That will depend entirely on the size of the hard drive(s) you are using as well as the sampling rate/how many tracks you've armed. Page 5 of the manual states:

Recording time per each 10 gigabytes @ 48kHz:
45 minutes x 24 tracks; @ 96kHz: 45 minutes x 12 tracks

That means you should get a little more time from just using 16 tracks but I'd use Alesis' recommendation for my hard drive size reckoning.

You can use monster sized drives in the HD24s.....and they're cheap enough.....I've used 80GB up to 500GB drives in mine with no problems.

Aural Reject, post: 300810 wrote: You can use monster sized drives in the HD24s.....and they're cheap enough.....I've used 80GB up to 500GB drives in mine with no problems.

Agreed. There is no limit to the size of the harddrive acceptable in the HD24 though I recommend the 7200 rpm versions. (maybe thats all you get now???)

Of course the issue is getting to be that you have to use IDE drives and NOT SATA drives. And will they mount. As with all critical recording, try it at home several times first. I've had good luck just removing the jumper on the HDD altogether.

John, does that make it possible to use a SATA drive in the Alesis??

I haven't tried it yet. The last I checked a few folks over on the Yahoo HD24 list were trying to find some adapters to fit into the caddy. There was some limited success with a particular board but I don't remember what it is. I'll go give a look and see if I can dig it up and post it here.

I can usually get 2 full hours at 44.1 x 24 tracks on 160Gb drives... x two drives/HD24... MORE than enough time for ANY performance.

I tend to buy my IDE drives in batches and stockpile / recycle them. All the multitrack data's pulled off them on to the backups (which, of course, can be any kind of drive you like) so the IDEs can be reused.

It's approximately 500MB per track/hour at 48k sampling frequency.

Thanks to everyone for their advice!

Ah... so the recording time is limited only by the size of the drive. Considering that I'll be renting the Alesis, I'd expect that it only comes with the original 10GB drive.

We'll be looking at a 'set it and forget it' scenario, so I'm guessing that it would be in my best interest to get a big drive, set the levels, and let it do it's thing.

Alternatively, would it be wise to record the first set, transfer the audio files to computer, then re-use the drive for the second set? Altogether I'd be looking at 2 1/2 hours of 16-track 44.1 audio.

You may find it doesn't come with a drive at all, just the caddy....make sure you check.

I've frequently left machines running as continuous backups for much longer than that and - so far - I've had no problems.

Check with the rental folks, and be sure it's coming with two drives... Track the 1st set on drive one, set 2 with drive two. All you have to do is set up each drive with one song.. select that song... arm trax and go. Then at the 2nd set.. select drive 2... select the song.. arm trax and go.

Pretty standard stuff.

[edit]
Also, be sure you get the FireDrive and a copy of HD24 Connect, or FSTConnect... that way you can transfer.

I would seriously doubt you're gonna be able to transfer all the 1st set in 15-20 minutes... Start the transfer from drive one at the break. That way it'll be done by the end of the 2nd set.

****BE SURE you press STOP at the end of the recording!!!****
Otherwise, you risk having to edit the drive contents to recover your files...... NO FUN!!

If the unit is going to come w/o drives, be sure you at least get 2 caddies.

MadMax, post: 300886 wrote:
[edit]
Also, be sure you get the FireDrive and a copy of HD24 Connect, or FSTConnect... that way you can transfer.

I would seriously doubt you're gonna be able to transfer all the 1st set in 15-20 minutes... Start the transfer from drive one at the break. That way it'll be done by the end of the 2nd set.

When I'm using my own drives, I take them out of the HD24 caddies, put them in a standard USB2.0 external caddy and transfer with [[url=http://[/URL]="http://ringbreak.dn…"]HD24Tools[/]="http://ringbreak.dn…"]HD24Tools[/]