# Best SSD Format for sample libraries?



## Secret Soundworks

Hey all,

I got a Samsung T7 external SSD as I needed more space and a faster drive for my new libraries. By default the drive is formatted as exFAT, but I saw mentioned that NTFS is the better format to use, and that there should be a speed increase in loading libraries with that format.

I have already installed hundreds of GBs of samples to the drive, but it is still formatted as exFAT as it came by default. I'm on Windows 10 btw. 

Should I back up my libraries and reformat the drive to NTFS and then move the libraries back? Will there be a noticeable performance difference in loading times? (especially for libraries from 8dio, which I heard perform much better on NTFS).

Thanks!


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## Ben

Secret Soundworks said:


> Should I back up my libraries and reformat the drive to NTFS and then move the libraries back?


Yes - the performance improvents during disk streaming is so much better, especially for multi-mic libraries (= multiple parallel disk streams).


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## Secret Soundworks

Ben said:


> Yes - the performance improvents during disk streaming is so much better, especially for multi-mic libraries (= multiple parallel disk streams).



I see, thanks Ben! I'll go ahead and reformat then


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## Michael Antrum

@Ben : To hijack this thread a little, I've just put a new WD Blue 4TB SSD onto my iMac 2015 i7 - format APFS.

The Black Magic disk speed test tells me I have a read speed of 430mb/sec.

But the Synchron Players report a read speed of between 115mb/sec and 165 mb/sec. 

Say I click it 5 times and I'll get a read speed of 165, then 115, then 145, then 165 then 163, for example. Seems a bit low compared to the Blakmagic test. Do those numebrs seemr right to you ?


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## Ben

Michael Antrum said:


> Do those numebrs seemr right to you ?


Yes, the Synchron Player displays the 4k read speed (if I remember correctly), because it represents more the real-life speed you will get with sample streaming.


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## Secret Soundworks

Update: reformatted to NTFS and tried loading my libraries (batch resaved again). For some the difference wasn't big, but for some like 8dio's it was definitely noticeable, from about 10 seconds to load a multi articulation patch (when I was using exFAT format) down to around 4-5 seconds on NTFS


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## Kent

@Sarah Mancuso


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## LudovicVDP

Also: Don't forget to exclude your new SSD/folder from Windows Defender scope.

Doing this was night and day for me.


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## Sarah Mancuso

kmaster said:


> @Sarah Mancuso


Hello! Yes, it makes a big difference. I haven’t personally compared NTFS and exFAT on Windows, but on Mac the best drive format for Kontakt is HFS+. Using APFS was adding up to a minute to some patches’ load times for me. It would be nice if NI could improve this situation somehow.


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## Secret Soundworks

LudovicVDP said:


> Also: Don't forget to exclude your new SSD/folder from Windows Defender scope.
> 
> Doing this was night and day for me.



Yep I excluded everything. Though personally I haven't seen this to make too much of a difference on my setup. You excluded it as Folder and just chose the whole base folder for the library right?

Either way I'm satisfied with the loading times for now.


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## LudovicVDP

I can't remember but I think I excluded the whole SSD drives that contain my libraries (and only that... so no need for any Defender scan of any sort)


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## agon

To share my experience. The Spitifre Audio installer refused to install BBCSO Core on my samsung T5 ssd because it was not formatted in ntfs.


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## Saya

agon said:


> To share my experience. The Spitifre Audio installer refused to install BBCSO Core on my samsung T5 ssd because it was not formatted in ntfs.




that is not true, you can choose "proceed anyways" to install. Spitfire Audio App will warn you up but not stop you from install to exFAT.


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## agon

Saya said:


> that is not true, you can choose "proceed anyways" to install. Spitfire Audio App will warn you up but not stop you from install to exFAT.


That's good to know but I don't remember seeing this option. Anyway, I reformatted my ssd to ntfs and put my libraries back on it and everything works perfectly.


