External Hard Drive for both projects and samples? Workflow Ideas?

[Danielexists]

My poor old pc is having a hard time running Protools12. I am, thus, inheriting our iMac (2011/27 inch) to make music. I have read many threads here but have a couple of questions and would like your advice.

1) According to several threads, I should record on an external drive. "Preferably SSD with thunderbolt (becuase 2011 iMacs dont have usb3)". I've found some hard drives that fit this criteria but I have to say that they are pricey. Any recent suggestions?
2) I have read about the possibility of placing instrument samples in an external drive. I have a LaCie D2 HDD/thunderbolt. I have never used it for samples. Is this a good option? Can virtual instruments trigger samples from there in real time?
3) Would having samples on one external HHD and recording on another external SSD create issues, lag, latency, etc? Or would it be wiser to have my instrument samples on the same SSD drive that I will purchase to record?

I thank everyone in advance. I want to make sure my switch begins with an appropriate workflow.

[albee1952]

If you can only have 2 drives, then I would put samples on the system drive. That allows your recording drive to give maximum performance for a single task(recording). Even though an external SSD would likely be capable of handling both tasks(samples and recording), the thunderbolt 1 connection will be a likely bottleneck. Swapping the internal drive for an SSD would be another performance helper

You don't mention what the iMac has for RAM, but if its less than 16GB, I would hit OWC and fill it to the 32GB max

[Danielexists]

Thank you for the quick reply. I just added an extra 8 Gb of ram so it has a total of 16 Gb. I did not know you could upgrade it to 32 Gb. Neither did I know about internal SSD add ons and swaps. Just looked it up OWC. Super interesting and useful.

The Mac has 2 thunderbolt ports. Is an SSD internal significantly faster than using a SSD external (with one of the thunderbolt ports). In this scenario, would you find it better to just use an internal SSD for both recording and samples?
Thanks again. You pointed me in the right direction.

[Danielexists]

Thanks for the quick response! I dont know where my quick reply went (newbie). Thus, Ill post again in case it vanished.

The info on the internal SSD and 32 Gb Ram upgrades is super helpful. Looked up OWC and it looks like the perfect solution. In this scenario, would you prefer to use the internal SSD for both recording and samples? Is the internal drive always faster than the external due to the thunderbolt transfer speed limitations?

Thanks again, I feel this is a step in the right direction.

[JFreak]

Originally Posted by Danielexists

Is an SSD internal significantly faster than using a SSD external (with one of the thunderbolt ports)

No, but if you do that you can store sessions on your internal system drive and have samples on external.

[albee1952]

Originally Posted by JFreak

No, but if you do that you can store sessions on your internal system drive and have samples on external.

Another solid option^^^ and don't neglect backup! Any data that you would hate to lose needs to be backed up to at least 2 locations other than your normal recording drive! I keep external USB drives and NAS storage. Remember that there are 2 kinds of computer users; those that have had a crash, and those that WILL HAVE a crash. And don't think that the age of the drive will make a big difference. My 2 crashes were a 2-week old external drive and a 6-month old SSD

[musicman691]

You're inheriting the same machine I used to run PT on and when it worked it was a beast. Sadly my machine fell prone to the problems endemic to that version iMac - failure of the video card due to excessive heat. Has that iMac gone through that yet and if so has it been repaired? If you do a search here you may find my trials & tribulations trying to get mine fixed.



Even if it hasn't had issues swap out that internal spinner drive for an ssd. It'll run MUCH cooler. I'm willing to bet with the system as it exists now (if it doesn't already have an ssd system drive) gets quite warm after a couple of hours - just feel the back of the machine. Also while you're in there swap out the optical drive for a second internal ssd. OWC has videos on all that as well as the parts & tools to do the job. I know a fellow that only has use of one arm due to a stroke and he can swap out the internal drive in 15 minutes or so. Just take proper anti-static precautions.


If you haven't noticed your iMac also has a camera that's situated in the top dark strip of the monitor. I just placed a bit of black electrical tape to cover it and deleted the driver s/w for the camera.

