Hard Drives

[Bfearr]

I read in the resources of the DUC here that Pro Tools doesn't support the use of external USB hard drives....prefers fire drives. It's the first time I've seen or heard this. Where I read this was in an LE section. So, what's the deal? USB drives aren't cool? They are all I have used since 2006.

[Southsidemusic]

I think that is a bit old. We use both USB3 external SSD drives aswell as Thunderbolt drives and they work really great.

If you are gonna use a USB external drive make sure it's a USB3 as USB2 is way to slow for larger sessions.

Christopher

[TOM@METRO]

Originally Posted by Bfearr

I read in the resources of the DUC here that Pro Tools doesn't support the use of external USB hard drives....prefers fire drives. It's the first time I've seen or heard this. Where I read this was in an LE section. So, what's the deal? USB drives aren't cool? They are all I have used since 2006.

As Christopher has said, the Firewire recommendation is years old. USB has been the recommended external solution since then, and now Thunderbolt as well. I have found it even better to use a second internal 7200 RPM drive whenever possible.

And keep it all backed up.

If you don't have it in at least 3 places... You don't have it.

[Bfearr]

Thanks for taking the time to respond. Does the computer recognize USB 3 even if the computer is USB 2?

[Southsidemusic]

Originally Posted by Bfearr

Thanks for taking the time to respond. Does the computer recognize USB 3 even if the computer is USB 2?

Well if you don't have USB3 ports it's useless to get USB3 external drives as it won't be either faster nor better than getting a USB2 which are too slow.

If i were you I would get a newer computer with USB3 ports and thunderbolt ports as USB2 is too slow for larger PT 11
sessions and demanding sample libraries.

There is no,way of comparing PT LE and PT11 sessions that worked great 8 yrs ago, times are changing and if you want a stable working studio a new computer is the first priority if that was me.

Getting USB3 drives at this point would be a waste of money for you

Christopher

[Bfearr]

I was curious. I have USB ports and also an SSD drive. A guy at Sweetwater told me to not track to an SSD drive so I have been storing finished tracks on it instead. I'll start tracking to it!

[Southsidemusic]

Absolutely

What people are you getting advice from ?!

The ssd Drives are the best on the market and you should track to it 100%
Also use as OS drive
And sample drive

Yes for everything! They are fast, reliable and really awesome all around

Best Regards
Christopher

[Bfearr]

The SSD advice was from my sales guy at Sweetwater. I never got USB advice. I started in Pro Tools when USB 2 or firewire were the choices and I never changed from USB 2. I just happened to be looking at the resources here on DUC when I saw the firewire mention for LE.

[Craig F]

USB 1 & 2 are controled by the CPU and are first one the chopping block if the CPU needs more power for something else
Firewire has it's own controller chip set

[Bfearr]

Ahhh. Thanks!