Would either of these be ok for a record/playback session drive
 

Looking at either of these two drives for an external record/playback session drive.

This first one is a bigger drive but somewhat slower at 560 MBps than the next drive I have linked.

G-Technology 1TB G-DRIVE mobile SSD R-Series Storage
https://www.apple.com/au/shop/produc...series-storage

This next I like for its thunderbolt 3 connection and is a heap faster 2800 MBps

G-Technology 500GB G-DRIVE mobile Pro Thunderbolt 3 External SSD
https://www.macfixit.com.au/g-techno...-external-ssd/

My question mostly is.... is a drive speed of 560 MBps going to be fast enough for a session drive on a 32/32 system.

Re: Would either of these be ok for a record/playback session drive
 

Unless you absolutely need more space just record to your MBP internal SSD. (assuming this is for the MBP... BTW a Thunderbolt drive has the disadvantage of your MBP dies you likely can't read it on the Toshiba laptop).

Those are a NVMe PCIe 3 x 4 card similar to what is inside the G-Technology Thunderbolt 3 drive you are looking at, and so fast all the old rules about having a separate audio drive don't apply, and have not for many years as long as you have a PCIe based SSD.

If you want high-end/trusted SATA external SSD, the go-to drive is probably the Samsung T5. That's a Samsung SATA drive talking USB 3.1 Gen 2 (so 10 Gbit/sec USB, that is then limited by the SATA controller). I own several and use them for extra sample storage etc. audio/session data is always recorded to the boot/system drive on my MBP.

If you really need an external PCIe/NVMe SSD then the G-Technology drive is probably a good one, they have a SanDisk Extreme Pro M.2 drive inside, and they are pretty good (https://www.anandtech.com/show/12543...and-ssd-review).

Another similar product is the Sonnet Fusion SSD drives (nothing to do with Apple's Fusion drives) they also have a 4x PCIe/NVMe SSD internally. And being Sonnet should be pretty high quality. They were early in the market and have the usual Sonnet tax. https://www.amazon.com/Sonnet-Fusion.../dp/B076HZHP1R

Re: Would either of these be ok for a record/playback session drive
 

Yup the external drive is for the new MBP, actually I thought avid had info on this on their site where I’m sure I have read about external drives and requirements but I couldn’t relocate the informatiom a first read even after poking around in the compatibility pages.....Now I hear what you say as I have heard it before and this maybe the case great!!!

But there are a couple of reasons I want to use an external..... the PT ref manual still seems to support this idea, and as I have spent the last couple of months working through the PT ref manual plus researching through a variety of mediums, even Cubase folks seem to go along with the idea once you starting recording multiple tracks upwards of 16 it’s best to use an external drive to record to. I have a semi project/professional studio which I’m kinda trying to take a lil more professional. I have a job coming up soon which will involve 24 to possibly 29 live inputs and would hate to turn up and have this as a problem. So that is my main reason.

I will have a look at the links you have supplied, are they better than what I have linked to that I can get locally?

Thanks for your reply mate

Re: Would either of these be ok for a record/playback session drive
 

I tried using Tosh yesterday...... I think I’ll be retiring that old thing too.... haha

Re: Would either of these be ok for a record/playback session drive
 

As stated many many many ... phew :eek: ... times here the info regarding recording to an external drive these days is old. Why would you use a slower ext drive when the int drive is a way better alternative? You can use an ext drive for sample libraries and backup stuff but for the MBP (we have the same) for travels etc we have sessions upwards of 150-175 tracks with loads of plugins and VI with automations everywhere and the new MBP just huns along. I would say much faster and more sable than our studio machines which are Mac Pro trashcans so as Darryl said (who is THE goto guys here for anything drive related) use the über fast internal drive for recording as it will be a great option for what you do.

I would let Darryl set up everything computer related in our $m dollar studio in a heartbeat as he really knows his stuff. Intrust him explicitly when it comes to drives and computer tech and would not hessitate to hire his skillz if he were closer in the world :-) .. and pay accordingly of course so trust his wisdom and your recording life will be a better place.

He was one of the first people who helped me here on the forum back in 2011 when I became a member and that was when the SSD drives first started to come into play for us atleast and I followed his advice and everything was gravey after that.

Re: Would either of these be ok for a record/playback session drive
 

I hear what you say mate...... But Darryl didn’t get a chance to reply so your info is new for for for for for phew ME! Puff puff excuse me for asking... I have no idea what Darryl does sorry for not knowing.

Re: Would either of these be ok for a record/playback session drive
 

The reality is a user can only rely on what the manufacturer(s) seem to recommend if they didn’t then perhaps my question may never have been posed. If my internal ssd will handle this job on its own that is great.... I don’t need to spend the cash. I expressed in an earlier post I have a job that I don’t want to turn up and not be prepared. Surely if you’ve been in the entertainment industry for 5 minutes would understand turning up to a gig and your stuff don’t work..... well.... good luck to you.

Re: Would either of these be ok for a record/playback session drive
 

It is well past the time that Avid should be fixing this crazy blanket advice of using a dedicated audio drive. It makes *no* sense with modern PCIe SSDs, and when you add disk cache on top of that... less than no sense. And it’s just painful to see people buying slower SATA SSDs or HDDs because they thing they are making say their MBPa better Pro Tools box.... when they are almost certainly making it worse. At least we do have some affordable options now for PCIe/NVme Thunderbolt 3 drives that will approach the speed of the internal drive.... but unless you need the extra space just save the money. We might all be using Optane SSDs before Avid wakes up...

Lots of reliability advantages to be had from having no external drives connected to a laptop, nothing to accidentally unplug or drop on the floor etc. (but still I have multiple bootable T5s in my case that contain things like boot images I can clone to the internal drive, software installers, those fast’ish but affordable external SATA SSDs are handy for all that).

Re: Would either of these be ok for a record/playback session drive
 

Thanks for your feedback Darryl muchly appreciated. I should have a chance to test everything once my new MBP arrives.... with Mojave no less :( .. could be a nightmare in itself.

Ultimately this makes sense to me for portability.... and makes for less stuff to look after and or muck up. I have been looking at those T5’s for cloning an image of my ssd. They are not too bad price wise for portable ssd. I want a backup system in place as a first priority. What prg are you using to clone your ssd?

Re: Would either of these be ok for a record/playback session drive
 

I use Carbon Copy Cloner and clone to/from the T5 as well as HDD for archive/backup (these SSDs are probably not great for long term-storage).

Things to watch out for are making sure you have recovery partitions if you want them and they contain what you want to recover to. And I think it’s OK to use APFS on external SSDs,... as long as any Mac system you may need to mount them on supports APFS. (I am now only using APFS for all my working SSDs, HFS+ for HDD archives).

I have the 2017 MBP high-end config and recently did a full clean Mojave install with 2018.10 and have found no issues.... but I am making light work on it at the moment setting up some Superior Drummer VI tracks.

Re: Would either of these be ok for a record/playback session drive
 

Hey Darryl,

My MBP arrived today did you use the same optimisations in Mojave as is suggested for High Sierra?

Errrrr just checking and found the new MBP has arrived with High Sierra 10.13.6 loaded, very surprised as I did request it due to due to compatibility issues with some of the software, the Apple chap told me that wouldn’t be possible as everything is coming loaded with Mojave.... maybe it is different when you have a customised build. So forget the question.