Moving audio programs and libraries to an external drive safe?

[Charlie-O]

Originally Posted by rids

I have a 500GB 5400rpm hard drive in my Macbook Pro (2.93ghz w/ 8gb Ram) and have only about 215GB free right now. I've loaded some big sample libraries on there since I know I will be using them often. What I'm wondering is if it's ok to move the sample libraries (and anything else that might be taking up a lot of space on my hard drive) to an external hard drive. Do you think this is safe to do?

(I know I can put another drive in the optical bay, but I would like to disregard that idea for now)

I have all of my sample libraries moved to a second drive. Using aliases this works fine.

[rids]

Originally Posted by Charlie-O

I have all of my sample libraries moved to a second drive. Using aliases this works fine.

Do you have find that the sample loading is slower by loading from a 2nd drive? Not sure if your 2nd is an external or not.

[eplust]

loading your samples onto an external drive is a necessary operation if you plan on running labor intensive sessions. just be sure the drive is as fast as you can afford.

[rids]

I've heard that it's good to load samples on your main hard drive and just record and save projects to a seperate 2nd drive.

[eplust]

Originally Posted by rids

I've heard that it's good to load samples on your main hard drive and just record and save projects to a seperate 2nd drive.

personally, i find it to be just the reverse. if it's hard drive space you're worried about, sample libraries are gonna eat up most of that. again, just make sure your hard drive is fast enough and you won't run into any issues. only issue I have from time to time is during inactivity my hard drive will go to sleep, and it'll take a few seconds to boot back up.

[rids]

Do most people keep their applications/programs on the main drive and then save their samples and projects to a 2nd drive?

I've always been doing the 'whatever' thing and throw them on main drive, but I think it's time I tidy things up and make things more efficient.

[Ned Tugent]

Originally Posted by rids

Do most people keep their applications/programs on the main drive and then save their samples and projects to a 2nd drive?

I've always been doing the 'whatever' thing and throw them on main drive, but I think it's time I tidy things up and make things more efficient.

Yes, this is what I would recommend. As an example, moving Kontakt libraries is fairly straighforward. But NI does say that it's best to only move the libraries and not the apps themselves. I have a 180GB SSD and a 750GB HDD and have Komplete 8 loaded to the SSD but the libraries on the mechanical drive. It's a good compromise IMO.

[gdoubleyou]

Keep your apps in the Applications folder, otherwise you can create problems for updates that are looking in a specific location.