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External HD Advice Needed (pg. 2)
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| farris |
| quote: | Originally posted by cryophonik
...(1) have the ability to easily share/backup projects with my primary desktop DAW...
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Not the all-in-one solution you're looking for, but for sharing/backup Dropbox (or an equivalent) might be an option.
Easily share your projects between multiple systems and it's a safe backup just in case.
I've been using two external HD's (USB 2.0 and Firewire) for quite a while for backing up projects and storing all samples.
I don't have those big romplers like Omnisphere and such, so I don't know how those would perform on and external HD.
My working projects though are always on my systems internal HD.
When saving a project, the used samples are always copied automatically and saved alongside the project in the project folder.
This'll ensure that should I open a project 5 years from now when using a different system, the used samples will at least all be present. |
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| jsrobinson |
What DAW are you using?
I know that when I tried to pull samples from over a gigabit switch which should have been more than fast enough, Ableton twitches when browsing samples. This is something to consider if you're going to try a networked server rather than an HD. (I don't know if everyone has this issue with Ableton when browsing samples over an ethernet connection.)
With that being said, USB 3.0 is more than fast enough to run your projects/browse samples, or for that matter run an entire OS if needed. It's no slower going thru your motherboards bus than your SATA drive. USB 3.0 transfers at 4.8GB/s while only SATA 3.0 is now up to 5.8 or so GB/s. You may have SATA 2.0 for that matter on a laptop which could be slower than USB 3. I reiterate, your motherboard/CPU is the only potential bottleneck here, not your USB bus.
So, if you can get a drive w/ enclosure via USB 3.0, go for it, even if you're using an HDD. Yes, they are fast enough. No, you shouldn't have any issues.
I'll add that I really feel an SSD is worth it these days over an HDD. Even if you're using an HDD for the huge plugins like Omnisphere which can't fit practically on an SSD, I'd suggest using an SSD to run your DAW and whatever else you can. I see a night and day difference in boot times, loading software, whatever I'm doing. Personally I run my DAW and most plugins on my SSD, and have samples stored on a larger HDD, and things run faster than fast.
Hope this helps! |
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| DJ RANN |
I personally don't like servers steaming audio over gigabit. It's always a little flakey and the switches can things up.
Just to further elaborate on the posts in this thread, I think given USB 3 is solid and very fast, I would go for a LaCie or G-raid and never worry about it again.
SSD still isn't viable or cost effective for very large drives holding samples and considering you can always copy working audio files to the internal drive on a given project, there's really no need when USB3 with a good HHD gives enough high speed bandwidth.
I would probably get this:
http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?id=10554 |
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| cryophonik |
| quote: | Originally posted by Looney4Clooney
a computer is a server. anything within 5 years will be good enough for that purpose. |
Yeah, I was actually thinking that I could get a dedicated server. The IT guys that we use at our company have a bunch of servers that are only a few years old, and have told me several times that they could sell me one pretty cheap. But, the more I think about it, I'm not sure that I want to deal with that hassle right now. My short-term plan is going to stay the same: external HD.
| quote: | Originally posted by jsrobinson
What DAW are you using? |
Pro Tools, Studio One, and sometimes Sonar, so I shouldn't have to deal with any of the Ableton issues.
| quote: | Originally posted by jsrobinson
With that being said, USB 3.0 is more than fast enough to run your projects/browse samples, or for that matter run an entire OS if needed. It's no slower going thru your motherboards bus than your SATA drive. USB 3.0 transfers at 4.8GB/s while only SATA 3.0 is now up to 5.8 or so GB/s. You may have SATA 2.0 for that matter on a laptop which could be slower than USB 3. I reiterate, your motherboard/CPU is the only potential bottleneck here, not your USB bus.
So, if you can get a drive w/ enclosure via USB 3.0, go for it, even if you're using an HDD. Yes, they are fast enough. No, you shouldn't have any issues.
Hope this helps! |
Definitely! Very helpful stuff. I think I'm going to stick with HDD, though, rather than SSD.
| quote: | Originally posted by DJ RANN
I personally don't like servers steaming audio over gigabit. It's always a little flakey and the switches can things up. |
That's good to know. As I mentioned above, I've decided that moving everything to a server is not a project I want to take on right now.
| quote: | Originally posted by DJ RANN
Just to further elaborate on the posts in this thread, I think given USB 3 is solid and very fast, I would go for a LaCie or G-raid and never worry about it again.
