I appreciate the point about HD's having to work harder if the data's on the same disk as the system, but that's not really an issue when you're just working with MIDI clips. They don't need to be streamed from the HD like audio is, once you load the project they're in memory and that's it. The only reading and writing to disk you're doing is when you save your project, or load a MIDI clip from disk. They're tiny operations. It's quite common to have a project that's all MIDI if you're working on electronic dance music, for instance. As soon as you introduce audio into the equation, for instance if you insert some audio loops, then a separate drive is advisable (although I've heard people say they use audio clips from the system drive without problems). 

I don't think it's really any less safe having your data on the system drive in a separate partition. No matter where you store your data, it's essential to have a backup whether it's in the cloud, an external drive or DVD's or whatever. All drives are going to fail at one time or another, but a good quality drive will give you a few years without problems. 

garyed


Thanks for all the info, I hadn't thought about a third drive for sample libraries too. Great idea.

It's just a pity that the kind of external drives that are sold in big box retail stores like Best Buy don't have a guaranteed spin speed. They used to. You used to be able to get a Western Digital external that was rated at 7200 rpm, but now they don't have any rating on them and when you contact the manufacturer they tell you that the spin speed is variable (some green energy saving BS). Not everyone has space for 3 internal hard drives in their computer tower, plus it's nice to have portability where your audio projects or sample libraries are concerned. However there are audio-quality (7200rpm+)  externals out there, can't remember any names but you'll find them if you Google them. 


Another thing to consider if you're going to use an external is the interface - USB 2.0 doesn't really cut it for heavy multitrack streaming, and if you don't have Firewire then your other options are USB 3.0 (not sure how well this works with DAW's yet) or eSATA. Actually an eSATA drive is a pretty good option - I've seen audio quality eSATA externals advertised. 


I have two drives in my tower, the second one which I use for audio is a 2TB Western Digital Black Caviar and it works great. I've heard people say that smaller drives are advisable because they're more reliable, but I don't know how true this is and certainly haven't had any problems. 

One more thing I will say is that the location of where you store things on your HD is important. Spin speeds are faster on the outside of the disk, so if you're going to partition the drive for multiple usage then it's advisable to store anything that's going to be streamed on the first partition (when you work with a partition diagram on screen, the leftmost side of the block is the outside of the disk). For instance, I also use my 2nd drive to store disc image backups. I keep those on the right hand partition (inner disk) because speed isn't as important for saving those. 

For many, it is less about safety, and more about making the most of system performance. It just seems to bring about snappier / better / lower latency performance to have the audio coming from another drive. (Although these days with the increased speed of "off the shelf" systems, it probably doesn't matter as much as it did 5-10 years ago.)

Sharke, funny, I just bought a 'green' WD drive for overnight backups of the DAW, and I share your thoughts about having spin speed no longer being fixed! I was surprised. (But since it is a backups drive, I didn't care too much.) for recording, I would definitely insist on 7200 for sure. Best, Ed

ed97643


For many, it is less about safety, and more about making the most of system performance. It just seems to bring about snappier / better / lower latency performance to have the audio coming from another drive. (Although these days with the increased speed of "off the shelf" systems, it probably doesn't matter as much as it did 5-10 years ago.)

Yeah some of us are stuck in an old world mentality which causes us to be a little more stingy with storage space and speed than we need to be.  I know someone who still compresses all of her text documents 

ed97643


Sharke, funny, I just bought a 'green' WD drive for overnight backups of the DAW, and I share your thoughts about having spin speed no longer being fixed! I was surprised. (But since it is a backups drive, I didn't care too much.) for recording, I would definitely insist on 7200 for sure. Best, Ed

Yeah WD externals are pretty much all "green" these days although someone told me you still get the occasional one that's 7200. With the internals, the Caviar drives are marked green or black so you know which one is the energy saving hooey. 

scook


You should be using per-project folders on a second drive. The second drive for performance, per-project folders for ease of project administration. Per-project folders keep the CW project file and the audio associated with the project in the same project directory. One directory for each project.

Per Project Audio Folder-setting does NOT automatically save the project and audio in one folder, unless that has been changed from 8.5? In < 8.5 Per Project Audio Folder-setting saves only audio in separate folder and the Project file gets still as default saved in C:/Cakewalk Projects. So the project and audio are in different places, where you have to collect them if you want to, say, send the full project to someone. During the first Save as you need to change the default target file for the Project file.

Kalle Rantaaho

scook


You should be using per-project folders on a second drive. The second drive for performance, per-project folders for ease of project administration. Per-project folders keep the CW project file and the audio associated with the project in the same project directory. One directory for each project.

Per Project Audio Folder-setting does NOT automatically save the project and audio in one folder, unless that has been changed from 8.5? In < 8.5 Per Project Audio Folder-setting saves only audio in separate folder and the Project file gets still as default saved in C:/Cakewalk Projects. So the project and audio are in different places, where you have to collect them if you want to, say, send the full project to someone. During the first Save as you need to change the default target file for the Project file.

This option never claimed to put audio in the same folder as the project.  


The exact text for the option is: 'Use Per-Project Audio Folders', and that is exactly what Sonar does with that option checked.  It creates an audio folder within the project's folder.


I always use per-project folders, and the audio clips are stored within a folder called Audio, that is a sub-folder to the project folder, so I do not have to search for any audio files, EVER.  

And as far as the notion of having to 'collect' the audio clips to send an entire project to someone, that is not necessary.  Simply copy the contents of your project folder, which will copy both the cwp file and the audio folder, and paste those contents into a newly-created compressed folder and you preserve Cakewalk's folder structure for use by whoever you are sending the compressed folder to.



Bob Bone