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## Bluemount Score

I had no clue about what was better and just checked... luckily both of my external SSDs are NTFS  Wouldn't have prefered to format 2 TB of samples, but I was okay with my loading times before anyways. Don't forget your Batch resaves in Kontakt!


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## jaketanner

Sarah Mancuso said:


> Hello! Yes, it makes a big difference. I haven’t personally compared NTFS and exFAT on Windows, but on Mac the best drive format for Kontakt is HFS+. Using APFS was adding up to a minute to some patches’ load times for me. It would be nice if NI could improve this situation somehow.


Just complained to 8dio for extremely slow load times on Insolidus, and they said APFS was my culprit...but all my other Kontakt libraries load quite fast...within seconds. Is this still the case with the latest Kontakt player?


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## Sarah Mancuso

jaketanner said:


> Just complained to 8dio for extremely slow load times on Insolidus, and they said APFS was my culprit...but all my other Kontakt libraries load quite fast...within seconds. Is this still the case with the latest Kontakt player?


Yes. Hopefully it can be fixed soon in Kontakt.


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## synthnut1

What OS are you guys running on your Mac’s....I’m running a 2020 iMac i7 8 core, Catalina, and from my understanding, I should be, and have been formatting my external ssd’s APFS...My computer came with the internal ssd formatted APFS.....???????


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## jaketanner

synthnut1 said:


> What OS are you guys running on your Mac’s....I’m running a 2020 iMac i7 8 core, Catalina, and from my understanding, I should be, and have been formatting my external ssd’s APFS...My computer came with the internal ssd formatted APFS.....???????


I am on Mojave 10.14.6...my internal is APFS, but apparently, it is true about the formatting because I tried the library on a spinning drive and it loaded much faster than from my SSD.


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## synthnut1

...so your spinning drive was formatted HFS+ ?.... I have another ssd that I will format HFS+ and see how it works out... sure wish I knew about this earlier....better late than never !!...Thanks, Jim


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## jaketanner

synthnut1 said:


> ...so your spinning drive was formatted HFS+ ?.... I have another ssd that I will format HFS+ and see how it works out... sure wish I knew about this earlier....better late than never !!...Thanks, Jim


Yes journaled hfs. APFS is primarily for SSD. But for Kontakt APFS and exfat are not the best formats.


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## Justin L. Franks

synthnut1 said:


> What OS are you guys running on your Mac’s....I’m running a 2020 iMac i7 8 core, Catalina, and from my understanding, I should be, and have been formatting my external ssd’s APFS...My computer came with the internal ssd formatted APFS.....???????



Catalina on APFS and it works fine for me. Just as fast as HFS+ for all my libraries -- everything loads within a couple of seconds max. ExFAT is the one which was horribly slow in Kontakt on MacOS for me (i.e. up to a minute or more to just load a patch, before any samples started to get loaded).


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## jaketanner

Justin L. Franks said:


> Catalina on APFS and it works fine for me. Just as fast as HFS+ for all my libraries -- everything loads within a couple of seconds max. ExFAT is the one which was horribly slow in Kontakt on MacOS for me (i.e. up to a minute or more to just load a patch, before any samples started to get loaded).


My only library that gave me an issue was Insolidus.


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## synthnut1

Ok....so the problem is basically on certain libraries...I was somewhat perplexed about this because the libraries that I have loaded on my external ssd’s formatted APFS load pretty fast...but if they can load even faster, why not try a different format...


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## jaketanner

synthnut1 said:


> Ok....so the problem is basically on certain libraries...I was somewhat perplexed about this because the libraries that I have loaded on my external ssd’s formatted APFS load pretty fast...but if they can load even faster, why not try a different format...


If you have an extra drive to experiment with formatting, I’d try it. I’m gonna do the same and see.


