I "switched" to Mac a couple months ago, meaning I have no external hard drives that I can backup my files on my mac from (Mac uses HFS+ file format and all of my external hard drives are formatted NTFS for Windows). On my desktop PC before the mac, I had two internal hard drives, one for software, one for audio. When I built the PC I was following the "common knowledge" of keeping your audio drive separate to lower straight on your CPU and drives. Makes sense, they're both internal drives and SATA speed.
Well, my Mac is a Macbook Pro, meaning it only has one internal drive. I haven't had to do more than two tracks recording simultaneously since I bought the Mac, so I've just been recording to the internal drive and everything has been fine. I have been doing mixing with tons of tracks, but again, it works fine using the internal drive for storage.
All this got me thinking though, the MBP only has one firewire port, which I'm using for my audio interface (Focusrite Liquid Saffire 56). I can daisy-chain an external firewire drive, but that's the best I can do. So, I was thinking, is 10 audio tracks at once going through firewire to the mac, back out to the interface then to the external drive really faster/more reliable/better than just recording those tracks to disk in the mac and skipping all those extra steps?
Unrelatedly, but ironically, I was emailing Focusrite about a small non-recording issue I was having with my interface, and they asked if I was daisy-chaining anything tot he interface. (I do have a NTFS drive hooked up that I'm using to access some old files). They told me they didn't recommend daisy-chaining any devices with their interfaces. So I thought (and asked them), "well if daisy-chaining isn't recommended, how are you supposed to record audio to an external drive when using a Macbook Pro?"
Focusrite replied:
So, according at least to Focusrite, it's better to record audio to the internal laptop drive than to use an external drive. This is interesting because it goes against all advice I've always heard for YEARS about using an external firewire drive for recording. Maybe that advice was more pertinent with the older operating systems like XP, and is no longer valid. Technology changes, and so must common advice.
Anyway, what do you think? It certainly makes sense to me, as I was beginning to question how an external drive could possibly be faster/better than the internal drive myself. I'm just "shocked" (huge exaggeration haha) since it contrasts years of advice.
Do you think the same applies to using sample libraries? Better to read from the internal drive? Does it apply only to recording and not mixing where you are just reading and not writing?
What are your thoughts? Thanks
Well, my Mac is a Macbook Pro, meaning it only has one internal drive. I haven't had to do more than two tracks recording simultaneously since I bought the Mac, so I've just been recording to the internal drive and everything has been fine. I have been doing mixing with tons of tracks, but again, it works fine using the internal drive for storage.
All this got me thinking though, the MBP only has one firewire port, which I'm using for my audio interface (Focusrite Liquid Saffire 56). I can daisy-chain an external firewire drive, but that's the best I can do. So, I was thinking, is 10 audio tracks at once going through firewire to the mac, back out to the interface then to the external drive really faster/more reliable/better than just recording those tracks to disk in the mac and skipping all those extra steps?
Unrelatedly, but ironically, I was emailing Focusrite about a small non-recording issue I was having with my interface, and they asked if I was daisy-chaining anything tot he interface. (I do have a NTFS drive hooked up that I'm using to access some old files). They told me they didn't recommend daisy-chaining any devices with their interfaces. So I thought (and asked them), "well if daisy-chaining isn't recommended, how are you supposed to record audio to an external drive when using a Macbook Pro?"
Focusrite replied:
So, according at least to Focusrite, it's better to record audio to the internal laptop drive than to use an external drive. This is interesting because it goes against all advice I've always heard for YEARS about using an external firewire drive for recording. Maybe that advice was more pertinent with the older operating systems like XP, and is no longer valid. Technology changes, and so must common advice.
Anyway, what do you think? It certainly makes sense to me, as I was beginning to question how an external drive could possibly be faster/better than the internal drive myself. I'm just "shocked" (huge exaggeration haha) since it contrasts years of advice.
Do you think the same applies to using sample libraries? Better to read from the internal drive? Does it apply only to recording and not mixing where you are just reading and not writing?
What are your thoughts? Thanks
