best harddrive for intense virtual instrument steaming???

[cowtothesky]

Question about external harddrives:

I have a 1.5T OWC harddrive I am using with Time Machine for backups. I'm thinking about getting a 2nd harddrive for VI streaming.
My question is: What all do you store on the harddrive for optimal performance - I know you guys are putting your samples/virtual instruments on there, but are you also putting your sampler or virtual synths, such as Native Instruments Kontakt or Omnisphere, on the external harddrive? Or are you keeping the sampler/synth on your computer harddrive and only using the external for samples?

Also, I assume that you are saving your digital performer songs on the external drive, rather than the internal harddrive?

Thanks!

[James Steele]

Well, all of this depends on what sort of Mac you have. Previously I had a G5, which could only have two internal drives, which I had as a boot drive for apps, etc. and a audio/projects drive. So I really had no choice to use an external drive for my sample library.

I recently bought a used Mac Pro 1,1 which has FOUR drive bays. No need for an exteral drive. I took my external sample library drive out of the enclosure and installed inside the case of my Mac Pro. So I guess what I'm saying is it doesn't need to be external unless you've filled all your internal drive bays.

[cowtothesky]

Thanks James.

I'm using a new i7 imac 27" w/ 1TB internal harddrive - 8GB RAM. This is the latest - just bought it this year. I read somewhere that it isn't really good to store your samples on the same hd that your operating system is on. I also saw a video where it is advised to store all of your songs, sequences on an external rather than an internal hd.

Like I said, I am thinking about buying another external hd, if it improves performance. But, what I don't know about virtual instrument streaming is if you guys are storing your AI's - kontakt, omnisphere, or whatever hosting program on the external drive with your samples, or if it is ok to keep these on my main hd and only put my sample files on the external? (I hope that makes sense).

Probably un-related to this thread, but I couldn't be happier with digital performer. But, I do notice serious issues when I have more than 40 or 50 tracks running, so I guess I need to either upgrade or start mixing down completed sections of a score to a stereo wav and then work on other parts. In other words, finish the first 5 minutes of the score - mix it down to a wav to free up resources, then work on the next 5 minutes. I just finished a 30 minute score, but at the end of the project, I found I couldn't add 1 more track or I got the dreaded 'out of memory' error.