I successfully removed the dvd (optical drive) on my new Asus i7 laptop. So I now have 2 internal HD's (OS and Sonar on Intel 330 SSD 180GB SATA 6GB & 2nd HD is original (2.5") 750GB internal SATAIII HD from the laptop. Could possibly replace it with another SSD. Very easy to take in and out-well to get it in anyway :-)
 
Also have external (normal 3.5") 7200 USB 3.0 SATAIII HD. The external did fine with the samples but that was when I only had one internal drive. I had projects with the OS and Sonar on the SSD like now..
 
On my desktop I have Sonar, Projects (Audio files) and sample libraries on 3 seperate drives-but they are all internal so it was asy to figure.
 
Not sure on the laptop?  I would like to get it right the first time so I don't have to move all the big stuff more than once.
I was thinking maybe the projects and audio files should be the external USB 3.0 SATA HD since I will be writing a lot to the project HD.
 
I do have one more option I have , the original from the laptop. I could put that in as the 2nd internal
 
I am really up against a wall on this decision.
 
Please some suggestions would really help me out.
Thanks

I do not know if an external USB 3.0 drive would be able to handle the data transfers of recording directly to it, but even if it could, I would not make that the primary choice, because the internal SATA 3 drive would be faster.

I definitely would store completed projects on the external USB 3.0 drive, however.

On my system - a desktop, I have two 2 TB non-SSD SATA 3 hard drives.  I keep my OS and all applications on the primary drive, and store all samples and such - as well as all projects and their audio on the 2nd drive.  I have NEVER had any bottlenecks running with this configuration.

There are many others here in the forum who run several more drives than me, and I am not opposed to doing so, it just has not been an issue for me to need an additional internal drive to split off either projects or samples.  They just live happily together on the 2nd drive for me.  (I do have a third drive - it is an external USB 3.0 drive - 2 TB - that I use for backups).

Since you already have your samples on the external drive, why not as a test copy them all to your new internal drive, and try running with projects and samples together on that drive?  If you are not happy with performance, all you would need to do is to delete the samples from that drive and go back to the ones you already have on the external one.  Just a thought.

Good luck, 

Bob Bone

Edit: OK-didn't get the rest until now. I'll try that-Thanks - I do have 16GB of Corsair ram in the laptop. That helps.
Hey Bob
 
You mean you record your audio to the same drive that has the samples on it? Is that what you mean?
Thanks

There is no reason not to use the the USB 3 disk as your project disk. It also has the advantage of being use with your desktop or the laptop. 

Heck I used a USB 2 disk for a while this way.