Qu-Drive Compatibility Thread

[Anonymous]

Brain fade, not run into Fat32 limits in a while….

[fred_fraggle]

Cheers Andreas for the figures. So if my maths are correct when looking for the flash drive required :

1 x 7.5h session of 16 tracks at 4 GB each (roughly) = gives a minimum theoretical flash drive requirement of 64 gig ( ideally larger due to headroom etc i would suspect)

Whilst on about sizes if a drive becomes full does anyone know if:

— it protects what has already been recorded
— has any buffer within the mixer to allow a swap of drive
— advises of imminent data crisis – 10 mins out possibly?

— if no to any of the above maybe these could be features in a firmware update?

[Andreas]

Since you can not decide how many tracks to record, with QuDrive Multitrack you always record 18 Tracks, and the math is this (from Understanding QuDrive and USB):

The maximum file size on FAT32 is 4 GB. Qu-Drive audio data rate per track is 8.24 MB / minute (144 KB / second). This would allow a maximum recording time of roughly 8 hours. For 18 tracks you would need 72 GB drive capacity for the maximum recording time.

Regarding your questions:

— it protects what has already been recorded

hopefully, won’t rely on that…

— has any buffer within the mixer to allow a swap of drive

no.

— advises of imminent data crisis – 10 mins out possibly?

Do your primary recording on PC/Mac and use the QuDrive as backup for that kind of recordings.

— if no to any of the above maybe these could be features in a firmware update?

I doubt that A&H can streamline necessary buffer memory (300MBytes per minute for multitrack recording) along with a firmware update… 😉

[David Haughton]

Hi All, hope you’re well.

As you know, it’s extremely difficult to test all of the USB devices available on the market, and it can be very time consuming!

However, I’ve come up with a solution to source this info from the community, which I hope you will all assist with 🙂

I’ve created a quick and easy form to allow you to enter the details of devices you have tested which will in turn generate a list of user-approved devices.

Please note these are for branded, commercially available USB devices only.

We welcome you to enter devices which have already submitted by other users, particularly if you find different results, especially as manufacturers can change the components of the devices without notice…

This list will not be officially approved by A&H, but we will take the most popular devices or devices with ambiguous results and test these for official approval.

The form can be found here: https://goo.gl/forms/pwCvHjzVAm

and the results found here: https://goo.gl/P7Hzq1

Thanks all and please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any queries or questions.

Harry.

[airickess]

Hi Harry. On the form I noticed that you have only two answers for the recording questions. I have a drive that I have used for saving shows, formatting, updating firmware and recording stereo. However, I have not used it for multitrack recordings, so the Yes/No answering format doesn’t apply to this drive. Can you put a third answer in these questions, such as Don’t Know or Not Applicable?
Also, on the form there is no question about whether the drive has been used for updating firmware. I think that might be a relevant question to ask.

[David Haughton]

@airickess what we’re after is complete and definitive results in each submission 🙂

What’s the make on model of the drive? Would you be able to make a test multitrack recording on it?

For multitracks we recommend that the device is recording for at least 2 hours, but ideally filling the drive if possible as it can sometimes take this long for the USB buffer to overflow.

Just hit record and play on Qu-Drive and it will tell you if there are any errors. You don’t even need any audio input really.

You may find that you only get a couple of errors in this time. We will not approve any device if there are any errors at all. However, it’s up to you whether you find a couple of errors acceptable or not.

Regarding firmware, we have found that if the device can be formatted and a show can be saved and recalled then firmware can be installed from it.

Have you found that this isn’t the case with a device?

Looking forward to hearing back from you.
Harry.

[Anonymous]

Can you define what the error count actually means?

Is it buffer full, audio samples lost

Or is it like the Linux Ethernet error count – data had to live in the buffer before being written out

[David Haughton]

Hi @xapbob, It’s a buffer overflow as described in my post above. The buffer contains approx 2 seconds of audio. If it fills up before it gets written to disk, and has to be discarded to make room for more recording. So each error will result in approx 2 seconds of lost audio.
Thanks.
Harry.

[Anonymous]

So the whole buffer is discard if it fills up? So 1 error is 2 seconds of data loss.

I must have eaten and/or slept since I read your above post – memory resets at those events 😉

[David Haughton]

Hi @xapbob, looks like you may have had a siesta between 2:17pm and 2:33pm GMT, or was it a buffer overflow? 😉
This is getting off thread topic now, but yes, up to 2 seconds. This is why we will not approve a device which shows errors.
Thanks.
Harry.

[Anonymous]

Only marginally off topic, it’s useful information…
I was surprised a few year ago when I realised that errors on a NIC in Linux weren’t actually errors at all (very useful in that case) – here errors are BAD, but we don’t get any ‘warning’s…

Siesta is good – must have another 🙂

[Andreas]

Hi Harry,
I totally understand that, with the new form available, this thread isn’t needed anymore. However, I’d recommend to add a fresh, easy to find sticky topic pointing to that form. Otherwise we surely get “flooded” again with new QuDrive-Compatibility threads.

[Anonymous]

Yes – maybe a ‘locked’ thread with links to other threads/forms/information source?

[David Haughton]

Hi gents, I thoroughly agree! I’m working on this now 🙂

[Anonymous]

😀 Thanks
Can I suggest that the full manual is the first link in there – with explanation that the quickstart isn’t the full manual…

[Author]

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