I'm planning to buy an external drive for my laptop.  I'll use it for project files and periodic backups.  The problem is that there are a lot of different specs and I'm not sure how these work with Sonar.
 
First of all, I did review the resources I could find on the Cakewalk forums, but the ones I encountered were 5 to 10 years old and iu know a lot of the technology has changed since then.  I have a relatively new laptop with Win 10, an i7 (5550) cpu, 12 gb RAM, an upgraded NVidia Geforce GPU, and an a 1Tb internal drive.  Most important for this issue is that it supports USB 3.0 which I know will increase disk throughput.  Here are my issues:

1. This is the computer I use most of the time, and I often work with Sonar away from the studio.  I don't want my drive install to create confusion when I boot SONAR without the drive attached.  Is there any good way to handle this?  For instance, does Sonar support cascading file location assignments?  
2. What specs are most important for this application?  I know there are different file formats (NTFS?) and bus technologies (SATA? RAID? etc?) Are these relevant if I'm connecting via USB?
3. Is there a reliable indication of disk performance?  Does RPM correlate directly to performance?

There are so drives on the market, and the prices are pretty competitive.  I don't want to skimp on something important, but I'm also not using the system for professional work where I'll have the luxury of a return on this investment.  I don't need to archive someone else's data forever and ever, either.
 
Any suggestions?

Hi. If you can within your budget, I would get an USB3 HD or SATA (if available), with 7200 RPM. Other will know more about HD RAM.
But I ran my projects (a few years ago) from an USB external HD, with few problems.
The problems I had was due to my external HD being to slow (5400 rpm green HD).
I have one USB3 HD now, that is used for simple projects between my laptop and studio pc, without any issues.
Hope it helps.
Best of  luck.
 

My question would be what are you planning to put on the disk? Programs, data, samples, ...
 
I use an external usb HD on my laptop strictly for my sample files. Its a USB 3 Western Digital 07A8 My Passport device (now almost 2 years old).
 
To avoid hard disk naming issues I initiated it as drive S: SampleDisk so it never conflicts with any other disk. I only use it when creating music that requires samples external to Sonar Platinum.
 
I'd go for a usb3 device (if your laptop has it). Disk rpm is a factor but I don't think you'll find a 7200 external rpm disk(at least I couldn't when I was looking for one)
 
Fred

Fred Holmes
 
I'd go for a usb3 device (if your laptop has it). Disk rpm is a factor but I don't think you'll find a 7200 external rpm disk(at least I couldn't when I was looking for one)

There are dozens of 7200 rpm external drives available, just not all in a credit card form factor. A search at Newegg.com specifying 7200 rpm in the filter yields 283 hits. But finding out what the drive in the box actually is can require opening the case (voids the warranty) or connecting it and using the properties page to find the model number. The manufacturer's spec sheets tend to treat the actual drive as a mystery. You are much more likely to get a slow drive if you buy small size or a USB powered model, because battery/power saving is the only good reason that 5400 drives are still on the market. The main issue, once you have the drive you want is to make sure it is not a "green" drive or a power saving drive controller if you are doing live recording to it. If it spins down or powers off that can get bumpy. You can take complete control of the situation by buying a well specced drive housing and putting your own full sized (not notebook) drive into it. 
 

I concur with Zargg and Fred, USB 3, 7200 rpm is the way to go. FWIW, I put all the audio on one drive OS and all programs on the other. Having the one head dedicated to reading audio and the other running the program takes a lot of the strain of read /write off of  just trying to make one hdd do it all.

Nope, these guys are in the past.  I use a Samsung Evo 850 SSD with a Nexstar Case-this is connected via USB 3.  I can easily run 50 tracks of audio, with instruments and effects and all low-latency.  I only use it for recording, and video work and transfer files onto other media for storage so it's only 128 gigs and this only cost me 150 bucks.  
 
Honestly using spindle harddrive these days for audio and video will only create headaches.
 
Ben

So solid state is the smart of it's combined with a generic HD. At that point, it seems the HD specs would be a lot less important. Interesting.

Been using Spindle drives to capture Live audio for YEARS.  No issues.  USB 2.0 and old 7200 RPM (some even IDE).
 

If you laptop already has 1TB then I don't see a need for the external other than for back up. 
I just use those $100 1 TB type that are USB3. Toshiba makes good ones.  I have 3 of them, each for differrent back up. One is a 2 TB and has a back up of everything possible on all our computers. Thats the one I grab when the aliens attack. 
I also have a few old school drive enclosers , they cost around $25 but need a power supply. They are back ups of the back ups. I never through hard drives away. I still have my original 5 GB drive from 1999. It still works( I think?) 
 
My laptop has a 256 GB SSD drive and I record our band every gig. I then copy to my External where it will stay forever untouched. Then tha get copied to my main DAW where I edit and mess around. I then delete the folders from the laptop and make fresh ones for the next gig

If you plan on using the drive for more than backup or just want to know the performance characteristics of the drive, consider buying the enclosure and drive separately. If you change the project folder in SONAR preferences and the drive is not available when SONAR starts up, the program will change the preference setting back to the default "C:\Cakewalk Projects" and use the path until you manually change the preference setting.