Red Robin Posted October 27, 2011 Share Posted October 27, 2011 I run Logic 9.1.5 on OS 10.6.8 on an i5 iMac with built-in SSD 256 GB and 1 TB internal. All my Applications and currently my substantial sample libraries are on the SSD which is fast filling up. Consequently it makes sense to move just the third-party (not Apple/Logic's own) sample libraries to an external drive. I have a 500 GB and also a 250 GB external, both 7200 LaCie FireWire 800 and they can be daisy-chained as they have two ports plus a FireWire 400 port. My iMac doesn't have a eSATA port and only one FireWire 800 port. I'm thinking of using the external 500 GB drive exclusively for Time Machine backup from my internal 1 TB drive only and using the external 250 GB drive exclusively for sample libraries (Omnisphere, etc). Should I connect the 250 GB drive first in line from the iMac? Or does it not matter? And when using my portable 100 GB drive to transport music files to and from home/studio, I can connect that via a FireWire 400 cable to either of the 500 GB and 250 GB external drives - Does it matter which (assuming I can branch off one HD in the chain)? The next question is how to setup Logic to 'see' the new external location of a sample library. Something about using an alias somewhere? Thanks as always Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n6smith Posted October 27, 2011 Share Posted October 27, 2011 Just as a quick response.. I wouldn't waste your FW800 500GB using it as a backup drive. I'd grab a cheap 500GB or 1TB USB2 drive and use that instead, reserving your FW800 drives for any samples as they will benefit from the extra speed the FW800 drives will provide. Order of drives: Always make FW800s first in the chain followed by any FW400 Drives or Devices.. The order of the FW800s doesn't really make much difference I have found so long as they are first in the chain but it does no harm to place the FW800 which will be used most, at the very front of the chain. For Omnisphere.. use an alias as described here: http://www.proaudiosupport.com/a44431/move-omnisphere-steam-folder.html I just had to move my STEAM directory to another drive and so I used this method and it worked flawlessly. Cheers! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Red Robin Posted October 27, 2011 Author Share Posted October 27, 2011 Thanks, Nigel - Great advice as usual Your link doesn't load - Says server not found. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Red Robin Posted October 27, 2011 Author Share Posted October 27, 2011 ^ Thinking about this further, I don't have a spare USB2 port on my iMac - So would it be ok to connect the backup drive via my powered USB hub? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n6smith Posted October 27, 2011 Share Posted October 27, 2011 Yes.. that link's server is going up and down today it seems so.. here is the text from it.. After installation, you can easily move the large STEAM directory containing all the sound files to a secondary drive if you wish to free up space on your original installation drive. MAC OSX - MOVING THE STEAM DIRECTORY AFTER INSTALLATION • Drag or copy the STEAM folder from your installation drive (For Example: Macintosh HD/Library/Application Support/Spectrasonics) to the hard drive location of your choice. This can be another drive partition, a secondary internal drive or an external hard drive such as a Firewire or USB2 hard drive, etc. • Next, hold (Apple key and Option key) on the keyboard, click and drag the STEAM folder to the desktop to create an alias of the folder named STEAM. Make sure the alias name is exactly the same as the original folder's name (No copy of or whatever!). If not, rename the alias. • Next, move the STEAM alias from the desktop to Macintosh HD/Users/Username/Library/Application Support/Spectrasonics As for powered hubs.. Sure. I have one 6 port powered USB2 hub that works great... However, I would also make sure you buy Powered Drives too and not those that rely on the Hub/Port for power anyhow.. Less drain on the system... I picked up several of the Seagate Go Flex 2TB drives from Costco and/or Walmarts for $79-$99 each.. depending if they were on sale or not... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Red Robin Posted October 27, 2011 Author Share Posted October 27, 2011 As for powered hubs.. Sure. I have one 6 port powered USB2 hub that works great... However, I would also make sure you buy Powered Drives too and not those that rely on the Hub/Port for power anyhow.. Less drain on the system... I picked up several of the Seagate Go Flex 2TB drives from Costco and/or Walmarts for $79-$99 each.. depending if they were on sale or not... ....Ah, do I need a USB-2 powered hub rather than the USB-1 pwered hub which I have already? I'm in the UK where gear is probably more expensive but know of Seagate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n6smith Posted October 27, 2011 Share Posted October 27, 2011 Yes, you will need a USB 2 hub for USB 2 devices to operate at full speed otherwise they will be limited to the max USB 1 bandwidth of 12 Mbps or even 1.5Mbps if you have a USB 1 device that operates at the 'slow' speed settings...... compared to the real world speed of USB 2 which is roughly 320Mbps.. Finally, bear in mind, I'm a Brit too who spends time both in the USA and UK so i know exactly what you mean about prices being higher,,. which is why I stock up in the US when possible and if the gear will work ok in the UK.. and ship the stuff back to the UK when practical... or carry it back, pack mule style! I cannot remember the last time I bought anything electrical in the UK... the thought of those higher prices, scares the living devil out of me so you have my sympathies and understanding!