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by Danielexists

My poor old pc is having a hard time running Protools12. I am, thus, inheriting our iMac (2011/27 inch) to make music. I have read many threads here but have a couple of questions and would like your advice.

Great that you have been reading around here looking at stuff. And that is likely to mean that folks will pile on to help you, but it would be a lot easier if you actually described stuff in more detail.

You mean mid-2011? What exact model number and EMC code Mac are you talking about. What exact internal drive(s) does the Mac have now. It can have more than one internal drive, so list 'em all. Cut and past that information from the System Information utility? What CPU and memory as well?

What problems/AAE errors etc. are you getting on that PC today? Did you troubleshoot problems with Pro Tools 12 on that PC? I would not assume just switching computers will fix problems, even if upgrading to a more powerful computer. Your iMac might even be less powerful, we have no idea.

Why are you only focusing on samples here? They may be critical but the first thing to worry about is getting your audio/session storage sorted out. Many modern VI problems are related to CPU use and flakiness in Pro Tools or plugins. Many issues are not sample loading related. But that may be in part because of increasing sample pre-loading, 64-bit memory to throw at this, and use of SSDs. If for example you have been beset by Pro Tools CPU issues using VIs I'd be very carful assuming they are sample drive related. And in case you are getting AAE CPU errors... Pro Tools until 2019.5 had issues that could cause horrible CPU issues for folks... many of those issues were resolved that were in Pro Tools 10/11/12 AAX processing.

What macOS and exact Pro Tools version do you plan to run. Make sure if you are running old versions of Pro Tools like Pro Tools 12 you only install a compatible macOS version. Actually make sure you can even get an installer for that older version, you may need to beg Apple Support to get an installer for you. And regardless of anything else, do a clean macOS install (which will wipe the boot drive).

Hopefully you are running Pro Tools 12.2 or later that has disk cache and that will help relieve any disk related issues. (but you've got to enable disk cache by setting it to a cache size).

1) According to several threads, I should record on an external drive. "Preferably SSD with thunderbolt (becuase 2011 iMacs dont have usb3)". I've found some hard drives that fit this criteria but I have to say that they are pricey. Any recent suggestions?

If you are looking at SSDs they are not "hard drives", so not clear what you are looking at here.

You found what drives that fit that criteria... you could link to them here so we can comment on them.

There are increasing number of great options for Thunderbolt 3 fast PCIe/NVMe based external SSDs, none of which will likely work on a Thunderbolt 1/2 equipped Mac.

2) I have read about the possibility of placing instrument samples in an external drive. I have a LaCie D2 HDD/thunderbolt. I have never used it for samples. Is this a good option? Can virtual instruments trigger samples from there in real time?

Nobody here can give you hard assurances anything will work. We have no idea how heavy your sessions are, what plugins you are using, or wether they pre-load or stream samples. We also have no clue how large the sample libraries are you are using and where that might fit.

On systems this old, with slow disk the general advice was put sample on the boot drive, and if you need more space or more disk performance (especially if using HDD) then put them on an dedicated sample drive. The drive does not need to be "external", and with this Mac in particular focusing on external drives is likely a mistake.

3) Would having samples on one external HHD and recording on another external SSD create issues, lag, latency, etc? Or would it be wiser to have my instrument samples on the same SSD drive that I will purchase to record?

I thank everyone in advance. I want to make sure my switch begins with an appropriate workflow.

Nobody can say it will work. But you mean SSD attached via what? USB 2 is a slow bottleneck for connecting a modern SSD, even a relatively slow by modern (NVMe) standards SATA III SSD. If you need an external drive, look at putting a SATA III SSD in a Thunderbolt dock/enclosure. Maybe use the Lacie enclosure you already have. And external drive can be a PITA with messy/fragile cables etc. Great for removable backups. but for samples and sessions I would be looking at internal SSD options... especially as this iMac with such weak external connectivity.

But maybe samples sitting on that Lacie external Thunderbolt/SATA HDD will work just fine... the only way to know is for you to try it out.

