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[DieHard]

I mentioned the following in a previous Post...

On Large Audio Volumes, it might pay to initialize Volumes as "Mac OS Standard" since when using Audio files (that are big in nature), it is beneficial to have a larger "Block size" upon volume initialization. Let me explain...

Since audio files are large... a block size of 64K (like under Mac OS Standard) would be preferred over a block size of 4K (like Mac OS Extended) with all volumes over 4 GB in size that will store audio files. The default bock sizes are directly proportional to the volume size and they differ greatly between Mac OS Standard and Mac OS extended.

Under Mac OS Standard we are limited to 65 Thousand files (assuming most are Audio, this might be OK) per volume. A small block size is STORAGE efficient, but not System efficient.  The larger the block size, the smaller the number of blocks the system has to track and load in memory and this is a huge benefit, and thus much more efficient in terms of the NUMBER of blocks needed to store a file.  Do you really care if at the end of an audio file that you waste 64K of disk space ? It is miniscule; if you need to store 2 billion text files of 2K in size, then the clear answer is Mac OS extended, Number of files goes up to 4 Billion plus per volume and much more disk efficient.

Maybe a good approach would be to make as many 190GB Volumes, each Mac OS Standard for the volumes that will have Audio recordings and making the one that will store samples and OS Files Mac OS extended.  I personally never tried this, but it is worth testing out

I was hoping a brave soul could test this theory out and post results, load the same project on 2 different volumes, one formatted Standard and One extended to see if it translates to less system overload and more audio tracks in the DAW software.

Thanks in Advanced,

Diehard

- Diehard

[IIO]

 
there are too many reasons to not use HFS.
 

[DieHard]

The Macintosh Standard format is HFS (extended is HFS+).... so what do you mean ?

Apple Support Info:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TA27115

[IIO]

what i mean is that ... it is, on one hand, an interesting question, but on the other hand, a very academic one.

there are many things which require HFS extended, for example journalling, but also some OSX apps and the classic enviroment. so in practice it is almost a no go to use HFS.

the main difference with HFS would be that the search times are longer. otoh i can also see why i would save CPU.

do you have an idea how one could test if and how much CPU could be saved playing audio files from HFS? i wouldnt know which tool to use to get exact results. (i suspect we are talking about a 0.1% range of difference)

[IIO]

the app with the highest track number is nuendo, which offers up to 200 tracks @ 32 bit.

in theory this can already be archived with a modern disk with 16 mb buffer connected via firewire 400. (about 35 mb/s)

in practice it is about half as much tracks, which means that you have to use 2 firewire disks or one internal HD of the specs ~100mb/s reading & connected via SATA-150.

and of course it gets less the more you are using small "parts" on tracks.

200 tracks mono 32 bit is not only the limit set by the program, but you will also hit almost all bottlenecks of your hardware with it, your CPU, your RAM  (except on DDR MDDs), and your HD controllers.

so ... measuring the difference between two filesystems based on max track count will probably not work well, we needed to measure CPU somehow.

[IIO]

it is tempting to find a test routine based on an USB 1.1 medium.

[DieHard]

Actually an extremely easy test... (it will have nothing to do with Audio buffers of the sound card or hard drive buffers)

The actual way the audio files are stored on the hard drive will differ, the same file on the Mac OS standard volume (64KB Blocks) will need only 1/16 the number of blocks to load and manipulate the file in memory as compared to the Mac OS extended volume (4 KB Blocks), and thus less system overhead... the files will take up a little more room on the Mac OS standard drive since the last 16KB block of each file will contain some wasted space.

Simply create at least (2) volumes on an unused Hard drive with the OS 9 drive Setup and select "extended" on 1 Volume and "Standard" on the Other, they will instantly initialize/format. 

Now copy the same large audio project to both volumes (of the exact same hard drive) and test loading the project from each volume in your DAW.

Compare the results in the HD Monitoring of the DAW

report results

[IIO]

the HD monitoring, right, but that is really hard to read, i am not even sure what it displays (i suppose peaks.)

ok, i have a fresh disk here, already with 2 volumes of the same size - will try tomorrow.

[DieHard]

Thanks...

[IIO]

hm, i will initialize the drive between tests instead of using different partitions, because only then i can make sure that the files are positioned on *almost* the same physical position. if i would use 2 partitions, on one of them the search could take longer because the files are elsewhere.

[IIO]

so, typing this from OS9 now,

so i have created 60 different mono 32 bit files and imported them to 60 tracks, when starting the song the disk meter spikes to 31%, then later during replay remains quiet. the actual disk activity is around 50% (it is a slow, but faster than firewire disk in a firewire enclosure.)

the comparison failed until now, because for some reason i cant seem to reformat the disk - it does not even appear in drive setup.

[DieHard]

 

Well... we almost had a test

[IIO]

lol yes. so... what i am supposed to do now? my other firewire drives all show up, but not this one.