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Red Robin Posted December 2, 2011 Author Share Posted December 2, 2011 Currently it's very difficult to find 7200 rpm USB2 1TB external drives due to a supply shortage - Problems in the aftermath of the natural disaster in Japan? However, one solution I've come up with is to buy a good quality internal drive such as a Seagate and then buy a USB2 casing. The iMac doesn't accept another hard drive internally. Then later on when Thunderbolt casings become available, would I be able to move the Seagate into one? I have 2 Thunderbolt ports on my iMac which are begging for some action. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xpander Posted December 2, 2011 Share Posted December 2, 2011 When you say "Apple key" are you referring to the "Command key"? Thanks for the clarification. - xpander Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n6smith Posted December 2, 2011 Share Posted December 2, 2011 Problems in the aftermath of the natural disaster in Japan? Actually those floods in Thailand, are the cause of the short supply (and hence, the rise in price) of HDs recently... However, one solution I've come up with is to buy a good quality internal drive such as a Seagate and then buy a USB2 casing. The iMac doesn't accept another hard drive internally. Then later on when Thunderbolt casings become available, would I be able to move the Seagate into one? I have 2 Thunderbolt ports on my iMac which are begging for some action. Yes, you could do that though I'd personally find an FW800 housing and use that.. and then if you do get a Thunderbolt Hub.. you can continue to use that FW800 housing via the hub... leaving your remaining Thunderbolt ports for something more interesting! Bear in mind, that a standard 7200rpm drive will run about as fast as it can in typical 'real world' usage via FW800.. so switching the drive over to a Thunderbolt connector of some kind.. wouldn't provide you with any extra disk access speed... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n6smith Posted December 2, 2011 Share Posted December 2, 2011 When you say "Apple key" are you referring to the "Command key"? Yes. I guess they are still using the old terminology.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xpander Posted December 5, 2011 Share Posted December 5, 2011 ^ Thanks for the clarification. - xpander Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Red Robin Posted December 5, 2011 Author Share Posted December 5, 2011 However, one solution I've come up with is to buy a good quality internal drive such as a Seagate and then buy a USB2 casing. The iMac doesn't accept another hard drive internally. Then later on when Thunderbolt casings become available, would I be able to move the Seagate into one? I have 2 Thunderbolt ports on my iMac which are begging for some action. Yes, you could do that though I'd personally find an FW800 housing and use that.. and then if you do get a Thunderbolt Hub.. you can continue to use that FW800 housing via the hub... leaving your remaining Thunderbolt ports for something more interesting! Bear in mind, that a standard 7200rpm drive will run about as fast as it can in typical 'real world' usage via FW800.. so switching the drive over to a Thunderbolt connector of some kind.. wouldn't provide you with any extra disk access speed... ....I hadn't realised that using Thunderbolt to connect wouldn't provide faster access than FW800 - Is that really so? - The marketing of Thunderbolt seems to suggest otherwise to me. So, I'm now after a Seagate 7200 drive and a FW800 housing and then I can use it to backup my iMac via TimeMachine and use my existing LaCie 7200 500GB FW800 for all my music library samples. The LaCie 500GB isn't really big enough for backing up as my iMac fills up. Whereas a USB2 housing would be quite sufficient for backing up it's not as future flexible as a FW800 housing. I can't imagine what I would use Thunderbolt for in that case... A Thunderbolt hub with MIDI ports? