of what was asked , the pc will do things only slightly faster by following the first rule .

As for where files should be located :

Files being read on C:
Project files is a real trick , as you may have saved projects , raw film , and other associated files , fine , store on C: , but remmember where they are ...

Any outputed project file , such as test compilations or whole project completetions should be stored on any other drive .

The basic reason for this is when finished and project works and is finally burnt to media , you simple delete all stored on that drive , then run scandisk via restart under xp , then run disk defrag tool on that drive ... I know this sounds stupid even though nothing is there .. but xp dose expect this to be carried out for its own benefit .

Anyone with a pc should know to run scandisk every now and then , followed by defrag just to keep the system happy , and running as fast as it is capable of .

Just remmember , after project is burnt too media , all files belonging too , or associated with project should be deleted , if nolonger required , then scan disc , then defrag . This removes whats known as "slack space" , which over time , can cause the pc problems , even slow it to a grinding halt if left long enough .

PS : deleted dose not mean send to recycle bin ...