MIOConsole3d Session
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Record Drive considerations
Even though the massive pre-roll ring buffer is always active and working to compensate for slow record
drive write underruns, faster drives are naturally always recommended for the primary Record and Record
Mirror volumes. SSDs or 7200rpm (or better) enterprise-class hard drives should be considered minimum
requirements for critical recording sessions.
Important to note: If you are using a USB3 -> Gigabit Ethernet adapter for your MHLink con-
nection, it is probably best to put your record drives on a separate USB3 bus or on Thunder-
bolt. While on paper there should be plenty of bandwidth, both HD/SSD and Gigabit Ethernet
adapters are asynchronous by nature and the drives tend to burst data in big chunks rather than
stream it in a steady flow (like you need for audio). Having both on the same USB3 bus creates
a situation where data bursts for the drive might interfere with the MHLink data streams.
Due to the ever-expanding array of USB3 adapters on the market, we are unable to compre-
hensively test this scenario, but it is a very real possibility…
Recording to SDHC or USB3 flash memory modules is possible, but such devices are highly optimized
for fast transfer of large blocks of data rather than the constant stream of time-sensitive chunks that you
write when capturing audio. Additionally, these modules are typically set up to
Read
much faster than they
Write
, which is exactly wrong for confidently recording audio. Even worse, it is not uncommon to find that
the same flash drive will write data twice as fast on one USB3 interface than it does on another.
Given the above, it is always recommended that you test any prospective record volumes (regardless of
form factor) with a well-reviewed disk speed test application, and double-check both record and playback
performance with a real-time recording rehearsal before going into a session.
Recording logfiles
Every Take captured by Session is accompanied by a “Recording.log” file. The Recording.log is a generic
text file which can be opened in any text reader, and includes timestamps, file path and file type for every
file in the Take, Number of Tracks in the Take, Number of Channels in the Take, Number of Mirrors, Number
of Drives, Sample Rate, average bandwidth per drive... lots of metadata which proves surprisingly useful
when prepping recordings for submission to automated ingestion systems, and for monitoring the relative
health of your recording system.
