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Old 02-25-2017, 12:30 PM   #1
fcleff69
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Default External Drive Recommendations

I'm needing to get an external drive for my Reaper projects. I'm using a 15" MBP mid 2015 retina 16GB. I'm hoping to spend not more than $200. Any recommendations?

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Old 02-25-2017, 07:43 PM   #2
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The most important advice I can give is don't get any enclosure that won't let you easily swap out the drive. You'd be surprised how many you can't. Some inexpensive model lines (the Hitachi Touros) use proprietary formatting that makes the drive useless in another enclosure. Nearly all of the portable bus powered drives that hang on store display walls have the drive soldered directly to the board. Really terrible for when the enclosure gets funky even though the drive is fine.

I like Other World Computing for their enclosures. (www.macsales.com). Built well, they give you a choice of mechanisms and work great. Used to be that I'd only use full size external drives (3.5 mechanisms) for recording and small bus powered ones for backing up, but I've been recording to 2.5 bus powered drives for a few years with zero problems, then when I get home transfer to desktop externals for further work and archiving. As far as mechanismsI have had good luck with WD Reds, Hitachi and Toshibas too, staying clear of their lower models. 7200, 64 meg cache for work drive, slower 5200 with smaller cache are fine for backups and archiving.

I personally like the Elite Pro and Elite Pro Mini https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/external-storage Just pick the ports that are right for you (USB3 in your case) and you don't have to consider the other ports (I have older MBPs so for now I still use FW800). I keep an Elite Pro in the chain with the cover off so I can swap another drive in easily. Bare drives are cheap. You don't need a bunch of external drives but you do need a bunch of drives : )

You can't have too many drives. If it's digital and doesn't exist in three places it doesn't exist anywhere : )
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Old 02-26-2017, 06:04 PM   #3
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Thanks for that detailed reply. I'm looking at the ElitePro Mini. What are your thoughts on SSD or HDD?

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Old 02-27-2017, 07:57 AM   #4
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Thanks for that detailed reply. I'm looking at the ElitePro Mini. What are your thoughts on SSD or HDD?

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SSDs coming down in cost per gig has been a blessing. Always a good thing to have as a system and application drive, and also for recording to. No advantage for storage. But all my externals are spinning drives, mostly because the newest ones are still from about two years ago when SSDs were more expensive. SSDs don't give me much that 7200 rpm mechanical drives don't as recording drives, for my particular needs, the ram and cpu being more important once a drive is fast enough to not be the bottleneck. For things like Photoshop, where the drive is constantly yanked and disk caches are used so much it's a different thing. Not that SSDs aren't obviously faster but If budget is important I would say you may be better off getting all the storage you can afford (and not all in one drive) as HDD. More storage for your money and they're not so much slower that they affect what you're doing.
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Old 02-27-2017, 04:27 PM   #5
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Again, thanks for the detailed reply. I think I will go with an SSD. I'm not recording so much music right now that massive amounts of storage are needed. I just don't want to put it all on my machine's drive. Down the road I can expand a little.

Why are the USB3/eSATA drives a little less expensive?

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Old 02-27-2017, 04:32 PM   #6
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My computer case has a hot-pluggable SATA compartment on top of the case with a magnetized lid for easy access, best thing since sliced bread.
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Old 02-27-2017, 04:49 PM   #7
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My computer case has a hot-pluggable SATA compartment on top of the case with a magnetized lid for easy access, best thing since sliced bread.
On a completely unrelated note, I was looking at another thread and became interested in your El Gato pedal. Then I found a video demo. Now I have serious GAS for that pedal.

Now, back to eSATA and USB3 talk...

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Old 02-27-2017, 04:53 PM   #8
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On a completely unrelated note, I was looking at another thread and became interested in your El Gato pedal. Then I found a video demo. Now I have serious GAS for that pedal.

Now, back to eSATA and USB3 talk...

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WOW, that demo was like the first, very first prototype after tweaking the idea on a bread board for three months. I spent so dang long on that thing, at one point, it flowed off the breadboard onto three others and I'd carry it to band practice testing to make sure it worked OK in the context of a band. Here is a picture in the rehearsal room back when I was testing... That little black "FX Loop" pedal was something I built so I could actually switch it in and out while playing.

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Old 02-27-2017, 05:04 PM   #9
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Holy shit. That's awesome.

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Old 02-27-2017, 08:25 PM   #10
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My computer case has a hot-pluggable SATA compartment on top of the case with a magnetized lid for easy access, best thing since sliced bread.
1) Being a Mac guy, never heard of that

2) Sounds amazing

3) Yet another thing Apple is NOT doing : (
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Old 02-28-2017, 07:56 AM   #11
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1) Being a Mac guy, never heard of that

2) Sounds amazing

3) Yet another thing Apple is NOT doing : (
I was gonna say...

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Old 02-28-2017, 10:54 AM   #12
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1) Being a Mac guy, never heard of that

2) Sounds amazing

3) Yet another thing Apple is NOT doing : (
I had my current DAW built by a member here who builds world class PC DAWs for artists and engineers. That feature was part of the case he used, I had no idea until I received it. What I thought was really cool was that if I were recording clients, it would be outstanding to just purchase a small HDD for each client. I could just pop in their HDD when working on their project.

I sort of do that now, except it's my own project and I have a dedicated HDD for it and it's in that slot. When I record my band's new record in a couple months, I'll buy an HDD for that, and use the same slot.
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Old 02-28-2017, 12:14 PM   #13
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What's the name of your band, if you don't mind me asking? And do you have any recordings out currently?

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Old 02-28-2017, 12:17 PM   #14
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What's the name of your band, if you don't mind me asking? And do you have any recordings out currently?

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M4 Messenger, I think the 2010 CD and some live performances are on YT somewhere but I'm not playing on most of those, that's was a friend of mine who passed away right after that CD was released. They went through seven or eight replacement guitarists before I joined in 2013 and I've been there ever since but we are just now getting around to working on the next CD.

Almost everything public doesn't have me in it (yet) - there is a bowie tribute I appear in from August if memory serves. For example, we play this song still but this is from the 2010 CD but before I arrived: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb-DgkeLkHE
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Old 03-01-2017, 08:29 AM   #15
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Thanks for that. I'll have a listen this weekend. I love hearing new stuff.

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