SSD still isn't viable or cost effective for very large drives holding samples and considering you can always copy working audio files to the internal drive on a given project, there's really no need when USB3 with a good HHD gives enough high speed bandwidth. |
That looks pretty sweet, although I might go with a smaller version, if available. I think I've decided that my plan is to just take your advice (and Mel David's, jsrobinson's, and farris' advice) and use the HDD for my samples and run the project files from my internal HDD. Then, I'll just copy the working files to the external HDD when I want to share them/back them up to my desktop. I usually only work on 1-3 projects at a time, so this should work fine and I'll just back up at the end of each session (which I already do on my desktop anyway). Also, my project files that don't have a lot of audio (e.g., scratch tracks), are small enough that I can just copy them to my desktop and vice-versa over my wifi network. I think this will be the simplest and most cost-effective approach. Thanks for all the input! |
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| Looney4Clooney |
| i think you need to take into account read speeds. USB 3 , it sounds nice, you won't get anywhere near that speed. |
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| DJ RANN |
| quote: | Originally posted by cryophonik
That looks pretty sweet, although I might go with a smaller version, if available. I think I've decided that my plan is to just take your advice (and Mel David's, jsrobinson's, and farris' advice) and use the HDD for my samples and run the project files from my internal HDD. Then, I'll just copy the working files to the external HDD when I want to share them/back them up to my desktop. I usually only work on 1-3 projects at a time, so this should work fine and I'll just back up at the end of each session (which I already do on my desktop anyway). Also, my project files that don't have a lot of audio (e.g., scratch tracks), are small enough that I can just copy them to my desktop and vice-versa over my wifi network. I think this will be the simplest and most cost-effective approach. Thanks for all the input! |
That's exactly the way every studio I've ever worked in has been. The current projects are created and stay on the internal and you just select "copy audio files to project folder". That way, any samples you're using or anything you bounce are local. Then when the project is done, after having backed up to at least one (more likely two including one tape backup) mediums, the project folder is copied over to the external and deleted off the internal.
It keeps the main host (daw) skinny and makes you manage your project backups.
Even though Richie is right, USB3 will still be more than fast enough to audition samples from. The biggest thing is not getting a drive that sleeps, and LaCie have probably the best user options, not to mention instant access times and reliability. Another cool thing bout them is that if you wanted to make it a dead storage archive drive, you can just open the enclosure, take out the full drive (put it safe) and slap another HDD in there again.
Oh, and it also give you tons of connectivity options; esata, USB2/3, FW etc, so you plug in to just about any interface. |
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| TranceLover007 |
| quote: | Originally posted by jsrobinson
What DAW are you using?
....... USB 3.0 transfers at 4.8GB/s while only SATA 3.0 is now up to 5.8 or so GB/s. |
A bit of correction to this above statement USB 3.0 "theoretical" transfer rate is 4.8Gbps/s not 4.8GB/s (which is about 480MB/s) ;)
Cheers,
Darek |
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| ReclusNdangrmnt |
| FYI Cryo, last I checked, Avid still doesn't recommend working in Pro-Tools off of USB, or at least hosting a session on an external USB drive. No clue on eSATA though. |
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| ShabbaRANNx |
| quote: | Originally posted by ReclusNdangrmnt
FYI Cryo, last I checked, Avid still doesn't recommend working in Pro-Tools off of USB, or at least hosting a session on an external USB drive. No clue on eSATA though. |
Again, use a local project folder on your internal HDD. |
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| Mel David |
Also apart from gigabit ethernet, if your laptop is a Mac and so is your desktop, you can connect them via Firewire target disk mode whenever you have to transfer projects.
That would save you having to buy an external drive. External drives are risky to use. You may drop it and lose all your work. But you tend to be more careful when transporting your laptop. |
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| Looney4Clooney |
| just got the new g drive with thunderbolt for my macbook. That pretty much solves storage issues with a laptop. Slap an SSD for your root, a SSD for for your audio drive, and this. Perfect mobile rig. Haven't tested it yet but it boasts better performance than sata3. |
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| DJ RANN |
| quote: | Originally posted by Looney4Clooney
just got the new g drive with thunderbolt for my macbook. That pretty much solves storage issues with a laptop. Slap an SSD for your root, a SSD for for your audio drive, and this. Perfect mobile rig. Haven't tested it yet but it boasts better performance than sata3. |
So you've got a new gen MBP as well? me, you do have some serious mula.
Did you drop the optical drive on the MPB and do the conversion bay to house the second SSD? |
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