Ableton Forum

Does someone know if it is possible to install Live on an external drive?

My internal SSD is already full with sampler library files. The drive I'm having in mind for Live also covers projects and more sampler libraries.

you will be able to install the program itself on a removable, but Ableton don't advise it. For some reason they really prefer the install location to be on the boot drive. So support have told me in the past anyway.
That said - it should still work, it's just that there may be issues with things like Max.
All the factory libraries install in a specific location.
On windows 7 that location is called "My Documents/ Ableton" , and that's where the Ableton libraries such as Orchestral Brass, Session Drums, etc. will install.
There's nothing you can do about that, but you can specify where your USER library lives. Which in your case will be on the removable.

The database and preferences are (on Windows 7) in C://Users/MYUSERNAME/AppData/roaming/Ableton.
the database doesn't normally get too huge though, unless you are indexing a billion samples. Usually its less than 50Mb, so not a problem existing on your bootdrive.

Angstrom wrote:and that's where the Ableton libraries such as Orchestral Brass, Session Drums, etc. will install.
There's nothing you can do about that,

You can't prevent Live placing the packs there at the initial installation, but you can choose a new location (must be an existing directory) any time after that. At that point Live will give you choices what to do with any existing libraries. I don't remember the details now, but you should be able to build a new, move the current or use a library that may already be in the location you've just specified.

chrk wrote:

Angstrom wrote:and that's where the Ableton libraries such as Orchestral Brass, Session Drums, etc. will install.
There's nothing you can do about that,

You can't prevent Live placing the packs there at the initial installation, but you can choose a new location (must be an existing directory) any time after that. At that point Live will give you choices what to do with any existing libraries. I don't remember the details now, but you should be able to build a new, move the current or use a library that may already be in the location you've just specified.

Oh yeah, you are right.
I wonder if that was a thing which crept in after 9.0 because I had to move my entire /Documents folder with a symlink to move the libraries off my (at that time) tiny SSD boot drive.

Thank you, guys! Doesn't look too good for me, I'm afraid; even though I should be able to move the installation there isn't space enough for carrying out the initial installation.

You should be able to install Live by itself, without any of the libraries, then just set your user library and installation location for packs to your external drive.

Right? Am I missing something?

I just upgraded to suite from standard a couple days ago. After I installed suite I had to come back to the site and manually download the packs. I just downloaded them to my external and when I opened them Live installed them to the appropriate spot, also on my external drive. Orchestral, Session drums, etc.

My Ableton folder on my SSD is 3.1 MB, and the one on my external is something like 50GB.

smutek wrote:My Ableton folder on my SSD is 3.1 MB, and the one on my external is something like 50GB.

Well, that kind of setup would fit my box