Well, if the 200GB drive is the only drive you have...then no. It can't and shouldn't as it's the only drive and you will be pushing that drive to work so hard it's not funny.

You need a seperate OS drive and a seperate data drive.

But in the long run, yes that system will be able to handle that type of load if done properly.

Let me put it this way, I was able to do 8 tracks of 24/96Khz wiht a P4 1.6ghz machine with a 400Mhz FSB!

No plug ins at real time but that was to be done during the mixdown.

All on IDE drives too! IDE OS drive then on WD 8MB cache IDE drives on the secondary IDE controller by themselves.

Also recommend you get more memory for overhead performance.

Opus :D

Hi Opus, just a question about sample-rates:
If your system could just about do 8 tracks at 24 bit/96khz , how many tracks could it run at 24 bit/48khz ?
Is there just simple math saying that if you decrese the rate to 1/2, then you can get twice as many tracks? I'd be very glad if you could share some basic facts about how much extra strain higher sample rates ( and bit rate) put on your DAW. And what is important for this, is it having a high FSB ( 800 MHz) or a faster CPU ? Or is it the HD's that makes the limit for this?

Tore

The reason for the 8 tracks was only due to the part that the tracks were coming from an 8 track analog machine...in fact they were the Beach Boy tracks...the originals!

I'm sure that if we had a 12 or 16 track machine it would have done fine as well.

It all depends on how well you set the system up.

Todays machines should be able to handle 16 to 14 tracks at once with no problem at all

Opus :D

Thank you Opus... but I think that you misunderstood my question. I really don't think that your system is limited to do just 8 tracks at 24 bit/96khz... the real issue was more like:
If your system is limited to do just 8 tracks at 24 bit/96khz... how many track would it do with a lower bitrate like 24 bit/48khz or even 16 bit/44khz?
Just seeking knowledge about how "demanding" higher bitrates are.

Bit rate is more like the resolution on your monitor, the higher you set it the more you can see! It's very close to that nature...or you could say it's more like a high res camera..the higher the pizel rate the more you capture and the smoother the picture is.

So if your system can just do 8 tracks at 24/96 then you should be able to do at least 16-20 tracks at 24/48 and about 24 tracks at 16 bits 48.

With 44.1 it would probably be about the same or plus 2 tracks at least.

The mathematical breakdown is hard to guess. Remember this, a 44.1/16 bit stereo file for one minute takes up 10MB.

I forget what the other rates do but I'm sure there is a chart online that tells you this.

I'll see if I can locate it for you

Opus :D