Data Storage, Audio Production, And You

Data storage on your production computer is an important topic. Not all hard drives are created equal. A few key points to look at are capacity, RPM, and warranty. You will know best how much storage will suit your needs, but the RPM (revolutions per minute, just like your car) of a hard drive will effect how quickly the drive can access information. Most companies offer a standard one year warranty, but many companies offer a 3 year warranty on some of their products. From personal experience, Western Digital warranty service is hard to beat.

With the decreasing cost of solid state drives, it may be time to add one to your machine.  They’re still not cheap compared to traditional hard drives, but the difference in performance has been compared to the difference between dial-up and cable internet connections. These drives do not have any moving parts, so they’re completely silent. The cost-per-gigabyte is still relatively high, so you may want a solid state drive to work from in addition to a traditional hard drive for bulk media storage.

Oh, and one more thing about solid state drives – they boot up fast! My old computer had a standard hard drive and it took like 5 minutes to reboot. The new computer with a solid state drive reboots in about 30 seconds!

Regardless of what drive you use, don’t forget to back up your data frequently!

There’s plenty of other information to consider when selecting a drive, read the full article here: https://audio.tutsplus.com/tutorials/production/hard-drives-and-audio-hardware-considerations/