mac mini i7 quad SSD with external USb3?

[lanstrad]

Currently considering a new Mac mini to run Pro Tools 11, and juggling between the SSD upgrade (only 256 GB) then use an external USB3 drive for audio (??), or simply go with the 1 tb regular hdd.... the usual speed vs space dilemna

Anyone ever tried this ?

Yes i know the obvious answer would be to consider an external Thunderbolt but it's not in my options (budget wise)

[weezamiah]

Im using that mac mini with no sd drives with 3 usb drives. 2 for projects and one for samples. this set up fast so i can only imagine with the sd, much faster. only thing is the usb drives go to sleep it unattended for a time but wakes right up when prompted. soon will get sd drive for main but right now very happy with large projects and plugins

[quantise]

I use an i7 MacMini with great success but I would be careful about what kind of audio drive you opt for.

You'll find this advice regarding USB Drives in the support section linked to above:
http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=54888

"USB drives are not supported and are known to be problematic. Avoid using USB drives, as they are known for causing a variety of errors."

[jimlongo]

Mac Mini 2.6Quad i7 with 1TB Fusion drive.
External FW800 audio drives.

The SSD part of the Fusion drive launches apps pretty quickly. From power off to desktop in less than 15 seconds.

[Southsidemusic]

I think that was written a while ago seeing that USB3 drives with SSD or 7200rpm or better are performing awesome on lots of setups. I bet Avid refers to USB2 drives with crapware inside since quite a few makers of the drives have put green drives blue drives and slow 5400rpm drives inside but if you get a USB3 chassi with a SSD or WDC Black 7200rpm inside it will smoke. Works great for us as we have both ext SSD's and WDC Black drives so I am speaking from experience here.

Any way you go within the correct guidelines I wish you all the best
Christopher

[drguitar]

USB 3.0 drives are amazing and work well with PT now. You have to uncheck the option to let hard drives sleep in OS X System Preferences Energy Saver

[Jay_uk]

I see a lot of guys with Mac mini`s recording to an external.
Just wondering why not record to the secondary drive, the 2011 has two 7200rpm drives.... Is there a preference?
Recording to secondary vs external.
If its external, is the secondary used for back up or samples?
Just curious

cheers
J

[Cool711]

Same questions here.

And for that matter, anyone ever try splitting the fusion drive and hosting PT on the SSD and recording directly to the HD?

[jimlongo]

Originally Posted by Jay_uk

I see a lot of guys with Mac mini`s recording to an external.
Just wondering why not record to the secondary drive, the 2011 has two 7200rpm drives.... Is there a preference?
Recording to secondary vs external.
If its external, is the secondary used for back up or samples?
Just curious

No if you have the server model that's exactly what i'd do. The internal drive is going to be way faster than any external because it's connected without a Firewire or USB interface. On my MacPro the internal drives are significantly faster in straight-out file copy tests than any external. Use that and then the externals for backup.

The confusion probably lies in comments regarding a mini with only 1 drive. In that case you definitely want to use an external.

Originally Posted by Cool711

Same questions here.

And for that matter, anyone ever try splitting the fusion drive and hosting PT on the SSD and recording directly to the HD?

I don't think you can do that, at least not without defeating the "intelligent" controller that apple is using in the fusion drive. You don't have a choice of where to put things the OS controls that.

Here's more information on the fusion drive

[Cool711]

Yeah, that's what I meant.

Break the bond using the appropriate terminal commands etc. so that the two drives now appear separately to the OS and then recording to the internal 5400rpm drive.

Seems like an easy solution and keeps the drives internal, but the disadvantage is that the 1TB HD is 5400rpm.

Trying to decide if to try this now or not.