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n6smith Posted December 5, 2011 Share Posted December 5, 2011 I think I should clarify my comments about disk access speed between Thunderbolt and FW800.. In theory the Thunderbolt interface would provide for faster access speeds to a 7200 rpm drive but.. in real world usage, from what I have read and noted in several tests done, the read/write access speeds when using a FW800 interface compared to a Thunderbolt interface are pretty much the same. Maybe the Thunderbolt as a very small advantage in certain situations but for all practical purposes a 7200 rpm drive will be running 'flat out' with both interfaces. The real advantage of Thunderbolt is it's total throughput bandwidth available.... so you could run say 8 x 7200rpm drives, all at the same time and all 'flat out' without any noticeable slowdown compared to FW800 which would probably run out of bandwidth if you tried that but again, in real life usage... how often are you going to want to run and access 8 drives all at the same time? The thing about Thunderbolt is that you can attach other devices such as external graphic cards that require huge amounts of bandwidth and the Thunderbolt can happily accommodate them whereas a FW800 could not due to it's bandwidth limitations.. Hope that makes sense? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fader8 Posted December 5, 2011 Share Posted December 5, 2011 The thing about Thunderbolt is that you can attach other devices such as external graphic cards that require huge amounts of bandwidth and the Thunderbolt can happily accommodate them whereas a FW800 could not due to it's bandwidth limitations.. And theoretically, you should be able to connect more hard drives to T-bolt and have them run heavy loads simultaneously. I've yet to see any real world numbers on that though. I'm curious as to its actual limitations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Red Robin Posted December 5, 2011 Author Share Posted December 5, 2011 ^^^^ Thanks, guys I've come across a Western Digital 5400-7200 (variable automatically) Caviar Green series (I prefer eating caviar when it's black!) WD10EARS, or would a Seagate 7200 Barracuda series be 'better'? I plan to pop either in an InXtron SK-3500 Super-S3 enclosure: http://www.inxtron.com/desktop-hard-drive-enclosures/sk-3500-super-s3 ^ 'InXtron' sounds like a gun which The Mekon (an alien) would use... 'SK-3500' sounds like a Mercedes... and 'Super-S3' like a RS3 Audi - I'll have one of each please. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n6smith Posted December 5, 2011 Share Posted December 5, 2011 And theoretically, you should be able to connect more hard drives to T-bolt and have them run heavy loads simultaneously. I've yet to see any real world numbers on that though. I'm curious as to its actual limitations. Indeed as I said using the 8 x 7200rpm drive example in my earlier post... but again, I haven't seen any real world usage tests that demonstrate just how effective the Thunderbolt would be in such circumstances either.... In theory though.. it should be well capable of doing so..... but in reality, who knows! I'm sure that over the coming months.. as more devices, hubs and so on.. become available.. this question, along with several others regarding the real life usage of a Thunderbolt port, will be properly explained and demo'ed... but for now, I'm not finding anyone reputable, who has done such tests... and therefore what I've found online so far, is basically a lot of guess work based on theoretical limits. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n6smith Posted December 5, 2011 Share Posted December 5, 2011 Red.. Be real careful/wary of "Green' Drives.... Some of them have a nasty habit of shutting themselves off automatically (to save energy) and this can cause all kinds of issues concerning 'going to sleep', spin up time and other related problems... Do a quick google of 'Green drive issues' and you will see what I mean... especially with certain WD green drives......... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n6smith Posted December 5, 2011 Share Posted December 5, 2011 Oh.. btw.. I have used 750 GB Barracudas here a couple of years ago.. (Before I switched over to Glyph enclosures) and they worked just fine... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Red Robin Posted December 5, 2011 Author Share Posted December 5, 2011 Red.. Be real careful/wary of "Green' Drives.... Some of them have a nasty habit of shutting themselves off automatically (to save energy) and this can cause all kinds of issues concerning 'going to sleep', spin up time and other related problems... Do a quick google of 'Green drive issues' and you will see what I mean... especially with certain WD green drives......... ....I'm not at all surprised to hear that - It's kind of why I asked, as I suspected that it might be the case. Rather like a car engine deciding to switch itself off at traffic lights, or cruise control - No thankyou!! I'm red not green. Re your second post, Nigel, I'll check out if Glyph enclosures are available here in the UK. I now remember you've recommended them before. