External Drives and Logic

[geo]

Hey guys.. running logic 8 express on a MacBook (upgraded to 2 GB) but am concerned about memory.... seems like this thing generates a lot of files etc... but I'm a stumbler.... I stumble around the computer looking for solutions... so here's the qusetion.....I have 2 USB ports... can/should I be running Logic on an external hard drive.... If I add Styllus (my guitarist has it) can/should I run it off an external hard drive....Like I said not too tech savy so I guess I'm looking for suggestions as to how I should set the whole thing up....Should be backing up projects in an external drive?Thanks for stopping by.... Geo

[mewman]

Hi GeoI've got an imac running logic 7.0. I purchased a LaCie 500 gig external hard drive that I use to back up all my files. From what I've read here on the boards and from other sources, your best strategy is to keep Logic and all your project files on your main hard drive, and put Stylus, any other samples, and all your back-ups on your external drive. That said, I have a 250 gig hard drive in my imac and I am running everything off of my main hard drive with no problems. Should I add more stuff and run out of room, I will transfer my sample files or any virtual instruments, like Stylus, to the external drive. For now, however, I store everything in the computor and use the external drive only for back up.One other thing. If you do start moving things around, be careful to pay attention to the file system. I recently did a back up of my files and accidentally moved some important folders associated with the EXS24 into the wrong sub folder. All of a sudden instruments that were in my sampler disappeared and it took a bit of reading in the manual for me to figure out where they had to be returned to! Don't rename any folders associated with the sample library! Hope this helps.Mewman

[mazz]

I'm not familiar with Logic's file structure but if it's similar to Pro Tools or Digital Performer then when you create a new song, a Project Folder is created. Inside that folder lives the actual project document and one or more folders, one of which is probably called "Audio Files". This is where any audio files you create as a result of recording reside. Optimally these folders are created on an external drive (in your case since you have a laptop, more below).Any programs that use a sample library as their sound source usually give you the option on where to store the sample library separately from the actual application itself. For instance, Stylus creates a folder called SAGE which usually lives inside a sub folder in the Library folder of your user account. The manual for Stylus tells you how to move the SAGE folder and create an alias of it and put the alias back in to the Library so the program can find it. This way you can have your samples on a separate drive and avoid clogging up your system drive with extra data. Also, many programs stream the samples from the drive in real time (or almost real time) just like playing back audio tracks, so the drive needs to work much harder if it's also being used for system operations such as virtual memory, etc. Not the best thing to do to your main system drive! You need to understand that your Applications (Logic, Stylus, Kontakt, etc.) need to live on the main drive of your computer, the drive that has the OS on it, but your samples, project files, etc. can and, in my opinion should, be on separate drives. So when you ask "should I run Logic from an external drive?" the answer is no you shouldn't, but you should create and work on your projects on a separate drive.What I'm advocating is having 3 external drives: 1. 2 firewire or even better eSATA drives. 1 for projects and 1 for sample libraries. 2. A USB drive for backups. This drive only needs to backup your projects, not your sample libraries which you should have the original CDs/DVDs for anyway. If this drive is large enough, then it could also hold an image of your system in case your main OS drive crashes. This will get you back up and running quickly.External drives are cheap these days and compared to the time and stress of losing your precious songs, they're worth it. Also, having separate drives for the samples and audio take the strain off of your main drive, possibly extending it's life as well.I'm fairly anal about this, here's my setup for my G5 Mac: 2 250G FW800 drives set up as a RAID so if one drive goes down, the other has an exact copy on it. These are my main audio drives.1 internal 320 G drive for samples only1 external 750 G drive (FW 800) for samples only2 external FW400 Drives for backup only1 external FW400 removable drive for archival storageHow much is your music and your time worth? I go to extremes because I really can't afford to lose anything.Hope this helps,Mazz

[nickbatzdorf]

In addition to all the other good info here, one thing to bear in mind is that unlike most drum modules, Stylus RMX runs from RAM rather than streaming from the disk. So while it's a very good idea to add a second hard drive, it won't have any effect on its performance once it's loaded.Also, if you have the latest MBP you may want to upgrade the memory to 4GB. It's not mandatory, but it's cheap and it'll improve the performance of your machine considerably. When available, OS X uses 500MB outside Logic for the OS itself, then as much as 1GB inside Logic for System Frameworks and Libraries. If it doesn't have anything left over for caching disk reads it will use "virtual memory" - meaning it'll treat the hard drive as RAM. That's not necessarily a good thing for real-time applications like music.Again, I don't want to sound the alarm bells or make you think your machine is useless if it predates the models that came out last summer and hold 4GB - on the contrary, MBPs are all very good - but your machine will perform better with 4GB if or when you can upgrade it.