I need some guidance on what kind of external hard drive I need to buy for my recording needs. 

I have Sonar X1 studio and I intend to use a 4 or 8 track audio interface. I will be using my laptop 90% of the time and possibly a desktop at other times so I will need USB 2.0, USB 3.0 & Firewire connections on the drive. I will be looking for a drive with 7200RPM with about 1TB of storage.

I am looking at the G Tech range of drives which provide the above specifications plus they are designer for audio recording. The problem I am having is deciding how much cache I need. I have seen posts online that indicate 32MB is the minimum cache requirement for recording. What role does the cache play in audio recording? Would I get away with 16MB?

I will mostly be recording on my own a couple of tracks at a time but I do want to have the capability of recording a couple of guys together say 4-8 tracks - Drums, bass, guitar and vocals say. I will most likely add some VST plug ins when mixing and I will look into getting a keyboard synth controller down the line to add some depth to the songs. 

Based on this how much cache would I need? Would the G Tech G Drive mini be adequate for my needs? http://www.g-technology.c...ducts/g-drive-mini.cfm
 

My advice is to simply buy the drive that fits the need. Use it as a storage drive, for old projects and sample libraries. 

I did this very thing on my laptop. I used a store bought (Staples) drive on my lappy. It was 500G. I now do the same thing on my custom home built DAW. It has 2 internal drives. C is for the OS and all the music programs and it has the cakewalk project folder, Drive E is internal 1TB and stores the samples and projects, and I use another 1TB external for backup of the storage drive (E) and disk image. 

On the old lappy external: I stored all my old and finished projects on it as well as the sample libraries for my synths and samplers.  Everything ran well from it. 

Let Sonar use the C drive in it's default location to store the current projects you are working on. They will load faster from C. When you finish them just drag them into the storage drive to a folder where they won't get lost or forgotten. 

Since most sample synths load the samples into memory, the disk reading or transfer speed is not an issue. So feel free to use any USB storage drive, 

The cache matters. Get 32 MB or more.

I have used an IcyDock with hardware raid striping to get 2 drives working together to get close to double the speed of one.

I find I can get a single drive to drop out when recording 10 tracks at 88.2 24 bit. 9 Works.

Most of the time, I just use my laptop drives. I can record 6 tracks on my laptop at 24 bit 88.2.

I will say that I can do more when I use the recording tool that came with the RME UCX that records six channels to a single file. When I record separate files, the limit is lower.

practical limit of 96K 24 bit mono tracks.  USB 2.0 = 107 Mono tracks  SATA/300 = 230 mono tracks  - Bob Katz - Mastering Audio the art and science - p 309 

If by external you mean a USB drive, I wouldn't advise putting audio on it. An eSATA drive would be ok though.

USB 3 outperforms eSATA ...

Bill51


USB 3 outperforms eSATA ...

Assuming he has USB 3 ports on his laptop and assuming it works. I've heard of problems with USB 3.

my external usb 3 drive is faster than my laptops stock 5400 rpm drive and maybe just 20megs a second slower than the secondary internal 7200 rpm drive i just installed. 

Thanks for the help guys. I will be buying a external hard drive that has USB3 connectivity for use with my current laptop and Firewire for use with my older PC. The only thing that I am unsure about is the ammount of cache that I require for my needs.

• Can anyone explain what the cache does in relation to audio recording?
• Does it help when writing the audio tracks to disc as they are recorded?
• Am I right in thinking that I will need a larger cache if I am recording a lot of tracks?
• Would 16MB be adequate for recording 4 tracks simultaneously?

you didn't mention sample rate or bit depth of your tracks, but a sixteen mb cache will probably be sufficient for four tracks at twenty four bit 96. the drive cache enables efficient uninterrupted file writing. it enables a queue of data to be written to be stored on the drive so it can be written asap.