LaCie produced a bunch of different drive configurations with similar names. But since you say HDD that's likely your unit only has the internal SATA drive. So normally a bit of marketing wank because you are not really leveraging the speed of Thunderbolt. And using the USB 3 (assuming it is USB3?) port on that same Lacie would likely give as good a performance. OK bu here Thunderbolt gives usefully faster performance than USB2 on your computer, so is handy. The marketing gimmick with these dives at the time was it could be upgraded with an add-in SSD. And that SSD was PCIe not SATA based so would leverage the Thunderbolt performance. I have no idea if that upgrade option is still available or not, you could have to look around. It looked like it used as possibly standard M.2 SSD on a proprietary PCIe carrier card... so if really really lucky might be able to swap that for a larger M.2 drive? But no idea. And likely expensive, and small and slow compared to say just getting a modern PCIe/NVM2 M.2 drive and putting in a Thunderbolt 1/2 dock... but that may be cumbersome and noisy... but the option to give fastest external storage if you ever need that, but no reason here to think you do.

A more practical option might be to open up the Lacie and replace the SATA HDD with a SATA III SSD (like a Samsung 860 Evo). I expect that is possible and you should be able to find into online... but my first upgrade attack would focus on updating the SSD inside the Mac.

Assuming your iMac has an internal HDD today. I would would open up the iMac and replace one or both internal HDD with two SATA III SSD (for all the effort of opening it up don't put just one SSD in it). Read up carefully what is needed, there may be firmware updates needed to get SATA III speed on both internal drives. Maybe issues with temp sensors, I can't even be sure what model iMac you have. If you are not comfortable doing the work yourself pay somebody competent to do it.. but look up the info online about what is needed and make sure they understand that (use it to test if you trust them). My preference would be to use two Samsung 860 Evo SSD internal drives (one in a 3.5" to 2.5" drive carrier). That at least gets you two SATA III SSD directly connected to the Mac. Much faster than connecting via USB2 and not external drive/cables to deal with. Opening up the mac is maybe not a bad thing... a good technician will clean out all the dirt and dust and check the cooling fans are healthy.

If your Mac has an internal 4800 RPM drive today, then I would waste no time in opening it ip and tossing away that drive, there is no way I'm sitting watching a computer boot that slowly or be so slow to use.

Now you can also connect a SATA III SSD via Thunderbolt and it will deliver similar performance as a direct SATA III connection.. so you could potentially open up the LaCie and toss away its' HDD and replace that with the same SATA SSD... but you might also just keep that as a back up HDD.

If you can put say a 2TB or 4TB Boot SSD in the iMac will all your samples fit on that? You don't usually get much advantage in installing the samples on a separate dedicated SATA SSD the boot SATA SSD. With two internal SSD you want session on the boot drive and audio/session on the second SSD.

You can upgrade the memory easily in the mid-2011 27-inch and you may need to do that--max it out as Dave mentioned, but before messing with internal SSD upgrades you might just want to try stuff now before doing too much brain surgery. You can go though all the steps say of doing a clean macOS and Pro tools installs and try stuff out, and if you are getting a used computer then you *have* to wipe the disk and do a clean OS install. If you like that and it work and you later upgrade say the internal drive to SSD you can clone that to an SSD and install that in the iMac. Especially if budget was tight I would be doing that.

You have thought about how you are going to back up this system? How you are going to make archives/copies of your sessions? If you are new to mac making clones of the boot drive using Carbon Copy Cloner is a great systems recovery tool, don't get suckered into thinking TimeMachine is the best way there. You also should be doing separate archives/backups of your sessions.

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

You mean mid-2011? What exact model number and EMC code Mac are you talking about. What exact internal drive(s) does the Mac have now. It can have more than one internal drive, so list 'em all. Cut and past that information from the System Information utility? What CPU and memory as well?

The mid 2011 27 inch iMacs all had the same model number (A1312) and EMC (2429). And had two 7200 rpm spinners or a 256 gig ssd with the optical Superdrive.

[JFreak]

Swapping the superdrive for SSD is a good idea if opening the box anyway. Should you need DVD these days, external unit is dirt cheap and USB does not harm its performance. With that said, my DVD drive has been gathering dust for years already.