Fastest Method for loading samples into RAM?

Anyone tried every storage option out there and know which method will load samples into RAM the quickest? Thought I'd start this from the off topic about IDE vs SCSI card readers in the os 1.2 post. (Never seen an authorative answer on which one is quicker) Technically the bandwidth of IDE and SCSI should be fast enough to fill up 32MB of ram in a few seconds if that (happens every time you boot up your computer), but takes several minutes on the MPC. I'm not sure if the disk I/O was programmed poorly on the MPC, or if the drives that are compatible, just dont have a high I/O rate.

I've noticed that the 250 zip drives (ide and scsi) are much faster than the 100s as they should according to their bandwith (which is not that great). Still seems much faster on a computer. I've heard the 750s are even quicker.

Other SCSI options I haven't tried are CD ROM, Hard Drive, Memory card and Jazz. IDE: memory card, MO disk, not sure if I missed any. Anybody know if any of these are significantly faster than one another? Ideally hard drives SHOULD be the fastest, but I've heard they aren't that quick, but wondering if its at least better than mem card or zip. Mem cards COULD be super fast, but they are made with cheap ram (still it shouldn't take more than a minute to lets say copy 32MB of pics from your digital camera to the computer). Technically the flash ROM would be the correct answer, but that is not a mass storage option. Not looking for the "buy a different sampler" answer either, I can do that for other sounds. My fear was always that a power outage or crash occurs live, and I'm sitting there loading sampmles for 5 minutes or more... dead silence

i had to install an internal IDE zip drive 100 from an old dell on my mpc after my SCSI fuse blew out days before I was about to go to spain for a year....then my IDE started to act up so i took my mpc to akai espana and i was back on the external SCSI zip drive deal.....but the IDE was definitly a lot faster in terms of loading and saving files. zip drives are def temperamental though, so maybe look into getting an external SCSI hard drive that you can EASILY backup to another hardrive--the zips are handy though, cause most people with mpcs use ZIPs so compatibility with other setups is easy-- just be careful noone loads ur shiet and then switches disks and cops the songs that you worked hours on for free!! seriously though there some but pirates out there

I have a SCSI CDROM, SCSI HD, internal atapi zip250.
The HD loads the fastest but it's only by a hair.

A computer loading speed verses
an MPC loading speed isn't that an
unfair comparison?

Well, didnt get much of a reply as expected, but guess the hard drive is correct, thanks for the input lampdog. In reality removable storage is the best to work with if you have your samples on a computer, so I'm guessing I'll probably still end up going the mem card route some day soon.

Lampdog, MPC loading speed compared to a computer shouldn't really matter too much if they are using the same hardware (so maybe compare it to a 486 or something). If the I/O is programmed well the data is going from disk through the bus into RAM. I'm pretty sure its a programming issue more than the actual MPC bus speed. Problem is, its not easy to write assembly code for disk I/O! Not like they are writing software for an OS millions of people are paying for. I'm guessing that the data read goes through some processing for error checking which slows it down on the way through. I definately get read errors on those zip disks a lot, haha.

Yeah, a 486 would prolly be a more feasible comparison.

that's funny, I don't even remember the last time I got errors when
reading/writing to my interanl zip on my 2kxl. It does seem to have a
error rate though I've just been lucky I guess.

Sorry I couldn't be of more help to you though..

486? Hahahaha.

Try 286 and the 8-bit bus on the MPC does not quite keep up with very fast disk speeds.

Seriously. MPC and and other Akai samplers were never designed with robust or fast disk I/O as this is insignificant to the primary purpose of the equipment: sampling.

We had a very long and thorough discussion about this recently on the Akai Pro Samplers Mailing list.

286, wow, that's going back a ways aint it? haha.

Wow, wish I knew the specs on the bus before making that guess. 286, 8-bit, damn! Akai is making a KILLING on this piece in todays age. The electronics must be worth a few bucks if that. Guess its back to creating the ultimate, tiny drum kit that fits on the flash rom. I guess the mailing list has more intelegent discusions (maybe I should check that out).

I probably get errors on my zips cuz they travel around a lot and get dirty. Had beer spills many a time, haha. I also am currently using a drive that only works after my mpc warms up for a few minutes, hahahaah, funniest thing ever.

Every month or so after making a full back up of my zip on pc I format them and recopy everything back. It seems to keep errors from popping up cause I haven't had one go back in a LONG time..

Also, beer spills don't help the situation homie...

Yeah, I back mine up pretty regularly to be safe, gotta do that just in case. Theres always that chance you accidently delete something too.

Lampdog wrote:Every month or so after making a full back up of my zip on pc I format them and recopy everything back. It seems to keep errors from popping up cause I haven't had one go back in a LONG time..

Also, beer spills don't help the situation homie...

Can you tell me what operating sytem you use on your computer , every time I go from mpc to computer my zip disk become useless neither machine can no longer read the disk. I have 10 100mb disks corrupted and wasted from trying to copy sounds to zip that's about $100 of corrupted disk . I lost alot of
work so I dont even try saving to zip from computer, Now what I do is
edit the sounds on the p.c and load onto a smartmemory card and than into
my Motif es and lay the samples across the keys and I find myself using the mpc alot less .

meseratibeats wrote:Can you tell me what operating sytem you use on your computer , every time I go from mpc to computer my zip disk become useless neither machine can no longer read the disk. I have 10 100mb disks corrupted and wasted from trying to copy sounds to zip that's about $100 of corrupted disk . I lost alot of
work so I dont even try saving to zip from computer, Now what I do is
edit the sounds on the p.c and load onto a smartmemory card and than into
my Motif es and lay the samples across the keys and I find myself using the mpc alot less .

Make sure you format the ZIPs on the PC as FAT disc, not on the MPC.

I switch ZIPs from MPC to PC to MAC no problem.

I use an external HD that shit is pretty fast compared to before when I used floppy.

I have been getting paranoid for some reason though lately that my data will be lost. Need a zip drive for my mpc so I can back shit up on my computer. Make me feel a lot better.