Please if anyone knows of a reason to have dedicated hard drives let me know.

You might get more replies in the computers forum below. Some would advise having at least two hard drives for DAW use, one for the OS and apps and the other for audio files. Others add a third drive for samples. It depends on the nature and size of you audio projects.

THere is nothing wrong with having dedicated hard drives to store samples and work projects. 


By having the WORKING project on the main C drive with the program things work a bit faster. 

Saving old projects to E,F,G.... doesn't matter. Since samples are mostly loaded to memory and are not streamed in most synths, it's fine to have a dedicated drive for them as well..... 

I was simply saying it doesn't really matter with the size of drives available these days.  You can run the DAW with one or with ten drives..... it's up to you. 

Keeping your old projects on a different drive from the main C provides some protection against loss in a c drive crash. 

Internal Drive 1: Operating System & Progs
Internal Drive 2: Cakewalk Audio Projects
Internal Drive 3: Sample Libraries
External Drive: Backups

short and sweet and just what i needed thanks

If you've got 'em, use 'em.
But I've been using just the one drive without problems for years. My songs are not huge, though, and I'm not as prolific as many folks. I've barely made a dent in my 300 GB HD.

Interesting thread.  I already had the laptop I'm running Sonar X1 on.  It is powerfull enough (see signature specs), but I too was reading about performance and 7200rpm drives vs. 5400rpm drives - the laptop has a 5400rpm internal hdd.
 
Opinions vary, but I gathered that an external 7200rpm connected via a USB 3.0 would perform well.  I don't know that I need to organize everything like I've read in the Power book and in some threads here, but I am storing project files on the external hdd.  I have another external hdd I can access for storing copies/backups of project files as well.
 
In a project, I am typically going to have a 'maximum' of 2-3 vocal tracks, 2-3 guitar audio tracks, 2-4 midi tracks (drums, piano, bass, string).
 
Anyway, what d'ya think?  Ok plan?  Do I need to put something specific on that external hdd?
 
Thanks.