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## HenryBerg

Should I format then my new external SanDisk Extreme SSD 1TB to "macOS Extended" or APFS or ???* ,* or just leave it as it comes brand new from factory?? That's to use it exclusively with my 15" i7 MBP (Mojave 10.14.6)

I'll instal Logic, UA LUNA and *VSL libraries* (SynSE+BBOs), *BBC Core* and *SoundIron* Choirs

thanx!


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## Sarah Mancuso

Using macOS Extended Journaled will avoid Kontakt loading headaches in your future, seemingly especially with non-Player-encoded instruments. Switching from APFS to macOS Extended Journaled (aka HFS+ Journaled) completely solved loading-time issues I was having with various 8Dio, Embertone, and Red Room Audio instruments.


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## synthnut1

Jake and I were going to run both formats to experiment, in which I never did ....It appears to me that certain libraries will benefit from HFS + journaled as Sarah has mentioned....I’ve been running APFS and have not hit a library yet that has not loaded very fast, so I’ve let well enough alone....YMMV


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## Saya

I converted 2 of my 3 SSDs from APFS to macOS Extended Journaled, the loading time for same library has GREAT improvement(especially for spitfire and soniccouture ones).
VSL Synchron installation was approx 10 hours -> 10 min

for mac users, if you can, please format it to macOS Extended Journaled


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## telecode101

..


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## jaketanner

synthnut1 said:


> Jake and I were going to run both formats to experiment, in which I never did ....It appears to me that certain libraries will benefit from HFS + journaled as Sarah has mentioned....I’ve been running APFS and have not hit a library yet that has not loaded very fast, so I’ve let well enough alone....YMMV


I got around to ply moving the 8dio choirs to a 7200 HDD formatted journaled and it was much faster than my SSD formatted APFS. Kind of sucks to have multiple drives formatted differently but journaled seems to be the way to go for Kontakt. Keep a spare drive for non Kontakt players and APFS.


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## Rossy

Secret Soundworks said:


> Hey all,
> 
> I got a Samsung T7 external SSD as I needed more space and a faster drive for my new libraries. By default the drive is formatted as exFAT, but I saw mentioned that NTFS is the better format to use, and that there should be a speed increase in loading libraries with that format.
> 
> I have already installed hundreds of GBs of samples to the drive, but it is still formatted as exFAT as it came by default. I'm on Windows 10 btw.
> 
> Should I back up my libraries and reformat the drive to NTFS and then move the libraries back? Will there be a noticeable performance difference in loading times? (especially for libraries from 8dio, which I heard perform much better on NTFS).
> 
> Thanks!


Theoretically, exfat is designed for external drives and sd cards, there shouldn't be much of a difference maybe except apple can only read NTFS but exfat 32 can read and write, I think. I tested both and didn't see any loading difference in libraries.


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## styledelk

Those of you using HFS+ instead of APFS: you're optimizing for Kontakt speed at the cost of total lifetime (in hours/days/whatever) for the SSD. Just so you're knowingly making that tradeoff.  What that actually translates to-- who knows, every drive is different. But APFS was developed specifically because of wear when using HFS. 

[Spinning disks should still be HFS]


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## Sarah Mancuso

styledelk said:


> Those of you using HFS+ instead of APFS: you're optimizing for Kontakt speed at the cost of total lifetime (in hours/days/whatever) for the SSD. Just so you're knowingly making that tradeoff.  What that actually translates to-- who knows, every drive is different. But APFS was developed specifically because of wear when using HFS.
> 
> [Spinning disks should still be HFS]


For me it's the difference between a patch loading in 2 seconds versus the same patch locking up Kontakt for a minute and a half before the loading dialog actually appears. Hopefully NI will fix APFS loading in a future version, but in the meantime it's not really a choice.


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## styledelk

Sarah Mancuso said:


> For me it's the difference between a patch loading in 2 seconds versus the same patch locking up Kontakt for a minute and a half before the loading dialog actually appears. Hopefully NI will fix APFS loading in a future version, but in the meantime it's not really a choice.


