# External Drives



## José Herring (Jan 23, 2020)

Anybody using external drives for sample streaming? If so how are you connected? Are you using Ethernet or Thunderbolt or USB3, ect?


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## BassClef (Jan 23, 2020)

SATA3 SSDs in an external enclosure connected to iMac via USB3. Read/Write speeds a little over 400 MB/s.


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## charlieclouser (Jan 23, 2020)

8x SATA 2.5" Samsung 4tb SSDs in 2x BlackMagic MultiDocks connected (daisy-chained) to a single Thunderbolt2 connector on 2013 Mac Pro cylinder. Works perfectly for 5 years so far. Zero issues.


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## José Herring (Jan 23, 2020)

Awesome. Yeah, I'm very much hating these days having to crack open my cases to upgrade HD.

The BlackMagic MultiDock looks cool too.


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## charlieclouser (Jan 23, 2020)

Multidock is great because you can yank and swap drives like they were cassette tapes. BUT it is only SATA and thus is limited to around 500mb/sec per drive. More recent NVME / m2 drives are MUCH faster, but also way more expensive - and they are raw "blade" style drives that basically look like memory sticks, so not really hot swappable.


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## Greg (Jan 23, 2020)

charlieclouser said:


> Multidock is great because you can yank and swap drives like they were cassette tapes. BUT it is only SATA and thus is limited to around 500mb/sec per drive. More recent NVME / m2 drives are MUCH faster, but also way more expensive - and they are raw "blade" style drives that basically look like memory sticks, so not really hot swappable.



1 tb Samsung 970 evo m.2 is only $18 bucks more than the 1tb 2.5" 960 ssd. I wonder if NVME is overkill for sample hosting though? I didn't notice much of a performance jump aside from quick load times with my samples on PCIE nvme drives getting almost 3000mb /s. Possibly could drop the kontakt preload buffer to the minimum if your ram is maxed out?


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## sostenuto (Jan 23, 2020)

Choke !!  (recognize this Thread is Headed EXTERNAL Drives ....) but ..... 
This issue is for sure having major impact on my present and future Lib purchases.
4 TB SSD max is a joke with skyrocketing Lib sizes. Internal SATA and piggish Seagate Barracuda Pro 10 /12/14 TB prices are changing things dramatically. 
Good on all who can go for Multidock /et al solutions, but time 'here' to do major reevaluation of mainstream content. Earlier 'monster' 8TB NAS _ for longer-term storage _ is now a joke.
Tech is running away from rational upgrade decisions, but both Win10 Pro DAW(s) are now being reconfigured with 10 TB+ Barracida Pro(s) and 2-3 EVO /QVO SSD(s) @ 2-4 TB sizes.

When this gets overrun, going back to calm hours on Corel Painter 2020 and check here now and then ...


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## jononotbono (Jan 23, 2020)

charlieclouser said:


> Multidock is great because you can yank and swap drives like they were cassette tapes. BUT it is only SATA and thus is limited to around 500mb/sec per drive. More recent NVME / m2 drives are MUCH faster, but also way more expensive - and they are raw "blade" style drives that basically look like memory sticks, so not really hot swappable.



Yeah I’ve always been a bit confused by this term “hot swappable”. Mainly because it doesn’t exist. You have to unmount all drives before pulling them out so yeah, sure, slam them in and be able to reach them with convenience but I always have to unmount if I want to pull them out. I’m using the last generation of Black Magic Dock and Samsung SSDs and they work great. The dock is also great, again for accessibility, especially with clients bringing their drives to the studio.

Today I was playing around with a OCW external NVME 1tb TB3 drive. Read and write speeds of 2500mbs. It’s a thing of joy. It’s also oneof the few things I can actually plug into a new Mac Book Pro without having $200 of adapters and shit hanging out the sides of it just to plug some screens in 😂
Needless to say, this TB3 drive is blazing fast, and an amazing solution to use with a portable setup but I’d rather have a dock I can access than all that adapter nonsense. 

Or god forbid, a new Mac Pro that now finally allows us to plug drives back inside the machine.


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## jbuhler (Jan 23, 2020)

I stream SATA SSDs connected via USB3 to a Thunderbolt 3 hub that is connected to my iMac via TB2. I’ve never had an issue with streaming with this set up.


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## sostenuto (Jan 23, 2020)

jbuhler said:


> I stream SATA SSDs connected via USB3 to a Thunderbolt 3 hub that is connected to my iMac via TB2. I’ve never had an issue with streaming with this set up.



( if ya got it; flaunt it ) 

.... this provides some potential solutions. Your MAC environment costs not likely to be far different from my Win10 Pro, but $$$ are notable ...... 

Quietly moving on with Internal HDD plan (another new 10TB Barracuda Pro arrived today) but longer-term is worrisome. Much work is appropriate here, to configure & organize Projects to be saved on 'SLOW' BKUP drives for easy loading as needed. Spoiled so far with everything on fast, internal devices.


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## charlieclouser (Jan 23, 2020)

Hot-swap = the computer can remain powered up. 'Twas always thus, back to the days of rack-mount SCSI hot-swap drive bays with the key lock on the front.

Of course you need to un-mount the drive from the OS. All drives, even floppies and thumb drives, require this.

Cold-swap = the computer must be powered down fully before disconnecting drives. m2 sticks are cold-swap.


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## Sunny Schramm (Jun 24, 2020)

I need space too! Did not recognize that Sonokinetic Sotto and Largo takes about 120GB 😱

My options (free slots):

1. 1x PCIe 3.0 x16
2. 4x USB 3.1 (Gen1)
3. I could take out my 500gb sata m2 (crucial) and replace it with another 970 Evo Plus (my mainboard can take two pci-e nvme m2). But thats not a lot more space.

I would prefer an external solution with minimum 2TB. Any drive recommendations? Maybe an PCI-E NVME M2 on an pci-card (?) to use it on the PCIe 3.0 x16 slot?


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