Hi
first, my question is "not" about a recommendation but simply about the structure of the laptops used for recording.
When you use a laptop to record audio is the audio recorded on:
1.external hard drive   2. same os drive in laptop or a second hd installed in the laptop. Best option is: ?
 
Hope that makes sense
 
Thanks
Frank

 
I'm pretty sure you will get a bunch of different answers for your question and I hope I learn something new from what somebody else has to say  … 
 
In my situation , w my lap top here's what I do ….
option # 1 , I use an external HD that spins at 7200 …
the only minor draw back I have to that option is my lap top only has a few USB ports and I like to hook up my 2i4 to it's own USB port …once I add a midi keyboard I end up having to put that on a hub…
 
When I'm working up something from the ground up from scratch I'm perfectly OK starting out using my internal HD for starting up my projects and experimenting around  .
My lap tops internal HD spins at 5400 and I use it for convenience primarily  ….
This HD was setup with a partition for the OS + programs and a partition for Data from the laptops manufacturer ..
once something I'm working on takes shape I will save it to the Data partition only because I don't want it to eat up the space on the OS partition …
I may also decide to send it over to the external HD so I also have a copy of my parent project while it is still very young …
In this phase , I'm pretty much talking about song ideas that aren't hitting my CPU all that hard to begin with …
While  my scratch projects  are still in Limbo , they stay where I can get to them fast and easy with out having to hook up and route a bunch of external gear and HD's …
The reason for this approach is I like to be able to take my lap top out of it's cary bag in a moments notice a get busy as fast as I can once an idea hits me …
 
On true proper projects that are more developed and when I know that I will be working on a specific song or Idea 
with the intention of putting my best foot forward .
I will run an external HD for streaming the project and another external HD that has samples and loops on it …
 
Just so you know , I'm running a middle of the road lap top as it came from the factory w the exception of de junking it as best as I could ….also I do not have mega libraries or super synths to run over here ….
 
I have no idea if I can pull out the optical drive and put another drive there or if the mo bo even supports that ….
Ideally yeah if I ever decide to have a laptop that is custom made I would probably be OK w that as an option .
Even this little chugger I have can pull down 24 to 35 tracks w out breaking a sweat before I need to stream from another hard drive …as I've said,  I think it is OK to use the internal drive for scratch ideas and then relocate them to stream from and External HD  
I'm not a power computer guy so I do hope someone else chimes in that is one and gives you better answers …
 
have a good one , 
 
Kenny

Your choice. Just seperate data from the application. You can also seperate samples from projects. This should improve performance and separating data from apps will help organise your backups.

If you just use a large SSD then performance wise you don't have to seperate data, but still a good idea for organisation purposes.

If you have a SSD and a hard drive make sure your apps and are on the SSD, and utilize as much as you can put of it.

Remember you can partition a single drive (split it up into drive letters) if you just have one hard drive. It will improve performance doing this, but not as much as using a seperate drive (unless SSD which case no difference).

External drives are obviously good for portability and unlimited storage possibilities . Another important thing is to have a decent backup strategy.

If money is no object buy a single 2tb Samsung 850 EVO.

Great info-And quite a bit of it. I did remove my optical drive and install the laptops orig HD there. I replace the laptop os drive with an ssd drive. I have asked about the hard drive issue before  but never asked how others were doing it. The drive I put in the cd slot seems slow but I am guessing that the optical drive interface-maybe not.
 
Main reason for this question is: do I need to buy a new laptop-but from all this I would say now-it''s an
asus i7-3770 -not positive about the mz, I'm not in front of it now.
 
I'm going to do some recording tonight to see how it goes. I wanted to match my desktop setup but cannot-so hopefully just changing the folder prefs (redirecting) should let projects just be passed back and forth.
I have talked about this for a while and have yet to record o the laptop-?
 
BTW, I have a roland Octacapture for the laptop. echo Layla 3G for my desktop.
 
Thanks guys for the extensive insight----really helps
 
Frank
 

sorry just to add--so your saying if I had  a larger ssd (currently intel 180gb) I could use just that one drive? I only record myself-guitars and vocals-everything else is midi using a midi controller and softsynths.
 
optical drive is now a 7200rpm 750gb (the original os drive that cam in the laptop.

I went for the option of having no bluray and using the slot for a second SSD. So I have all my Sonar projects stored on that.
 
My recent upgrade included a 500gb OS and 1tb second drive, so that's going to last me as long as the SSD's hold up...

Hmmm? Maybe I should have gotten an SSD for the 2nd hard. The drive I installed in the optical slot is 750gb but it's7200rpm's so I imagine that's good for my second driver-for samples and audio.
I have asked this question probably 5X already and I apologize.
Using the 2nd drive-the 750gb 7200rpm Seagate for audio and samples "without" partitioning or with partitioning? I have gotten pros and cons for both. I thought samples on one partition and audio files on the other.
But many said that would make it slower or at least not help. Just lump them both on the 750gb, separate folders of course.
Any thoughts?

My question to you is " Have you recorded on your lap top system yet ?
 
According to post # 4 , less than a day ago you were talking about recording on your system to see how it stacks up ….
 
How did it Go ? 
 
Kenny

I did record-finished up something I started a while back. But I needed to get it done so I used my external Sample drive (SSD) .
 
I am actually in the process right now of recording with all internal.....sample folder and audio folder on same un-partitioned drive, the 750gb 7200rpm that replaced the optical drive. I have a good feeling about it. I will post back later.

I've recorded 48 tracks live simultaneously at 24 bit/44.1 kHz using 2 X FF800s + 4 X ADATs

I used a laptop with 2 internal 500 gig 7200 rpm HDDs. OS and Sonar and plugins on the main drive with the tracks recorded to the second drive.

The only thing to complicate that setup would be if you were setting up fx from your PC through Sonar. Then you'll have to cope with some latency but it depends on if your recording is also the FOH feed or whether you are taking direct outs from a separate mixing console. I got direct out feeds. If you're providing the mix as well then you're better to use external fx so you can direct monitor and record.