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Old 07-04-2018, 05:45 PM
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xrekcor xrekcor is offline
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Default What size hard drive???

I’m about to get my new Mac Book Pro, I’m guessing this is a question that can have many answers. I’ll be getting external storage to save all my projects to but my real question is..... after I have installed PT do I need to consider space for anything that has to be installed on the same hard drive as PT.... for instance pluggins and such can they be run from an external hard drive..... can VST’s be installed on a seperate or external hard drive, plugins like BIAS FX and BIAS AMP.

I’m about to order my new Mac thinking 256gb too small 512gb maybe ok but would it be better to get a 1t or 2t instead......

Cheers, any thoughts and experiences appreciated, apologies if this subject been covered before.... just couldn’t find anything on it.
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Old 07-04-2018, 07:43 PM
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Default Re: What size hard drive???

I would get an SSD and get the biggest your budget will allow. Opinions vary, but for me, 500GB is the smallest I would consider(larger if you plan on installing VI plugins with lots of samples). A second drive for sessions is smart, but a 3rd drive for samples is maybe even smarter. Got a nice Thunderbolt 3 dock for sale if you need more ports
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Old 07-04-2018, 10:03 PM
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Default Re: What size hard drive???

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Originally Posted by albee1952 View Post
I would get an SSD and get the biggest your budget will allow.
Best advice available IMHO.
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Old 07-05-2018, 12:39 AM
peterle peterle is offline
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Default Re: What size hard drive???

you simply cannot run plug ins or VSTI from a seperate drive (hd or ssd)
but you can put sampler libraries on a seperate one....
i also recommend the biggest SSD you can afford.


500GB Without sampler libs , 1TB with Sampler Libs minimum
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Old 07-05-2018, 03:01 AM
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xrekcor xrekcor is offline
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Default Re: What size hard drive???

So I can install VST’s on the same SSD as PT, that being the boot up ssd. But I can put it’s libs on an external ssd. I’m not really sure what plugins I’ll end up with but I know there are a few things a want and I want to be able to add more.

I am thinking a 1t drive to be safe but from the feed back here looks like 1t kinda the minumin.

I am going to get external storage for my projects or a storage I can back up to.
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Old 07-05-2018, 03:38 AM
musicman691 musicman691 is offline
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Default Re: What size hard drive???

Quote:
Originally Posted by xrekcor View Post
So I can install VST’s on the same SSD as PT, that being the boot up ssd. But I can put it’s libs on an external ssd. I’m not really sure what plugins I’ll end up with but I know there are a few things a want and I want to be able to add more.

I am thinking a 1t drive to be safe but from the feed back here looks like 1t kinda the minumin.

I am going to get external storage for my projects or a storage I can back up to.
Whatever internal drive you get do NOT get a Fusion drive which is a combo of a small ssd and slow spinner hard drive.

External drive for sessions is a good idea. I know you can run sessions off an internal ssd but for backup/cloning purposes a separate external drive is a good thing. Also a good thing is that you're thinking about backing up stuff. A working clone of your system drive is excellent to have; those of us on Macs tend to sue Carbon Copy Cloner to do the job. And for safety's sake do NOT leave the clone/backup drive connected and powered up all the time.
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Old 07-05-2018, 10:08 AM
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Default Re: What size hard drive???

Quote:
Originally Posted by peterle View Post
you simply cannot run plug ins or VSTI from a seperate drive (hd or ssd)
but you can put sampler libraries on a seperate one....
i also recommend the biggest SSD you can afford.


500GB Without sampler libs , 1TB with Sampler Libs minimum
My thoughts as well. I have tons of plugins and programs and have space to spare (about 150GB) on a 480GB SSD system drive. Plugins and apps are not that large really.

But I also have 8 other hard drives for recording to, samples, video files, rendering, and all the stuff that really takes up space. For example, Kontakt 5 is only ~ 275MB for the app/plugin... but all the Kontakt libraries I have are about 400GB.

Media Composer is about 4GB... but I'm currently working on about 3TB worth of video. Apps are not that large.

You don't want to go too small for a system drive either, sure, you can get by with 256GB, but then you may have issues if you purchase plugins and libraries and it downloads and unzips by default to a location on the system drive before it offers you an option install to another location.

So around 500GB and up is what I'd say for the system drive.
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Old 07-09-2018, 01:51 PM
digiot digiot is offline
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Default Re: What size hard drive???

Ha, I am about to pull the trigger on a new MacBookPro. Been holding of for years hoping Apple would release a MBP with more then 16G of RAM. But I just can't wait any more. I am currently running a 2012 15" MBP 2.6 Ghz i7QuadCore with 16 gigs RAM and 2X2TB SSD's!! So thats 4TB of SSD storage build in to hold my 3TB Kontakt Library,Spectrasonics and Superior Drummer libs. Even though its a 6 year old machine it is only slightly slower then a brand new machine. Sure the battery life is abysmal (2 hours top) but I would never be able to run Protools on battery anyway. The only bottleneck I have is the 16G of RAM that disappears with a couple of sample libraries loaded. I even thought about building a Hackintosh out of a Razor Laptop which can hold up to 32G RAM but I would probably hate the crappy PC hardware. Luckily for me I can just pull the 2 SSD's from my old MBP and put them in an external enclosure.

But yeah running Sample Libraries of an SSD Has been a game changer!
I think that you could get away with a 256G SSD since all the samples would be on an external drive. iTunes and iPhoto are all cloud based now (if you have enough iCloud storage) So that just leave Applications and plugins.
Just for comparison sake my current Application folder is about 160G. And that includes: Protools, Logic,Ableton, Adobe CS and FinalCut plus a boatload of Plugins!
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