I named a section of my hard drive “The Vault” because that’s basically what the storage device is. It’s a place to put all the files or songs you’re not using, ready to be ordered up at a moment’s notice. However, the hard drive plays a big part in the recording process. This is the virtual tape where all the tracks are laid down, so you have to make sure everything runs smoothly. Otherwise, you get the digital equivalent of crumpled or eaten tape, and it sounds as bad as the real thing.
First, make sure that you have enough hard drive space. In Chapter 2, I men-tion that it’s a good idea to have at least a 100GB hard drive. If you’re delving deep into recording, you may want to either get a larger drive or even install a second hard drive on your system. In fact, it’s a good idea to have your sound recorded on a different drive than the one that contains the program you’re using to do the recording. If you can’t manage that, you should at least partition your drive so that the computer can address that part of the drive faster. Regardless of the size of your hard drive, make sure that it has a data cache (about 8MB) to ensure that information can flow even during seek times.
The drive can be partitioned before it’s formatted and loaded with Windows XP, or you can use a program like Partition Magic to partition the drive after you’ve loaded Windows XP. This can be a risky and complicated procedure, though, and you’ll gain more benefits by using a second hard drive for record-ing. In the long run, the extra expense will more than pay for itself.
The second concern is the speed of the hard drive. Measured in rotations per minute (or rpm), this relates to how quickly the drive can move to access or record data. You need to have at least a 7,200-rpm drive, and anything faster is helpful. Drives rated at 10,000 rpm are a big benefit. You pay more for faster drives, but it’s worth the money if you’re serious about recording. The drive should also have a fast (low) seek time (about 7 to 8 milliseconds) so that it can find and record data quickly.
Finally, make sure that you keep your drive in the best possible working condition. Using tools already present in Windows XP, you can clean and defragment your hard drive to keep it running in the best possible condition.
Think of it as tuning up a car. Cleanup and defragmenting tools are found in the same place, so the following steps show you how to take care of them both at the same time:
1. Click the Start button, and select My Computer.
This shows you the available drives on your computer.
2. Right-click the hard drive or partition that you want to clean up, and select Properties from the menu that appears.
You see a tabbed menu (like that shown in Figure 11-3) that displays the amount of space left on the selected drive or partition, among other things.
3. On the General tab, click the Disk Cleanup button.
After reviewing the hard drive or partition, Windows XP presents a list of items that can be deleted. These items normally include files stored temporarily on the drive, cached Internet data, and other expendable information that can be trashed without consequence.
4. Select the actions you want to take, and click the OK button.
This gets rid of the unnecessary files and frees hard drive space.
5. Click the Tools tab, and click the Defragment Now button.
The Disk Defragmenter window, shown in Figure 11-4, allows you to ana-lyze and defragment the drives or partitions on your computer.
6. Select the drive you want to examine, and click the Analyze button.
The Disk Defragmenter examines the drive and reports whether the drive needs to be defragmented. If you’ve never done this before, your drive probably needs to be defragmented.
Figure 11-3:
The properties of a hard drive in Windows XP.
7. If the analysis recommends defragmenting the drive, click the Defragment button.
This process can take a while, so you may want to go get a soft drink right now. The defragmenting process is shown in Figure 11-5.
Figure 11-5:
The defrag-menting process.
Figure 11-4:
Defrag-menting the hard drive.
Defragmenting the hard drive consolidates the parts of files that have been scattered around the hard drive and places them closer together. It’s like alphabetizing your CD collection or arranging your tax receipts. Everything becomes quicker and easier to find; this places less strain on your system and reduces file access time. Depending on the degree of fragmentation, this process can take some time, but it’s the easiest and cheapest thing you can do to make your computer run smoother and faster. You should repeat this process about once a week, depending on how often you use your system.
Audio files, especially those files used temporarily to record sound, are among the most fragmented files found on your computer. Make these cleanup and defragmenting functions your friends, and visit them often.