Where should I store Mach 5 sample library?

Larry_81 · Post by **Larry_81** » Mon Aug 20, 2007 9:28 pm

Hello,

I have just brought M5 home with me (!) and want to know the optimum place to store its sample library.

My system:

*'Macbook', 160gb 7200rpm internal drive, System & Applications only

*'External' FW 320gb 7200rpm, Audio recording/DP Projects only

*'Spare External' FW 80gb 7200rpm, empty

In terms of keeping things together, I can see the logic in putting the M5 library on the 'External' drive.

My question is when I stream samples off it, won't that compromise the audio playback performance of DP5 seeing as all audio will be read off the same drive?

On the other hand, if I put the M5 library on the 'Spare External' drive, (easing the strain on the main 'External' drive) will the extra throughput of yet another FW device through the chain clog things up so as to offset any benefits of a dedicated M5 sample library drive?

Which is the lesser of the two evils?

Apologies if that's all confusing...any wisdom here would be much appreciated!

Cheers

Shooshie · Post by **Shooshie** » Tue Aug 21, 2007 12:07 am

You need a 10,000 rpm, Firewire 800 external drive. That would be your best bet. That would give you a lot of room to work in MachFive2.

Shooshie

Larry_81 · Post by **Larry_81** » Tue Aug 21, 2007 12:48 am

Shooshie wrote:You need a 10,000 rpm, Firewire 800 external drive. That would be your best bet. That would give you a lot of room to work in MachFive2.

Shooshie

Well yes, I agree that 10,000 rpm drives are the way to go for audio recording and/or sample streaming but that isn't an option for me at the moment.

I just would like to know the best setup that I could achieve with the gear I have...thanks anyway Shooshie.

Anyone else have a thought on this?

Shooshie · Post by **Shooshie** » Tue Aug 21, 2007 1:16 am

Would you consider swapping your external drives, putting DP projects on the 80 GB, and MachFive2 on the 320 GB? I think you might collect more than 80 GB of sounds pretty quickly, and most DP projects don't exceed 10 GB or so.

Shooshie

Larry_81 · Post by **Larry_81** » Tue Aug 21, 2007 6:38 am

Shooshie wrote:Would you consider swapping your external drives, putting DP projects on the 80 GB, and MachFive2 on the 320 GB? I think you might collect more than 80 GB of sounds pretty quickly, and most DP projects don't exceed 10 GB or so.

Shooshie

Hmmm..good point. I'll think about that actually....

Larry_81 · Post by **Larry_81** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 5:34 am

I just picked up my copy of M5 and reading the manual, I see they suggest placing samples on a *dedicated* drive for optimum performance.

In fact, MOTU state that placing the samples on the same drive as DAW audio is asking alot of that drive (or words to that effect).

Sounds completely logical to me so I'll be picking up a new external drive tomorrow!

Larry_81 · Post by **Larry_81** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 6:29 am

One question regarding this new purchase...

I will be buying a separate Firewire enclosure (Oxford chipset) and putting my own drive in, but shall I spend a few dollars more and buy a FW800/400 enclosure (even though I only have a Macbook now which only suports FW400) in the event that one day I will have a Mac that supports FW800?

Shooshie · Post by **Shooshie** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 6:56 am

If you don't have Firewire 800 in your current computer, you probably shouldn't make that your major concern when looking for an enclosure. Your next drives in future computers might be SATA or memory-based. Firewire may not be the format of choice in the future.

Shooshie

magicd · Post by **magicd** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 6:56 am

I run a first generation MacBook Pro. I use the stock 5400 internal drive for audio playback. I have no trouble playing back 48 tracks of 44.1khz audio with plenty of effects.

I have some parts of my MachFive 2 library on the internal drive also. This is because I don't always carry my other external drives around abut I want access to some basic sounds all the time.

I am currently working on a project that includes 24 tracks of audio playback, and streaming of a 145mb drumset and 500mb piano - all from the stock internal drive.

The majority of my sample library, including the MachFive DVDs, are stored on a 7200 Firewire 800 drive.

I do it this way because projects with their audio files come and go on my computer, but my sample library just keeps getting bigger.

A USB 2.0 drive also works fine for both audio and sample streaming.

Magic Dave

Larry_81 · Post by **Larry_81** » Thu Aug 23, 2007 7:27 pm

Shooshie that's a good point re: future formats....thanks

magicd that's encouraging to hear.

From what I read on forums (all over, not just here) is that audio on the system drive is a major no-no. I have this fear that using the internal drive on my laptop for audio will result in crashes, sluggish performance and generally scramble it.

Hearing what you say (and I have a 7200 internal, not a 5400) then perhaps I should put my DP projects from the external FW drive onto my internal Macbook drive, and then load the M5 sample library on the external. I gather that hard disk streaming samples is more disk intensive than playing back recorded audio...correct?

magicd · Post by **magicd** » Fri Aug 24, 2007 6:15 am

Oronsai wrote: From what I read on forums (all over, not just here) is that audio on the system drive is a major no-no. I have this fear that using the internal drive on my laptop for audio will result in crashes, sluggish performance and generally scramble it.

Hearing what you say (and I have a 7200 internal, not a 5400) then perhaps I should put my DP projects from the external FW drive onto my internal Macbook drive, and then load the M5 sample library on the external. I gather that hard disk streaming samples is more disk intensive than playing back recorded audio...correct?

I've been recording to the stock internal drives of Mac laptops since G3 processors. Way back then (before Firewire audio interfaces) I used a Magma PCI expansion chassis and a 2408 and was (just!) able to record 24 simultaneous tracks. I've been recording to the stock internal drive of every laptop I've had since.
My last Powerbook (G4) running OSX took about a year of use before I saw any performance problems. I got TechToolPro and defragmented the internal drive and that restored efficiency back to original performance.

I do use external Firewire drives for temporary backup. I've recorded to external drives with no problem, but external drives present two complications for me.
I have to carry them around and if I want to check a project that's on one of those drives, I have to plug it all in. I am one of those people that edits audio while waiting in an airport.
The other complication is if I want to do multichannel recording at high resolution. If the Firewire bus is shared by the interface and the recording drive, and that doubles the amount of information going over the bus.

To me, the main limitation of the internal drive is space. You really want to keep a good amount of free space on a drive. If I see my drive dropping to less than 10gb free space, I start backing up and cleaning up.

You can play audio and stream samples from the same drive. You could play a movie from that drive at the same time. However, every piece of the system has limits, and playing audio, video, and sample streaming from the same drive is obviously going to tax a hard drive and limit the movie resolution, number of tracks being played, and number of samples being streamed.

I can't tell you with authority whether it's better to have multi-track audio on the internal or external drive, while putting your sample library on the "other" drive. I make that choice based on the practicality of not wanting a vast sample library on the internal drive of my laptop.
Now if I was running a desktop Mac with a very large internal drive, I might be tempted to use that drive for my sample library. Actually, I think if I ran a desktop computer, I'd still use a second drive dedicated for the sample library, and I may still go with a Firewire drive, just so the library itself could be portable.

I mentioned in an earlier thread that I keep a partial library of MachFive sounds on my internal drive.

Lastly, I encourage anyone to experiment by playing audio and streaming samples from different available drives, and comparing results. Get to know your system!

Dave

artfarm1 · Post by **artfarm1** » Fri Aug 24, 2007 2:58 pm

I put my sample library on another internal disk, a Seagate 7200 rpm disk.

Mach 2 works great, and that's on my good old Dual MDD G4 system. Like the new MacPro, I can have 4 disk drives in this 'old' baby.

No problems!