Tracking to an external drive?

[jim1960]

Originally Posted by Ty Ford

I just bought an iMac Pro that has one internal SSD drive.

I bought an iMac recently and it's the same issue so I picked up one of these.
https://smile.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb...dows+Certified
Super fast. I use one bay for sessions and the others are for sound libraries.

[Joseph Hanna]

Originally Posted by KevWind

I agree with Ty the "Always track to a seperate drive from the system drive" mantra came about, and was totally valid and optimum , in the era of slower bus speeds, etc. and limited drive space available in computers prototypical of 15 -5 years ago. And depending on what usage needs one actually has and the size of the system drive , that rule of thumb is arguably no longer quite as imperative.



Now obviously for backup things have not changed and some kind of secondary backup is always advisable

Currently there are literally thousands of single SSD drive laptops (obviously dependant on the space available ) recording music with no speed, space , or congestion issues .

That said for the OP since he already the drives, has USB 3, and the specs for that drive indicate a 4.8 GBps transfer speed ( even with a 5200 rpm) I see no reason not use it for this project.

Yes this....and what Ty added as well. A whole lotta wives tales (as has always been the case in home recording) leads to a fair degree of confusion. Like already has been mentioned the idea of "always record to an external drive" arose out of a time an era where it did make sense. One of the fundamental reasons at that time is how hard drives handles the data. Fragmentation was extremely common and high track counts lent themselves to badly fragmented drives. Fragmented drives had an adverse effect on the entire system including the fundamental OS. It made sense therefore to not jeopardize the OS drive. Also at that time drives where significantly smaller. It just made sense to have multiple external drives that could be wiped down at any time without the need to compromise the internal drives.

Contemporary OS's handle file management in a MUCH different manner these days. Severely fragmented drives are, by and large, no longer an issue. Data is distributed in a much more efficient way, not to mention the newer SS drives (as has been mentioned) radically change processing speeds for most audio chores. Also the newer SS drives are MASSIVE compared to the early days. Some here will remember the original Digidesign drives that were 8 gig and a whooping $2000.00 a piece.

In the end I don't see a significant reason to NOT record to an external drive (with the exception of how fast current internal SS drives are) but I also see no significant reason to not record to an internal drive.

Certainly the old mantra of "you must always use an external drive" is firmly in the rear view mirror.

[midwinter]

Originally Posted by Joseph Hanna

In the end I don't see a significant reason to NOT record to an external drive (with the exception of how fast current internal SS drives are) but I also see no significant reason to not record to an internal drive.

The issue for me is that right now I have several projects in various stages on my laptop's SSD and they're taking up a bunch of space. I'm getting tired of the MacOS warnings that I only have 12 GB left.

[Joseph Hanna]

Originally Posted by midwinter

The issue for me is that right now I have several projects in various stages on my laptop's SSD and they're taking up a bunch of space. I'm getting tired of the MacOS warnings that I only have 12 GB left.

Ha! Well....there's that But that however would be more like a discussion on file management rather external drive performance.

If you're getting drive space errors that would be the kinda thing I wanna address separately and from there decide whether or not you need a 7200 rpm external. If storage is an issue you can pickup any number of 1TB portable drives for less than $50.00 that, where they may not be up to the task of streaming audio, are great for storage. Take the several projects you're working on and store them externally. When you need em drag em back.

As you're aware, filling any hard drive (internal or external) to near capacity is never a good idea and is inevitably gonna cause various degrees of chaos

[midwinter]

Yep. That’s actually exactly what I’m doing—using the little Seagates for archiving.

I’m mostly joking about the storage errors. My Mac barks at me if I get below 15GB free, it seems.

[DupleMeter]

Originally Posted by Ty Ford

Yes, the prevailing wisdom has been to put all media on a drive separate from the System/Apps drive.

With faster computers and SSD drives, however, we may need to re-examine this tried and true approach.

The boot drive has a lot going on - it was never a speed issue, but a drive activity issue.

As you go about any task on a computer the boot drive is writing swap files (virtual memory), cache files & constantly writing system state changes to the drive. You get to a certain point (track count) where this will cause problems. Even an SSD can only do 1 thing at a time. Sure a modest session will be fine 99.999999% of the time. But I've seen issues on 2 track recordings to the boot drive. Usually jitter/noise in final file that didn't happen "in the room". I prefer not to risk it...especially as sample rates climb, requiring more data to be written for each track.

I don't see this as becoming outdated advice anytime soon...at least not until they make drives that can read/write to multiple tasks simultaneously.

[midwinter]

Considering Logic crashed a few minutes into the recording of the second session, I can see the wisdom of separating out the tasks.

[muscmp]

Originally Posted by midwinter

Considering Logic crashed a few minutes into the recording of the second session, I can see the wisdom of separating out the tasks.

is your buffer at 128?

before i record, i use memory clean and maccleanse to "clean house."

play music!

[midwinter]

Originally Posted by muscmp

is your buffer at 128?

before i record, i use memory clean and maccleanse to "clean house."

play music!

It was a weird crash. I just clicked on the "scrunch" button to make the whole session fit on a single screen. Won't do that again. Luckily we were only 5 minutes into the tracking. Everything else went off without a hitch. I archived the unedited project on my external and now all I need to do is the light editing they asked for (EQ, compression, panning, etc.) If they want more than that (dude! mouth breathing! hey you! quit fiddling with your clothes!), we've discussed a fee schedule.

