Users with two Hard Drives - what do you put where?

[chris_dan]

The big advantage of just having programs on a single smaller partition is that you can blow that away every so often as Windows corrupts itself.

Nebulae,

Your comment on the O/S going south...I go through a daily ritual after booting that eats up about 5 hours a month. Does the drive image concept take less time and is there any further diddling required once restored?

Regards
Chris

[nebulae]

Doing a Ghost image definitely saves a lot of time. It's up to you how much you want to put in your image. So for example, I load up XP SP1, then optimize it for audio, turn off all unnecessary services, go thru the MusicXP.net and Tarekith settings, etc. Do all the updates from Microsoft. Then I do a Ghost image, so that's my starting point when I re-image my C: partition.

It would save me even more time if I installed all my apps (like Live and what not) and my plugins and VSTi. However, since these always have updates, I just add them after I do the image. If I had already installed them before my image, the re-image process would take about 5-10 minutes. By installing them later, it's more like 2 hours from start to finish with a completely fresh system (meaning about 5 minutes to install the system to the point you took the image snapshot, and then doing updates takes a few more minutes, then install your apps).

Whatever your preference, Ghosting is a really good idea.

[divonic]

I'm building a new DAW my plans are to have two hardrives. a smaller one and a larger one, both are 7200 rpm and with 8m cache. OS and programs will go on othe smaller hd and ableton files and audio files will go on the big one. I'mnot sure where to put vsts, probablly on the little one. I saw this suggested on a web site for optimizing computers for audio production. I'll let you know how it works out.

[nebulae]

Put your VSTs on the little one.

[frisbeedisk]

I use 2 external 250 gig hard drives for music storage.

They are manually mirrored. They are indentical to each other. Anything I put on one, goes on the other.

That way, if a drive dies... I got backup.


Then, when it is gig time.... I drag music from an externa, to the laptop internal... and go.

I like the idea of this, a bit pricey though..i just backup onto dvd or ghost....data can be lost on damaged dvd though...

[Fritz609]

Bumping this thread because its now 2014 and I just bought a new laptop due to being away from home(and my studio rig) for 4 Mths.

SPECS.......Windows 7 Pro...HP Envy 17t k000...i7 quad core...16Gb RAM...1TB 5400 HdD(will not use at all but it was free)...3 USB3.0 ports...optical bay(being replaced with caddy for 2nd HDD)...1 SD card slot (just in case you guys have any suggestions to use that.not sure for what tho).......

ALSO BOUGHT...........
One 240GB SSD..two 750GB 7200 HDDs ( just found out Hp no longer makes laptops with two HDD bays )...1TB ext HDD...focusrite Scarlett Solo(not iTrack Solo)...bluetooth mouse...lauchpad S & launchkey mini...
NOW FOR QUESTIONS...........

1. Is it better to use SSD: OS/Ableton and 2nd HDD: sample library/ live sets and ext.HDD just for backup (more portable but MAYBE less performance efficiency due to sets and samples on same HDD)
or....
SSD: OS/Ableton and 2ndHDD: samples and extHDD for live sets? (MAYBE i can somehow use glue and velcro to attach/detach extHDD to/from laptop to be more portable. This setup is less portable and uses up a USB port that could be used by 2nd controller(unless they can be hot swapped?).)

2. Where would I install Komplete if I buy it? Are the plug ins(massive, fm8,Kontakt) a seperate download than their sounds and presets?

3. Is Ableton a seperate install from its library and its plugins such as operator, drum racks, sampler, etc.? if so, would i install them with OS/Ableton or with sample library?

4. Is 750GB enough space for sample libraries for suite and komplete 9 or 10? Or sample libraries and live sets?

[Fritz609]

Disregard ladt post. Just ordered the hp envy 17t j-100. It has two hdd bays. I also purchased optical drive caddy for a third hdd. This thing will be a monster.

[Tagor]

its a bloody topic

you know what? win 7 can´t use drivers which xp could handle! progress ?

there also load of VST`s saving their Patches in c://fok/julle/naiers

so updating OS (windeafs) or certain hardwarechange an you need to reinstall all shit
and backup dis fokken .fxp presets from folder c://Waves/fokken/FXP
and re-register all the fokken VST-Licenses on New OS and dont forget the c://spectrasonics/userlibrary

stupitidy have won ALL the Line at this topic there is no userfriendly way handling a DAW on WIN

basically i have a VSTplugIns-Folder at ssd c:
and store all LIB/Omnisphere/Ethno/KontaktLib/ ect.. at ssd d:
the finished projects go to c://Projects

the projects autocopy themselvers to extenal harddrive on each start
via batchfile -- so iCan mess up with them in each way

good luck

[störgeräusche]

small 120 Giga SSD for the Win7 installation, no libraries with the exception of Battery 4 (audiomodder vst bridge for push requires to do so in order to work). 120 GB is enough for me, i stil have 40 G free.
1 TB 7200 HDD with all my projects and samples
1 500 GB HDD for "junk", manuals, video tutorials, movies (yes, I sometimes watch movies in my studio since I have 47" TV instead of a computer monitor)
External HDDs for backups (including a backup of all my ripped CDs or digitalized vinyls, my studio session often begins with listening to an album)

I will buy 2 more 500 G SSDs in the near future and have one dedicated to projects and one dedicated to samples -my next computer will be totally fanless so I guess going the SSD way helps keeping the overall temperature in the case down.

[tedlogan]

c://fok/julle/naiers
dis fokken .fxp presets from folder c://Waves/fokken/FXP

haha. So waar de fok kom al hierdie Afrikaans skielik vandaan? hehe. "Fok.julle.naiers". My aand gemaak.

Anyway, carry on. ignore this post.

[ezelkow1]

Before I had an ssd this was my setup:
main drive - OS, applications, vst programs
audio drive - sample libraries, large vst libs (like alchemys library, kontakt libs), ableton library

Just got an ssd last week so now:
main ssd - os, apps, vsts, and libraries for vsts (alchemy, kontakt, reaktor)
audio drive - ableton library, samples

Just anything that needs to be loaded by another app I try to keep it as fast accessing as possible (except the ableton library but I hardly use that). I have noticed that since switching to the ssd that even though I left the ableton library on the non-ssd, the large ableton sounds now still load much much faster. I.e. it used to be loading one of the large piano presets could take like 5-10sec while it buffered everything up, now its pretty much instant

[Fritz609]

Thanks everyone for the tips and how you use your systems. Big help.

[eyeknow]

Wow, 2006 was when I made my first post in this thread. Scary.

Yeah, SSD changes everything

[ezelkow1]

I dunno if it really is that huge of a change, really the difference between my main drive being an ssd, or being my old setup of a 1TB+64gb cache ssd with intel smart response, its not a really huge difference once the ssd has cached your common apps

It does speed up loading alchemy presets, ill give it that, but its also not a fair comparison since previously my alchemy lib was on the non-cached drive

[eyeknow]

Well, I guess what I meant was, with SSD and all my libraries on that, it's different from the old paradigm of "separate drives for libraries. I, like you, still "currently" do a regular for all my projects and audio files (though I've just been lazy about installing this other SSD.

It's funny, the only noise I hear from my puter (other than when it's really hot) is my E drive Once I swap that out, I can't imagine how silent it will be!