ms449 Posted March 13, 2021 Share Posted March 13, 2021 Just got a new Mac mini. Been searching the various forums for advice and the general consensus is it's good to have the sound library on an external drive. My question: can I have all of my Logic projects (which I always save as Folders) on the same external SSD drive as the sound library? I would be backing everything up with a cloud service like BackBlaze. Thanks for your input! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Nahmani Posted March 14, 2021 Share Posted March 14, 2021 Just got a new Mac mini. Been searching the various forums for advice and the general consensus is it's good to have the sound library on an external drive. Beware of the general consensus. Much of what you read on the internet in lieu of recommendations, is people mindlessly repeating what they've heard others mindlessly repeat before them without concern for individual workflow, context, situation, hardware used or time period. Much of that advice is outdated, doesn't apply to your situation or your hardware, was originally destined to producers with a completely different workflow, is generally misunderstood, and yet is regularly republished as a magic recipe that may in fact produce more harm than good. When looking at such recommendations, look for red flags such as "You should always do X" or "You should never do Y", or "The general consensus", etc, as in "you should never mix with headphones" or "you should always use a separate Logic project file to master your songs". Now back to the topic at hand, are you trying to solve an issue you're having? If you're not then you're better off leaving the Apple Sound Library where it was originally installed, which should be on your system drive. If it ain't broken, don't fix it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ms449 Posted March 14, 2021 Author Share Posted March 14, 2021 You're so right. It's really difficult to wade through the polemics when you don't have a firm grasp on the underlying technology like me. The reason I want to move the sound library is to free up storage on my 251GB hard drive. The sound library and my current Logic projects currently take up 75GB, and I've only had it a month. I didn't realize that OS updates would take up so much room. They already want me to download a 3GB update, and it seems these will add up real quick and before I know it I'll be pushing the unupgradeable internal storage to capacity. I want to set up a system early so that I'm not constantly fearful of filling up the drive- the entire point is to make as much music as possible. I figured if I got a 1TB SSD and used it for the 65GB sound library and my hopefully growing number of Logic projects, I would have plenty of space, not "overwork" the internal drive (somebody said reading and writing to a drive simultaneously wears it out twice as fast-- is that horse collar?), and feel safe with everything backed up by BackBlaze cloud storage. Am I totally wrongheaded here? Your advice is much appreciated! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Nahmani Posted March 15, 2021 Share Posted March 15, 2021 The reason I want to move the sound library is to free up storage on my 251GB hard drive. Well then that's a perfectly valid reason to move your sound library to the external drive. I figured if I got a 1TB SSD and used it for the 65GB sound library and my hopefully growing number of Logic projects, I would have plenty of space, not "overwork" the internal drive (somebody said reading and writing to a drive simultaneously wears it out twice as fast-- is that horse collar?), and feel safe with everything backed up by BackBlaze cloud storage. Sounds like a good plan to me, if for nothing else but the comfort of having ample room to play with. I would even consider having whatever projects you're currently working on on your internal but backing them up on the external at the end of the day, on top of the cloud backup. As for wearing out the drive twice as fast when reading and writing simultaneously that must have been a comment regarding HDD, not SSD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Solution Glenn L. Posted March 15, 2021 Solution Share Posted March 15, 2021 FWIW, I got the new basic Mini, and concluded I needed an external SSD. The Logic Sound library...I seem to remember it being about 35gb, and was a little shocked at the 65-70gbs that actually downloaded. Also, it may say 256 gb storage, in reality it is about 205gb. So, I got an external SSD, 1 gb/in/out/sec, and everything works flawlessly. I have almost 600 gb of content on it now, and very few plugins to get working. My first time using an external SSD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fisherking Posted March 15, 2021 Share Posted March 15, 2021 256gb is not a lot, and makes sense to keep the library on an external... especially as it's a desktop setup. my imac has 512gb; i keep my library & active projects on the internal drive, works fine (same experience previously on endless macbook pros). but a desktop affords you other options. have FUN 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SergeMeister Posted March 15, 2021 Share Posted March 15, 2021 I also offloaded my Logic library and project folder to an external SSD, which is working so far. I use two SSD’s for instrument libraries and Logic projects. They are configured as RAID II for faster data access times (which reduces the available SSD storage capacity by 50%). Before adding the RAID II SSD’s I experienced playback problems on small track count projects. More and more notes would drop out on virtual instrument tracks until playback would stop completely. I suspect that lack of available disk space on my boot volume was the primary cause of “playback rot”, so I have attempted to maintain 30% free drive space on my boot volume. The dropout problem seems to be under control since creating more available boot volume space. I don’t have the luxury of a separate physical computer for other tasks so I have multiple purpose-dedicated accounts on a single boot volume. I realize that the multi-account approach is old school and not ideal. All will change as I am now forced to “update” to Mojave (or newer macOS versions) due to software incompatibilities. Newer file systems may change everything... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ms449 Posted March 16, 2021 Author Share Posted March 16, 2021 Thank you all for your replies! I can move ahead with some confidence now, knowing it has worked for you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barabas86 Posted September 30, 2022 Share Posted September 30, 2022 On 3/15/2021 at 4:13 AM, David Nahmani said: Well then that's a perfectly valid reason to move your sound library to the external drive. Sounds like a good plan to me, if for nothing else but the comfort of having ample room to play with. I would even consider having whatever projects you're currently working on on your internal but backing them up on the external at the end of the day, on top of the cloud backup. As for wearing out the drive twice as fast when reading and writing simultaneously that must have been a comment regarding HDD, not SSD. David - I just purchased an iMac 24-inch M1 with 16GB RAM and 2TB storage. I like what you said about keeping the working Project files on the internal drive and am therefore going to assume that, with the 2TB of internal storage, that shouldn't be an issue. I do, however, intend to load the Logic Pro Library and Sound files to a 2TB OWC solid state external, allowing me to use the additional space on that external as a backup for archiving my project files. Does that make sense to you? Or am I doing an overkill here? Thanks in advance for your input. - John - Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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