Ableton Forum

Hi all,

I currently use 5 on my old p4 2.8..Great. But it is starting to struggle as i get more adept, adding more processing etc.. I am about to buy a new pc b4 upgrading to 6, and am going with 2 hard drives this time and a dual core obviously ( AMD or intel undecided).. My question is when people say use one drive for apps and the other for audio, does this mean I should only put my audio samples on drive 2 or should this include VST's etc. as some come with samples to generate there sounds.. any advice would be appreciated

cheers
CRH..

this is one of those things that's been discussed a lot in various forums and in the mags,do a search at sound on sound or future music.....some ppl reckon it makes no difference,some say it's vital,blah blah etc...so you'd better read for yourself!

as a very quick guide for you i have 2 drives,set:

DRIVE 1 - 160GB
Partition1 - OSX (40GB)
Partition2 - Plug In Instrument Library (60GB)
Partition3 - Project back ups (60GB)

DRIVE 2 - 200GB
Partition1 - Audio - where i record to and work on projects (40GB)
Partition2 - Sample Library (80GB)
Partition4 - File BackUps (50GB)
Partition4 - OSX Back Up (30GB)

I also have 2 more firewire drives,one for my iTunes library,the other as a back up for all my work,samples,files etc.

on mac this can all be done from the disk utility,(altho everything gets erased),or buy iPartition or similar.
on PC i only really know Partition Magic which is very good and easy to use.

cheers

john

adjusting partitions later down the road (i.e. with all your files on there) is a risky business, so be very careful about how you plan out your partitions. I'd recommend having as few as possible and don't make any one too small

Thanks heaps for the advice guys.. big help, this new pc will have to last me a year or two as I am returning to study so want to get it right

cheers
CRH..

Check out Partition Magic for PC, you can adjust partition sizes whenever you want without moving or losing data.

bucket brigadier wrote:this is one of those things that's been discussed a lot in various forums and in the mags,do a search at sound on sound or future music.....some ppl reckon it makes no difference,some say it's vital,blah blah etc...so you'd better read for yourself!

as a very quick guide for you i have 2 drives,set:

DRIVE 1 - 160GB
Partition1 - OSX (40GB)
Partition2 - Plug In Instrument Library (60GB)
Partition3 - Project back ups (60GB)

DRIVE 2 - 200GB
Partition1 - Audio - where i record to and work on projects (40GB)
Partition2 - Sample Library (80GB)
Partition4 - File BackUps (50GB)
Partition4 - OSX Back Up (30GB)

I also have 2 more firewire drives,one for my iTunes library,the other as a back up for all my work,samples,files etc.

on mac this can all be done from the disk utility,(altho everything gets erased),or buy iPartition or similar.
on PC i only really know Partition Magic which is very good and easy to use.

cheers

john

What is the need to do this, is there any redundancy here? If you hard drive crashes, you're screwed either way.

I have an unpartitioned hard drive with my OS and my applications on my laptop , and 2 cheap external USB drives which contain my music (I use a program called "second copy" to mirror any changes between the 2 external drives).

I really don't see any point in partitioning hard drives.

~chewy

jerry123 wrote:Check out Partition Magic for PC, you can adjust partition sizes whenever you want without moving or losing data.

provided that nothing goes wrong... which is my point above --

it is not without risk!

Except for installing multiple operating systems, partitioning is a big waste of time. I used to do it for years, and the partitions would always be the wrong size after months of use. Folder are for organization, partitions are for booting. You get no extra speed benefit from partitions and you make your backup routine more complicated. Buy two drives. Set one up for all you need, then clone it to the other drive, and clone regularly. If you need more audio performance, play your samples off one drive and record to the other. Then sync the drives up so you have the same content on each. If a drive dies, you don't have to do anything except get a new one to clone for backup. Simple. Easy. Safe.

If you need more performance, buy more ram or more drives or get a better computer. Just make sure to backup any additional hard drives too.

jason

this is one of those things that's been discussed a lot in various forums and in the mags,do a search at sound on sound or future music.....some ppl reckon it makes no difference,some say it's vital,blah blah etc...so you'd better read for yourself!

Seems like there is no definative answer to this..just want to spend time making toons..so maybe2 drives (I have Ghost) is the way to go..
thanks for all the input..ableton rocks can't wait to get 6, deep freeze function especially, tho' hopefully won't need to use it too much (unlikely i guess) AMD or Intel anyone? buyin this weekend so eyes will be well and truely square by monday..