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n6smith Posted December 5, 2011 Share Posted December 5, 2011 Just as an additional... Glyphs have Seagate drives inside.... However, Glyphs are expensive relatively speaking but there are some benefits to them... Glyph test each system out prior to shipping to make sure the drives are working 100%.. They also warranty your drives for three years including one free year of full data recovery and two years of basic data recovery (See their site for further details) and so far, for me at least, they have been rock solid over the last 3 years. However, ALL drives will eventually fail.. and some sooner than others. I had just one Glyph unfortunately fail after only 6 months.. Sent the drive off to Glyph and 5 days later I had a brand new drive with all my data restored for free. That drive (along with all my others) is now 'humming away' nicely and has done so for the last 2 years without further issue. Is it worth paying the extra premium for Glyph drives and the warranty? Depends on your viewpoint and how valuable your data is. For me, that one incident sold me on Glyphs from now on... For others, maybe that wouldn't be as important... so buying a Barracuda plus a FW 800 enclosure, might be the cheaper and for them, better route to take especially if one is considering changing out the enclosure for a TBolt later on down the road... Just a few thoughts I wanted to share.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Red Robin Posted December 5, 2011 Author Share Posted December 5, 2011 ^^^^ While you were writing and posting your "additional", Nigel, I was finding out that Glyph's UK supplier is none other than Absolute Music Solutions who I know very well and whose judgement I trust. They told me that for my home studio use, Glyph might be overkill (although they could sell me one). They advised that my LaCie d2 Quadra FW800 7200 would be absolutely fine for sample libraries and that if I wanted another external drive then a Seagate internal inside a FW800 enclosure would be the more economical route. Horses for course, and so everything is pointing towards a Seagate Barracuda plus FW800 enclosure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
n6smith Posted December 5, 2011 Share Posted December 5, 2011 Horses for course, and so everything is pointing towards a Seagate Barracuda plus FW800 enclosure. Yes, I'd agree.. and that, for you.. is probably the best route to take imho.... Cheers.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
holywilly Posted December 5, 2011 Share Posted December 5, 2011 is anyone here setting up the RAID 0 for streaming via FW800? I'm in the market of getting new FW800 HDD enclosure and I'd like to know the benefit of setting up RAID 0 or JBOD. Or... I should just go for Promise Pegasus R4/R6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rev. Juda Sleaze Posted December 5, 2011 Share Posted December 5, 2011 is anyone here setting up the RAID 0 for streaming via FW800?I'm in the market of getting new FW800 HDD enclosure and I'd like to know the benefit of setting up RAID 0 or JBOD. Or... I should just go for Promise Pegasus R4/R6 This help? http://www.logicprohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=74127&highlight=raid Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
holywilly Posted December 6, 2011 Share Posted December 6, 2011 is anyone here setting up the RAID 0 for streaming via FW800?I'm in the market of getting new FW800 HDD enclosure and I'd like to know the benefit of setting up RAID 0 or JBOD. Or... I should just go for Promise Pegasus R4/R6 This help? http://www.logicprohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=74127&highlight=raid Thanks! This one helps! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rev. Juda Sleaze Posted December 6, 2011 Share Posted December 6, 2011 Thanks! This one helps! Cool Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
holywilly Posted December 6, 2011 Share Posted December 6, 2011 Thunderbolt HD for steaming and FW800 HD for back up, sounds like a perfect solution to me Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Red Robin Posted December 6, 2011 Author Share Posted December 6, 2011 Thunderbolt HD for steaming and FW800 HD for back up, sounds like a perfect solution to me ....Streaming Steam folders as in Spectrasonics. But will a 7200 drive be sufficient? Yep, though are Thunderbolt enclosures available yet? - http://www.thunderbolt-hard-drive.com/lightpeak/drive-case.html Sonnet info: http://www.sonnettech.com/product/thunderbolt/index.html Apple Discussions: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3145024?start=0&tstart=0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ForWinterfell Posted May 4, 2012 Share Posted May 4, 2012 Hello everyone. I, too, am about to run into a storage limit with my sound libraries, like Red Robin back in August 2011. Since then, Promise released its Pegasus into the wild and LaCie launched its 2big external HD. Both have Thunderbolt... both are blazing fast (theoretically). That said, which would you recommend for sample library expansion? Here are my computer specs: 2011 27" iMac - i7 processor - 16 GB RAM - 1 256 GB SSD - 1 2 TB HD - Logic Pro 9.0.0 - ...and 2 Thunderbolt ports. All of my applications are installed on the SSD and my samples are stored on my 2 TB HD (connected internally to my SSD via SATA). All has been working great, so from the research I've done, going Thunderbolt for an external HD seems like a given, however I'm torn between the Pegasus and the 2big. Whichever I go with, it'll be the 6 TB size. So my final question: WHICH OF THESE TWO - THE PROMISE PEGASUS OR THE LACIE 2BIG - WOULD WORK BEST WITH LOGIC PRO 9 AND LARGE SAMPLE SIZES? Thanks a bunch for your input! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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