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#1
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Always External Drive?
I have a new iMac on order (5K, 64GB RAM, 2TB SSD drive), and am considering revamping my file management/workflow...
I currently work on 4-5 projects a week, mostly podcasts, and some of them are sessions that live on (and collaborate through) google file stream, and I'm currently on a late 2015 iMac. They aren't huge sessions...they range from small to med-large. I have an external hard drive that is being used as GFS's cache and it is also where I keep my sessions in general, when not on GFS (which is a more recent workflow change). I do almost zero recording on a day-to-day basis, and just need to work quickly in Pro Tools and iZotope RX. The faster I can bounce and process files, the more projects I can take on! My current external hard drive, in combo with GFS, gives me errors in PT lately, as I have a feeling it is getting fragmented. But also, I don't have an automatic backup of these sessions...I end up manually backing them on to the internal drive and running Time Machine (separate hard drive). So, my question is...should I still be putting my PT sessions on an external drive, which will have to be non-SSD because it'll be higher-capacity, so slower than my internal SSD drive? If I keep my sessions internal, I can run Time Machine backups nightly without missing a beat. I will be buying a new external drive anyways, but I'd rather have it as just a backup, or backup + GFS cache. Otherwise, I'll partition it into both a backup and a work drive. I'm just wondering if I even need a work drive anymore since internal drives and RAM have come a long way since the initial PT guidelines were established. I'm pretty old school...using PT for close to 20 years and I tend to subscribe to the "if it ain't broke, don't fix (or update) it". Also seeking recommendations for a QUIET HHD...6 or 8 TB. The OWC Mercury Elite Pro make a huge racket. My Buffalo drive is a bit quieter, but it has a wonky connector, so will avoid buying another. |
#2
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Re: Always External Drive?
I'd be expecting that internal 2tb to be fast, and the best place to put just about everything, but it depends on the drive.
Free disk speed test software for mac: Blackmagic Disk Speed Test on the Mac App Store
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Mac mini M2 16GB RAM macOS 13.4.1. PT Studio 2023.6. Topping E30 II DAC, Dynaudio BM6, 2 x Artist Mix, SSL UC1, Control on iPad. |
#3
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Re: Always External Drive?
'The old rule(or is that guideline) was not about external drives, it was about separate drives for system and sessions(and as sample-based virtual instruments got bigger and better, a 3rd drive was recommended for sample libraries). It was based on performance of spinning drives of the day. Modern SSD are much faster, so you are probably going to be fine with everything on your 2TB SSD.
I'm not a Mac user, so take my advice with a grain of salt when I suggest you might think about how you want to delegate the drive space you have. For example, I might consider partitioning your 2TB into a 500GB portion for system and the rest for sessions. If you have sample libraries to consider, then I might divide the drive in half. This would keep the system drive at a size that's easier to backup, and easier to recover. But I would also bow to a Mac user's advice over mine on this bit
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HP Z4 workstation, Mbox Studio https://www.facebook.com/search/top/...0sound%20works The better I drink, the more I mix BTW, my name is Dave, but most people call me.........................Dave |
#4
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Re: Always External Drive?
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Mac mini M2 16GB RAM macOS 13.4.1. PT Studio 2023.6. Topping E30 II DAC, Dynaudio BM6, 2 x Artist Mix, SSL UC1, Control on iPad. |
#5
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Re: Always External Drive?
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"Feeling its getting fragmented"... fragmentation is rarely an issue, but even if it is you should ideally be running with disk cache (set to a size to fully cache the session, not "standard") which will make this and may other IO performance problems a non-issue. Quote:
If you did need an external SSD for sessions, the reason would normally be the internal boot/system drive is just too small, and in that case you would buy an external SSD not a slow old HDD. Even if a HDD is larger or cheaper why would you buy that for actual audio work? The only thing that a HDD really makes sense for most audio/DAW work today is archive/backup, or very large sample libraries or large video storage. But even for large sample libraries SSDs are often a practical choice. And "SSD" is not very specific. For modern Mac systems if I had to work with an external drive (because of lack of internal SSD space) I would use a Thunderbolt 3 NVMe/PCIe SSD, a Samsung X5 is one example, that gives about the same performance as the PCIe/NVMe SSD inside a modern Mac. ... I would not use a SATA SSD, not any form of USB connected SSD. The extra performance of NVMe/PCIe over SATA give faster startup, disk cache load, VI sample load, backups, etc. and is typically good enough to let combinations of boot, samples and sessions reside on the same drive, whether that is internal or external makes no difference. Quote:
For backing up the actual boot drive itself Carbon Copy Cloner is often a better choice, it gets you back up and running from a clone as fast as you can reboot the computer. Time machine can be a nice way to backup sessions but even for that personally I'd avoid time machine and just manually or use a script to backup session folders. Those backups should be made to multiple different places, ideally in most cases physically removed from the system , maybe backup to a NAS server and/or other cloud storage. I would not back up to an external drive that is always physically connected... since user errors are the leading cause of data loss you ideally want the backup physically removed and untouchable, and you should have multiple (at least three copies, ideally in different formats/locations). Multiple copies including because the common time to discover you have a trashed filesystem or drive is while trying to back up from it... in which case the backup you were just writing may now be trash as well. Quote:
SSDs can be useful backup drives because they are fast... e.g with a clone on say a (fast PCIe/NVMe) Samsung X5 you can boot the iMac from that clone and be up and running and not notice any degradation in performance compared to the internal PCIe/NVMe SSD. But it's probably better that longer term backups and archives to be on a reliable/long term stable HDD vs an SSD. I have no advice there except given Seagate's horrible reputation for Rosewood drive reliability I'd be avoiding their products (that especially includes Lacie branded HDDs where you pay more for the overpriced pretty looking package containing crapy drives). Last edited by Darryl Ramm; 12-05-2020 at 04:47 PM. |
#6
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Re: Always External Drive?
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I think I will start using Carbon Copy Cloner, as I am not a fan of Time Machine. It was what was already set up on this "in between" computer that I'm currently on. |
#7
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Re: Always External Drive?
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Since I want something reliable for backup/archive, HDD should be the way to go, right? If I don't plan to use it as an audio drive, do I need the 7200RPM? I have that currently and I assume they run louder and hotter than 5400RPM. Though if I plan to have a bootable backup, maybe 7200RPM is better... I think unmounting when not backing up will solve the "I can't stand to listen to the platters spinning and writing" problem...or I will have to create a sound-proofed box for it, haha. I have a tiny office space! |
#8
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Re: Always External Drive?
The current PCI-express based SSD's are so fast you can safely forget the old "rule" of having sessions on different drive. Perfectly okay to have them on system drive.
The "rule" of today is keep your sample libraries on separate drive(s).
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#9
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Re: Always External Drive?
Ok, that's what I figured. Thank you! I don't have a ton of sample libraries at the moment, but I am looking to have that grow more over the next year or so, so I'd like to be forward-compatible and already set up for that. Do you think creating a separate APFS volume on the internal drive would suffice for sample libraries?
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#10
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Re: Always External Drive?
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