Projects on the System drive? I'm confused

[Gravity Jim]

I read something on this forum somewhere to the effect that it's no longer wise or necessary to store projects on a separate drive, and that it actually runs better if the project is on the System drive. I just saw another post on the subject, indicating that a VocAlign project would run okay from the System drive, but would crash when on an external drive.

So, give me the skinny, please. Should I be running projects from the system drive? Would this clear up my mysterious and seemingly unfixable 'random crashing for no good reason' bug?

And if this is true, why do we no longer need a Projects drive?

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I read something on this forum somewhere to the effect that it's no longer wise or necessary to store projects on a separate drive, and that it actually runs better if the project is on the System drive. I just saw another post on the subject, indicating that a VocAlign project would run okay from the System drive, but would crash when on an external drive.

So, give me the skinny, please. Should I be running projects from the system drive? Would this clear up my mysterious and seemingly unfixable 'random crashing for no good reason' bug?

And if this is true, why do we no longer need a Projects drive?

If you're running smallish projects I suppose that's ok. If you're playing with the big boys and your projects are counted in the hundreds of GB, it's just plain stupid to try and put them the system (AKA BOOT) drive. That's not my opinion. That's a fact. If someone wants to make a technical argument (and I'm sure someone will) that it's better to store projects on the system drive, go for it. But it is dumb from that basic standpoint. My system drive is 1TB and pretty full. I can put a 2TB drive in and add a few projects, but I could NOT put all my projects on my system drive. They simply will not fit.

That said, I have been running projects off external spinners for years without issue. I'm not going to get into the weeds and highly technical "this machine v. that machine, and this chip v. that chip." It's a waste of my time. It's a simple math problem. I also prefer that my system drive be immune to lots of changes and projects get changed a lot.

So you decide. You can follow the "theoretical" reasons postulated about where to put project files, or you can follow the logical aspect of that. Choose wisely.

[bayswater]

I always have working projects on the internal SSD, but move them to an external when they're done, or won't be worked for a while, if only to save space. I think this has been a standard practice for quite a while.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I always have working projects on the internal SSD, but move them to an external when they're done, or won't be worked for a while, if only to save space. I think this has been a standard practice for quite a while.

Standard for who? I had the Library of Congress send me a file a few months ago to score. 300GB. That is NOT going on my boot drive. lol

MOTU (according to reliable sources) has stated that ANY drive is fine as DP handles that sort of thing well. But heck, if it makes a user happy to use their boot drive, go for it. My current project drive consumes 2.7TB of data. My boot drive is 1TB. Do the math.

And while we're on the subject, I also recommend moving your iTunes and Photos library to external drives (spinners or SSD). When I'm doing video editing, I use a separate external with the DP projects on that individual drive.

As Apple and Atari used to state, think of your drives as filing cabinets.Right now I have about a dozen filing cabinets connected to my Mac. Never a problem accessing data because it's on an external. Frankly, I don't see a single reason to put projects on a boot drive. It makes absolutely no sense, regardless of the theories posited.

[bayswater]

Yes, I moved libraries off the internal drives too. Music, picture, movies, etc, but not because they shouldn't be on the internal drive, but because of space limitations.

For basic music projects in DP and Logic, barring space requirements, there is no need to have a dedicated project drive rather than using the system drive. The limitation you have for very large projects is a space limitation, not a technical limitation of internal drives. You could do it all on one huge system SSD drive if that wasn't financially impractical.

I think Mike H went through all of this a few weeks ago.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Well, there's also the "insurance" aspect. If my project drive goes out, all I have to do is restore that. But if my system drive goes south or the machine bites the dust, so does my project drive. I've had that happen. I have backup machines or I could go to another studio with the project drive and as long as my plugs match the destination drive, I'm good.

Here's the real deal for some of us. We simply cannot have a project get lost because the system went south. My clients are extremely demanding. Delays due to computer problems are simply not an option. If i was doing music for a social event or recording stuff that isn't mission critical, I wouldn't be so adamant about this. When I'm part of a project that is costing my client millions in distribution, advertising, announced broadcast dates, etc., I quite simply need to be able to deliver on time or start looking for a good freeway exit to hold up my sign. It comes down to professionalism for me.

[HCMarkus]

I think the recommendation to put projects on your internal boot drive, coming from a respected source, is largely aimed at folks with Mac with internal PCIe storage, which is considerably faster than external storage in most cases. It can save load and save time when you use your fastest drive.

As for me, I'm happily running projects from a SATA SSD internal, having experimented with running them from my PCIe boot SSD and noted nominal load/save time differences and no difference in audio performance. I might see a bigger difference if my VI data was on PCIe SSD, but there's just too much of that data to deal with for me at this point.

Mike H. may chime in with some additional detail, but that's my take on the matter.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I wish I hd the ability to have internal drives on my trash can, but no, that ain't an option. Booooo!

[Gravity Jim]

Thanks for the replies. MLC, I'm reading you to say that running large projects from a separate drive is A-OK? Still standard practice?

It makes sense to me, but I just wanted to make sure that the truth is wasn't counterintuitive....

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Thanks for the replies. MLC, I'm reading you to say that running large projects from a separate drive is A-OK? Still standard practice?

It makes sense to me, but I just wanted to make sure that the truth is wasn't counterintuitive....

I'm told that is also what MOTU suggests. I've been doing it like that for decades w/o a single problem in that regard. Also, if you think about it, the VIs (for example) are always accessing data, so those on the system drive make sense. Not as much of a bottleneck. Project data, OTOH, gets loaded into DP so there's no liability in terms of an external HD slowing access. Again, project files change a lot. VIs don't. So Projects on the external. VIs on the internal (AKA - boot drive).

And for a bonus answer, if your machine has internal slots for HDs, the idea of HD access time is reduced. If you're running TB or USB3 then you also don't need to fret (unless you're a guitarist) over HD access time.

[Michael Canavan]

I think like MLC suggests it's down to logic. I have my projects on an external SSD, sample libraries over a few SSDs internal and external. Reason is simple, backing up the system drive and the external project drive are what's important. Sample libraries are easily downloaded and reinstalled, your songs are not.

In terms of what is good for the recording and composing of the song itself, with SSDs we're past worrying about it.

[Gravity Jim]

Well, like I say, I read something on this board recently that indicated the counterintuitive method was actually the cool guy setup.

Glad to know there's no real alarm.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Well, like I say, I read something on this board recently that indicated the counterintuitive method was actually the cool guy setup.

Glad to know there's no real alarm.

Define: cool guy. lol

Perhaps there are some highly technical situations where the contrary advice is perfectly valid. I don't pretend to know all, or even most, of the answers. I do pretend to be working every day in DP the way I described and it has yet to bite me in the end.

[HCMarkus]

Well, like I say, I read something on this board recently that indicated the counterintuitive method was actually the cool guy setup.

Glad to know there's no real alarm.

Define: cool guy.

MLC.

[nk_e]

Since forever I followed the “established” approach of keeping a separate projects HD as an internal drive on my macpro 5,1. When I upgraded to a new iMac Pro, that was no longer possible. Based on some of the discussion and advice in other threads, I created a small volume on my internal drive for “active projects” only.

On the pro side, it’s nice to have TM backups of the active projects available. (I use time machine only on my internal. I use other backup methods for my remaining drives.)

On the con side, so far I haven’t noticed any big benefits in performance and I wonder if there is an uptick in file activity (lots of dialogue edits, cuts, and such) that is not good for my internal over the long run.

FWIW