Topic: 96/24 multitrack and hard drive speeds

[yousef]

If I want to record 16 tracks of audio at 96kHz 24bit, what should I be looking for in terms of hard drive speed? I've got a spare USB3 socket if that helps.

Also, would it be more reliable to use a high capacity fast SD card instead?

Any insight would be much appreciated.

[JasonSobel]

stereo files (2 channel) at 24/96 is about 0.5 MB/s data rate.  multiply that by 8 (16 channels = 8 stereo channels), and you get a data rate of approximately 4 MB/s.  Any hard drive should be more than sufficient, even at USB 2 speeds, let alone USB 3 speeds.  Don't worry about speed, as much as reliability and manufacturer warranty.

[yousef]

Thanks for that. I've just done some calculations and came up with the following:

96kHz 24bit - 16 channels = 4.39MB per second

         = 263.67MB per minute

         = 15.45GB per hour 

Have you any particular recommendations for brands? Or ones to avoid, at least?