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Why is it better to use an external hard drive?


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I've been working with Garageband for awhile now and will be purchasing Logic soon. I own a macbook pro.

 

I read somewhere that an external hardrive is a necessity. Just some quick questions, why isn't it advisable to install all 50gigs of the software on a single hardrive? And why is it better to record to an external hardrive? I have an external USB 2.0 7200rpm Hardrive, if external is necessary.

 

Can you guys give me a mental picture of how installation and working in the Logic environment should be?

 

Thanks alot, I appreciate it.

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Hello Startover, and welcome to our community! There's a bit of confusion in your questions - looks like you may have gotten false advice:

 

an external hardrive is a necessity

Nonsense. Only what's listed on Apple's "Minimum Requirements" is a necessity.

 

why isn't it advisable to install all 50gigs of the software on a single hardrive?

It is. The recommended way to install Logic is to let the Logic installer do its thing as the developers intended it - that means installing all 50 gigs of the software on a single hard drive, your system drive.

 

And why is it better to record to an external hardrive?

It's not. Most external drives are slower than internal drives. It is, however, recommended to record audio onto a secondary drive: any drive other than your system drive. Ideally, that would be a second internal drive. The reason is that this distributes the tasks of using the drive for virtual memory (OS X task, using the system drive) and reading/writing audio (Logic tasks, using the secondary drive) onto two different drives.

 

I have an external USB 2.0 7200rpm Hardrive, if external is necessary.

USB is not recommended for audio work. You'll get better results by using a single drive for OS X and Logic and your projects, than by using an external USB 2.0 drive.

 

Can you guys give me a mental picture of how installation and working in the Logic environment should be?

Keep it simple. Let the installer do its thing, meaning install everything on your system drive. If you can, and if you feel you need it, get yourself a second internal SATA drive to save your Logic projects to.

 

What Mac are you using anyway? Please add your Logic version and system info to your signature: Read Me Before Posting - Forum Guidelines (#5)

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I'm using the latest 13' Macbook Pro so internal Sata drive is out of the question. I have the 250gb internal hardrive.

 

So, what you are saying is everything can be worked off of that hardrive?

 

 

Thanks.

 

Here is a suggestion.

 

Use the Disk utility program and set aside a section of your internal hard drive for your Audio. Set your audio recording path to that partition.

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Use the Disk utility program and set aside a section of your internal hard drive for your Audio. Set your audio recording path to that partition.

By doing that you put even more strain on the drive, as you force it to constantly jump back and forth physically between the partitions. Is that the smart thing to do ?

 

Christian

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I agree, keep it simple means don't partition, put everything on the internal and work like that. If you're getting "disk too slow" errors, then consider outfitting your macbook pro with an eSATA card, and get yourself an eSATA drive. But depending on what kind of work you're doing, you may never need it.
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I agree, keep it simple means don't partition, put everything on the internal and work like that. If you're getting "disk too slow" errors, then consider outfitting your macbook pro with an eSATA card, and get yourself an eSATA drive. But depending on what kind of work you're doing, you may never need it.

 

They have stripped the pc card slot from all MacBook Pros except the 17". :?

But there is a nice solution here:

 

http://www.mcetech.com/optibay/

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Use the Disk utility program and set aside a section of your internal hard drive for your Audio. Set your audio recording path to that partition.

By doing that you put even more strain on the drive, as you force it to constantly jump back and forth physically between the partitions. Is that the smart thing to do ?

 

Christian

 

I will have to let you know.

 

I don't know where it is jumping to on one big drive to find the audio files. I would imagine they are scattered all over the place. Just like when you freeze things.

 

 

With the partition they are in one section - and the project is moved to an external after I am through with it.

 

I am not sure of what the trade off is.

 

A second internal is a nice option, I don't happen to have that option.

 

I am using a small white macbook with 2G RAM. I gave 20GB for my audio. In fact, I like to convert the midi files to Audio as soon as I am happy with it. Most of the audio with FX get converted to a new audio file too.

 

I have had over 100 audio tracks running, low CPU usage. I don't need anywhere near that many tracks for any one project.

 

It seems to be working better this way... seems to be.

 

I expect I will be getting a letter in the mail any day now. It will be from the International Federation of Hard drives asking me to stop working my drive so hard or there will be trouble.

 

This comp has a 4G Ram limit and I will be needing a newer comp soon anyway. Everything is safe on the External so failure means replacement with a larger, newer drive - or a totally new comp.

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Installing the program to the same disk isnt an option, it´s a necessity.

The reason for recording to another disk is because it´s less stressful for the

the program disk to only have to cope with one mission at a time so to speak.

Otherwise it has to work on two spaces at the same time, or make it appear as it´s

doing this. The overall result will be sluggish when it has to do a lot of computation in the same "realtime"

 

Installing pretty much handles itself.

Working with the program is, to my mind, really easy when you´ve gotten through

the basics. The basics of Logic can be a punishment to get around, but once done

you´ll have a very transparent program which you can work along the lines you want it to. I think the way people work with Logic is extremely different from person to person.

 

cheers,

x

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They have stripped the pc card slot from all MacBook Pros except the 17". :?

But there is a nice solution here:

 

http://www.mcetech.com/optibay/

 

Hey Eric,

thanks for posting this. Very cool! Its a great option for those of us whom are looking for more functionality from our laptops.

 

Right now there including a free enclosure for the superdrive. I'm considering getting it.

 

EDIT:

This is a very useful thread by the way.

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