External Storage for Music Recording

[zionbrian]

Hi!

I am getting a Mac mini M4. I will be using the internal SSD for "active" recording projects. It was recommended that I have an external hard drive to hold my (HUGE) sample libraries, and another for archived projects. My question is this, please:

Is there any advantage/disadvantage to having two separate 2 TB drives for what I mentioned above versus a single 4 TB drive to hold both?

Thanks so much in advance for any help!

Brian

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

If you are going "naked" in terms of no backups, splitting samples between 2 drives would mean you won't lose all if one of the drives conks at some point. You'd just lose towards either your samples libraries or your archived projects.

But hopefully, you are going to also put a solid backup system in place, backing up both the internal drive and the 4TB external. If you are going to do this and/or already have a backup drive in place, be sure you actually have a least TWO backups in place, with one of the two always stored OFFSITE to protect against fire-flood-theft scenarios that would take out the Mac and the backup next to it. Onsite and offsite should regularly be rotated so the offsite one is always a pretty fresh backup. A good place to store the offsite is some distance from your home in a bank safe deposit box or similar.

You can use the free Time Machine app built into macOS for this... or Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper or others. Those 3 are very popular as Mac backup apps.

Take this information very seriously. You never know when an event is going to take all out at one location. One fresh OFFSITE backup can save the day.

 

[PaulD-UK]

@zionbrian It will benefit having a sample library on a fast high quality SSD, preferably Thunderbolt 3 or USB4.
It’s totally unnecessary for your archived projects to be on a fast SSD, rather you need reliable long-term storage.
As pointed out, good backup storage is also necessary.

 

[zionbrian]

If you are going "naked" in terms of no backups, splitting samples between 2 drives would mean you won't lose all if one of the drives conks at some point. You'd just lose towards either your samples libraries or your archived projects.

But hopefully, you are going to also put a solid backup system in place, backing up both the internal drive and the 4TB external. If you are going to do this and/or already have a backup drive in place, be sure you actually have a least TWO backups in place, with one of the two always stored OFFSITE to protect against fire-flood-theft scenarios that would take out the Mac and the backup next to it. Onsite and offsite should regularly be rotated so the offsite one is always a pretty fresh backup. A good place to store the offsite is some distance from your home in a bank safe deposit box or similar.

You can use the free Time Machine app built into macOS for this... or Carbon Copy Cloner or Super Duper or others. Those 3 are very popular as Mac backup apps.

Take this information very seriously. You never know when an event is going to take all out at one location. One fresh OFFSITE backup can save the day.

Thanks so much!

 

[zionbrian]

@zionbrian It will benefit having a sample library on a fast high quality SSD, preferably Thunderbolt 3 or USB4.
It’s totally unnecessary for your archived projects to be on a fast SSD, rather you need reliable long-term storage.
As pointed out, good backup storage is also necessary.

Thank you, Paul!

 

[BrianBaughn]

I have the exact setup you're describing. Active Logic Pro projects are on internal, samples on an SSD in a 40gbps housing. Archived projects are on a USB attached SATA SSD. Things are working well for me.

I have local backups of everything and I'm in the process of setting up external, online backups of pertinent stuff in my user folder as well as the achived projects. Everything else can be rebuilt.

 

[Fishrrman]

"Is there any advantage/disadvantage to having two separate 2 TB drives for what I mentioned above versus a single 4 TB drive to hold both?"

All your eggs "in one basket" ??

You could get a 4tb SSD and partition it into two "hard" pieces.
Then... get a 4tb platter-based HDD (also partitioned) to serve as a backup.

 

[zionbrian]

I have the exact setup you're describing. Active Logic Pro projects are on internal, samples on an SSD in a 40gbps housing. Archived projects are on a USB attached SATA SSD. Things are working well for me.

I have local backups of everything and I'm in the process of setting up external, online backups of pertinent stuff in my user folder as well as the achived projects. Everything else can be rebuilt.

Thank you!!!

 

[zionbrian]

"Is there any advantage/disadvantage to having two separate 2 TB drives for what I mentioned above versus a single 4 TB drive to hold both?"

All your eggs "in one basket" ??

You could get a 4tb SSD and partition it into two "hard" pieces.
Then... get a 4tb platter-based HDD (also partitioned) to serve as a backup.

Thank you!!!

 

[ChrisA]

You have two classes of data, the sample need fast storage and the archived data can be on slower storage. But I'm betting the archived data is not very large. So why not store both on the faster DDS? Then later if the SSD is filled up you can always bnuy some slower, cheaper storage and move the archive data off the SSD. There is no reason to buy two devices right away

But what you do need is BACKUP. If you care about keeping the data you need three copys of it in at least two different geographical locations. SO try this. (1) in addition to the SSD, buy a large hard drive and use it for Time Machine. (2) subscribe to a cloud service like perhaps Backblaze and set up a continuous backup to a remote location. That is the minimum

 

[zionbrian]

You have two classes of data, the sample need fast storage and the archived data can be on slower storage. But I'm betting the archived data is not very large. So why not store both on the faster DDS? Then later if the SSD is filled up you can always bnuy some slower, cheaper storage and move the archive data off the SSD. There is no reason to buy two devices right away

But what you do need is BACKUP. If you care about keeping the data you need three copys of it in at least two different geographical locations. SO try this. (1) in addition to the SSD, buy a large hard drive and use it for Time Machine. (2) subscribe to a cloud service like perhaps Backblaze and set up a continuous backup to a remote location. That is the minimum

Thank you!