Ableton Forum

Looking to do a fresh Win8 install on my laptop.

At the moment I have a 256GB SSD in the laptop with external libraries on an external drive.
I'd like to not use an external drive as it's a pain as has to 'dangle' from laptop when laptop is on lap!

I use AbletonLive, Komplete 9 & Maschine, some samples/audio in sets and a handful of VST instruments within a song.

If I just install a large SSD (512GB/1TB) would that be OK to run everything at once?
Or do I really need an external drive to take the load off the SSD?
(I would probably buy a large Flash Drive plugged in USB slot so it sits plugged into computer and not dangling)

There's a lot of conflicting information out there - the OLD school mechanical hard drive info that is on forums from the early 2000's says extra drives needed because mechanical drives can only do one thing at a time.

I've read statements from people saying that a single SSD works fine for them and a local store has said it would be OK too. Ableton themselves state ideally you should have seperate drives.

My laptop is a dual core 2.4 with 8gb ram.

Anyone offer up any advice?

Are you running from just a single SSD? Would love to hear how you get on.

Hopefully this thread will help other people in the future searching for more up to date answers.

One SSD here, it will always be way faster than multiple spinning drives, no matter how you configure them.

My advice...... Install Win 7 instead.

Ryder17 wrote:My advice...... Install Win 7 instead.

Ryder,

Why do you say Win7 instead?

It's Win7 I've got at the moment running Live, Maschine etc.
I've got Win8 on artwork machine (Photoshop/Flash/Premiere) and I don't mind the OS.

Does it not play ball with Live or something?

It's meant to give quicker times for doing tasks and reading from external drives via usb3.

*bump* in the hope this thread catches other peoples eye and they can add a tuppence

I don't know if this is much help but I run all of my libraries and OS/vst's from my 750GB SSD. The only reason I had an external drive is that recording cache/audio wears SSD's out faster. Technically, having the larger SSD is perfectly sound to use. For a lappy I can totally understand wanting to go in that direction.

You'll pay through the nose (and no, NOT all SSD's are created equal) but so far I've had mine a year with live running on it and it's been peachy.

23kon wrote:

Ryder17 wrote:My advice...... Install Win 7 instead.

Ryder,

Why do you say Win7 instead?

It's Win7 I've got at the moment running Live, Maschine etc.
I've got Win8 on artwork machine (Photoshop/Flash/Premiere) and I don't mind the OS.

Does it not play ball with Live or something?

It's meant to give quicker times for doing tasks and reading from external drives via usb3.

Because windows 8 is dreadful! Win 7 is much more streamlined and customizable. TBH, I haven't ran live on a windows 8 machine myself but I would imagine if you put it to a vote amongst users, 7 would win hands down.

Hi,
a bit different point of view:
Normal work environment: allways inbuild (no cables) SSD. If poosible two, otherwise one with several partitions.
1. system partition
2. catalog
3. data
In this way BackUp procedures are very simple
1. Images from time to time (before install of a new software and afterwards if you keep the new software)
2. BackUp is seldom necessary, as there are no changings to expect
3. at least daily and complete (!) file by file BackUp to one external HD (better more in a turnaround). Tool for that: FreeFileSync
horst

I don't like attached usb drives too, so i removed cd drive (which i only used ONCE! for maschine installation) and plugged second drive into laptop.

right now 480 gig SSD: system files and read only Kontakt libraries.
750 gig (5400 rpm, old system disk it is) for all other audio files.