[David MacNeill]

Originally Posted by DupleMeter

I don't see this as becoming outdated advice anytime soon...at least not until they make drives that can read/write to multiple tasks simultaneously.

Exactly right.

[Ty Ford]

Originally Posted by Joseph Hanna

Some here will remember the original Digidesign drives that were 8 gig and a whooping $2000.00 a piece.
.......
Certainly the old mantra of "you must always use an external drive" is firmly in the rear view mirror.

I'll do some tests with the new iMac Pro.

BTW, somewhere in my Mac-Museum, I have an 80MB Lacie Drive with SCSI ports that cost about $800. (on sale!!)

Regards,

Ty

[Joseph Hanna]

I work in one of the most demanding audio environments on the planet. We are a facility of approximately 70 staff employees with sometimes upwards 30 free lance artists of which include audio folk, Avid editors, writers, Project Coordinators, Creative Directors and specific show Content Developers. We have 7 full time audio engineers and at any given time 3 to 5 free lance audio engineers. We have 4 full time dedicated Pro Tool bays and two that work as standby ProTool/Avid bays depending on production schedules and or show delivery demands. We run two of the Pro Tools bays 24 hours a day (3 full time shifts, one engineer following another around the clock) year round and I’d estimate an average (at least most seasons) 6 days a week. In this environment there is zero tolerance for downtime. There is zero tolerance for mistakes. There is zero tolerance for a failed delivery. In short it’s relentless combat mixing.

In the 4 full time Pro Tools bay’s we run Mac Pro’s with SS internal drives of which we work to. I think the Mac Pro’s have been in the bays for at least two years and it wouldn’t surprise me if it were three years but honestly don’t remember when we updated. In all that time, running 24/6 in two of the four rooms (the other two rooms run two 8 hour shifts) we’ve never had a single issue with working to the internal drives. Not once, ever. Not regarding reliability nor performance.

Over the years (I’m coming up on my 19th year here) we’ve tried various drive solutions from the original atto/scsi days to the failed Digidesign attempt at round robin, to the trend toward third party drives specialist in rack mountable trays and finally multiple FireWire solutions. We’ve tried em all.

In that light it’s REALLY difficult for me to buy into the idea one MUST work to an external drive. I’m not saying one shouldn’t as external drives are as relavent as they have always been. I am however, based on personal experience, certain beyond any shadow of a doubt, internal SS drives are probably the single most effective solution we’ve ever used. Given the relentless demands we put on these machines I’d feel confident in recommending, without hesitation, this option for any home studio recording enthusiasts.

YMMV

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by DupleMeter

The boot drive has a lot going on - it was never a speed issue, but a drive activity issue.

As you go about any task on a computer the boot drive is writing swap files (virtual memory), cache files & constantly writing system state changes to the drive. You get to a certain point (track count) where this will cause problems. Even an SSD can only do 1 thing at a time. Sure a modest session will be fine 99.999999% of the time. But I've seen issues on 2 track recordings to the boot drive. Usually jitter/noise in final file that didn't happen "in the room". I prefer not to risk it...especially as sample rates climb, requiring more data to be written for each track.

I don't see this as becoming outdated advice anytime soon...at least not until they make drives that can read/write to multiple tasks simultaneously.

I do not think anyone said that the concept of recording to a secondary drive was outdated. What was said was the some of the initial conditions that made a secondary drive standard practice and considered necessary (i. e. slow processing speeds and limited space) no longer apply with today's computers

Not being a computer designer, software engineer or programmer, etc. I do not know the answer to one question about the above statement (not challenging just don't understand and am curious )


As you go about any task on a computer the boot drive is writing swap files (virtual memory), cache files & constantly writing system state changes to the drive. You get to a certain point (track count) where this will cause problems. Even an SSD can only do 1 thing at a time.


So I get the gist of the above but what I don't understand is . So assuming as you say the processor is doing these tasks one task at a time, Arn't all these tasks still going to be done "one at a time" in the computer processor, regardless of weather the file storage is on the primary drive or a second drive ? ? , If so then I am not clear on what functional difference in terms of speed or congestion would it make between the processor writing to and reading off of the primary drive, or a secondary drive ? Isn't the processor doing the same amount of work regardless of file storage location ? Or are you saying that having a second drive is in fact allowing the processor to now multi task ??? I do not know so I am asking ...

[Brent Hahn]

Originally Posted by Joseph Hanna

In that light it’s REALLY difficult for me to buy into the idea one MUST work to an external drive. I’m not saying one shouldn’t as external drives are as relavent as they have always been. I am however, based on personal experience, certain beyond any shadow of a doubt, internal SS drives are probably the single most effective solution we’ve ever used.

Are you saying you put your audio and sessions on the SS boot drive? Or on a different internal drive?

Nobody's saying you have to work to an "external" drive, as in "outside the computer." They're saying you should work to a drive other than the boot drive, which presumably also has your DAW app on it. It's just that in the case of a laptop with a single internal drive and no space for another one if you don't ditch your optical drive, "not the boot drive" and "external" are, in effect, the same thing.

[Ty Ford]

Joe, my friend,

Good to see you out here.

Can you please just say what you mean.

Best,

Ty