Looking for a bit of advice from anyone that knows about DAW installation and Hard Drives.
At the moment I have a laptop with 256gb SSD.
I’m doing full wipe of the computer - so complete wipe and upgrade to Win8.
I’ll be installing
[ul]
[li]Ableton Live Suite (1gb Software 54gb libraries)[/li]
[li]NI Maschine (15gb)[/li]
[li]Komplete 9 (120gb)[/li]
[/ul]
So, obviously the current SSD isn’t big enough for all that.
Currently I have all sample libraries on an external USB3 Drive but it has to sit alongside laptop when music making so it’s a pain when wanting to sit with computer on lap and means I have to take it everywhere.
I’ve read that you are best to install Applications onto main drive and should install Libraries/Samples onto another to increase performance. Is this true with SSD’s too?
What I’m thinking is either…
[ul]
[li]Get a 512GB SSD upgrade (£200) and install everything on there so no need to carry around any external equipment. And I can put the old 256gb drive into an enclosure and use it for storage elsewhere.[/li]
[li]Or use current 256GB SSD and grab a 256GB USB Flash Drive that can plug straight into laptop so doesnt dangle beside it. Put Applications and VST’s on Main drive and all libraries on USB. The drawback is that I’d have to take this around with laptop too.[/li]
[li]Another option is a little USB SSD Drive as these are like a thick credit card and could velcro onto the back of laptop screen. These are not made by any of the big respected brands so may be risky in terms of drive failure.[/li]
[/ul]
Anyone know if the bigger drive option would be better/worse than externals?
I would never say it is best to install sample libraries on anything other than your main drive. Even via USB3 on a SSD you are bringing into play a bottleneck when accessing/loading those libraries. Personally, I think option 1 is your best bet. I keep everything on the one drive myself and back up the projects in case of failure to Dropbox. I can always reinstall the libraries and what not but obviously I want to protect those projects and the settings within.
You might be surprised but SSD drives arent immune to failure. There are many who believe that SSDs have a similar failure rate to HDDs - just due to different reasons.
One thing I’d ask is - do you need all of these libraries? I only ask as I went and installed EVERYTHING in the belief I’d use it. I only use a fraction of them, particularly when it comes to the Live libraries. Perhaps think about being selective. You can always add to this later.
Mmmm, well, if Ableton recommend it then who am I to say their wrong! It’s been a while since I last looked into all of this so maybe drives have moved on sufficiently that it would optimise things for you to split things.
I am using Komplete/Live libraries on my laptop and I don’t ever suffer unbearable load times. Loading is fine unless I kick off a set without giving Live the time to buffer the libraries (or whatever it does to prep things behind the scenes).
Maybe you could look into a solitary drive installation (it is easier after all!) and with the money saved up your RAM to 8/16gb? That would surely compensate.
