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Author Topic: Qu-series acceptable USB hard drives  (Read 22353 times)

g'bye, Dick Rees

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Qu-series acceptable USB hard drives
« on: June 30, 2014, 04:15:53 PM »

Looking for your experience with compatible external hard drives for use with Qu-drive multi-track recording.  I'm using an old  Seagate 500 GB model and it works fine...so far. 

What works for you?  Any massive FAILS to avoid?

TIA for sharing.
« Last Edit: June 30, 2014, 04:29:31 PM by dick rees »
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Corey Scogin

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Re: Qu-series acceptable USB hard drives
« Reply #1 on: June 30, 2014, 04:47:40 PM »

Looking for your experience with compatible external hard drives for use with Qu-drive multi-track recording.

The Qu manual initially warned against using USB flash drives for multi-track recording but I have used these for 15+ recordings without fail:
http://www.sandisk.com/products/usb/drives/extreme/

Now, the QuDrive knowledgebase page from A&H lists those flash drives as acceptable.
http://allen-heath.helpserve.com/Knowledgebase/Article/View/774/273/understanding-qu-drive-and-usb

The write speeds meet or exceed most USB hard disks.  When first testing a new USB HDD, I bumped it during multi-track playback and it hiccuped.  This put me off of using spinning disks for this purpose and on to looking for a flash based solution.

The downside is that the flash drives aren't as large as most HDD's but I always reformat them before each recording anyway to help ensure the best performance.  I'd do that with an HDD also.

--Edit--
PS: I also bought one of these cables to help keep from hitting the drive and breaking it or the USB port when in use:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002KNI796/
The USB connector is much shorter than the drive when inserted into the USB slot and it allows the drive to hang out of the way behind the mixer.
« Last Edit: June 30, 2014, 04:56:22 PM by Corey Scogin »
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g'bye, Dick Rees

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Re: Qu-series acceptable USB hard drives
« Reply #2 on: June 30, 2014, 05:15:22 PM »

I noticed the approval of the Sandisk sticks today.  Funny how the "approved list changes every so often.  That's why I started this thread...

Which size Sandisk are you using?
« Last Edit: June 30, 2014, 05:18:40 PM by dick rees »
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Corey Scogin

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Re: Qu-series acceptable USB hard drives
« Reply #3 on: June 30, 2014, 05:42:53 PM »

Which size Sandisk are you using?

I'm using a 16GB and a 32GB Sandisk USB Extreme 3.0
I keep two in order to have a spare.  I swap up which one I'm using so both end up getting used.
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g'bye, Dick Rees

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Re: Qu-series acceptable USB hard drives
« Reply #4 on: June 30, 2014, 05:49:09 PM »

I'm using a 16GB and a 32GB Sandisk USB Extreme 3.0
I keep two in order to have a spare.  I swap up which one I'm using so both end up getting used.

I've just begun recording with the Qu, so looking for best practices.  Yes, i've heard of the skips with spinning discs, but for the cost of one hi-speed stick I can get 5x as much capacity with the hard drives.

We'll see how things balance out.  I'll be watching for sale prices...
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Tommy Peel

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Re: Qu-series acceptable USB hard drives
« Reply #5 on: June 30, 2014, 06:11:57 PM »

I've just begun recording with the Qu, so looking for best practices.  Yes, i've heard of the skips with spinning discs, but for the cost of one hi-speed stick I can get 5x as much capacity with the hard drives.

We'll see how things balance out.  I'll be watching for sale prices...

I wonder if any of the cheaper USB 3.0 drives are fast enough. I bought a 32gb drive on sale a couple of months ago for <$25. I know the recordings I make with my Mackie Onyx 1640 tend to be <10gb when I record 14-18 channels at 48k into Reaper for around an hour.
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Jerome Casinger

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Re: Qu-series acceptable USB hard drives
« Reply #6 on: June 30, 2014, 06:14:52 PM »

Corey/Dick -

Couple questions you guys might be able to answer: how much recording are you doing on those sticks?

I currently use Reaper and an X32, but am looking to possibly get the QU24, and this is one option a lot of clients are beginning to ask me for, so I am curious as the size of the files comparative to time spent recording if that makes sense?

Have you brought any of the files into software, did it play nice?  Does it names the files by what channel they were recorded from ? Sound quality once imported?

Corey Scogin

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Re: Qu-series acceptable USB hard drives
« Reply #7 on: June 30, 2014, 06:39:30 PM »

Couple questions you guys might be able to answer: how much recording are you doing on those sticks?

I record once per week for about 75-90 minutes.

Quote
I currently use Reaper and an X32, but am looking to possibly get the QU24, and this is one option a lot of clients are beginning to ask me for, so I am curious as the size of the files comparative to time spent recording if that makes sense?

Uncompressed audio file size is easily calculable.  It's the same for anything recording in PCM format (which is pretty much everything)
Try this: http://www.sounddevices.com/calculator/
It works out to about 500MB per track per hour for 24bit/48k

Quote
Have you brought any of the files into software, did it play nice?  Does it names the files by what channel they were recorded from ? Sound quality once imported?

No problems importing files here.  WAV files are pretty basic in the first place.
The files are numbered by channel in my version of the firmware--which might be 1 revision behind.
The sound quality should be exactly bit-for-bit as it is heard from the console with no processing.  Nothing changes when it's written to disk.  The sound quality of the preamps and converters in the console is just fine for live use and likely pretty good for project studios too.
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Debbie Dunkley

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Re: Qu-series acceptable USB hard drives
« Reply #8 on: June 30, 2014, 08:02:24 PM »

Have used WD My Passport 1TB and WD My Passport 500Gb with absolutely no issues at all.
Many folks on the A&H website were complaining that even some of the 'approved' drives were causing skipping yet some others not on the list were working well. It was also noted by quite a few people that vibration was a factor in the skipping issues and some found that if they laid the drive on foam, it completely eliminated the skipping. Others said it made no difference.

I have formatted on most occasions but yet on others I have not. Each time I have got great results.
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g'bye, Dick Rees

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Re: Qu-series acceptable USB hard drives
« Reply #9 on: June 30, 2014, 10:01:21 PM »

Great info so far.  Next question:

A&H recommend not starting and stopping the process, but that doesn't make any sense to me as I use the stop/re-arm/go to make tracks.  I could find no other way to make them or to set any markers in a continuous run as they imply.

Making a new track takes a second or two, maybe longer if the track is more than 5 minutes...so I do lose something in the process.   Any thoughts/experience with setting tracks live?
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Re: Qu-series acceptable USB hard drives
« Reply #9 on: June 30, 2014, 10:01:21 PM »


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