I definitely saw that with Ext-FAT. Somehow I'm lucky that I haven't had it happen yet in APFS. That sucks!


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## Kevinside

win=ntfs
mac=afps

for ssds


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## Justin L. Franks

I think the libraries which have issues in Kontakt with APFS-formatted SSD's are those with thousands of small files, where every individual sample is a separate .WAV or .NCW file, instead of the .NKX monoliths.


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## Michael Antrum

styledelk said:


> Those of you using HFS+ instead of APFS: you're optimizing for Kontakt speed at the cost of total lifetime (in hours/days/whatever) for the SSD. Just so you're knowingly making that tradeoff.  What that actually translates to-- who knows, every drive is different. But APFS was developed specifically because of wear when using HFS.
> 
> [Spinning disks should still be HFS]


Except you're not, really. 

Sample drives tend to be written to a handful of times and then read from all the time. SSD drives wear when being written to, not when read from.

I've got some SSD's that I put sample libraries on than after they arrived, and have never been written to since.


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## styledelk

Michael Antrum said:


> Except you're not, really.
> 
> Sample drives tend to be written to a handful of times and then read from all the time. SSD drives wear when being written to, not when read from.
> 
> I've got some SSD's that I put sample libraries on than after they arrived, and have never been written to since.


Fair point, if that’s all you use then for!
I’m guessing there’s still caches and such getting written there by background processes, but true.
I tend to do a lot of shuffling of libraries between drives to make things fit.


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## gamma-ut

styledelk said:


> Those of you using HFS+ instead of APFS: you're optimizing for Kontakt speed at the cost of total lifetime (in hours/days/whatever) for the SSD. Just so you're knowingly making that tradeoff.  What that actually translates to-- who knows, every drive is different. But APFS was developed specifically because of wear when using HFS.
> 
> [Spinning disks should still be HFS]


If you’re using the SSD for sample libraries, lifetime isn‘t a big issue as the drive is receiving hardly any writes: it’s erase and write cycles that affect lifetime.


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## Shad0wLandsUK

It's threads like that I dread reading...

Since I have about SSD 7-8 drives, I now have a lot of work to do
Many of my libraries are non-kontakt player and they are 8dio as well

Perhaps Kontakt et' all will get built for Linux at some point and we can all say goodbye to niggly, irritating restrictions and limitations of closed-systems (sorry recent linux re-visitor here)

I seem to find myself coming across these types of threads too often recently.
We spend more time tuning and customising these days, than simply working it seems.


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## telecode101

-


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## Michael Antrum

styledelk said:


> Fair point, if that’s all you use then for!
> I’m guessing there’s still caches and such getting written there by background processes, but true.
> I tend to do a lot of shuffling of libraries between drives to make things fit.


Unless you've told the OS to put cache files on your sample SSD's - there won't be any files or background processes writing to the disk. 



telecode101 said:


> Interesting theory. So does writing one byte to a SSD drive that is used mostly for reading data count the same as writing to the entire drive randomlyl?


No - it only affects the that one 'cell' not the whole drive. It is the 'cell's that fail from too many writes, not the whole drive. One of the things APFS does in the background is to try an ensure that all the clusters get the same amount of writes - so they all age together nicely, rather than a certain bunch of clusters getting hammered with all the write operations and the other getting none. It 'ages' the drive more evenly.

If there were a perfect application for SSD's it would be drives full of samples that are not being written to repeatedly...

You might find this interesting.....









What APFS Does for You, and What You Can Do with APFS - TidBITS


macOS High Sierra switched to APFS (Apple File System) for Macs with solid-state storage, but what does it do? Jeff Carlson explains why Apple made the change, how APFS works, and what it can do for you.




tidbits.com


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## Katarisk

agon said:


> That's good to know but I don't remember seeing this option. Anyway, I reformatted my ssd to ntfs and put my libraries back on it and everything works perfectly.


That’s good to know too as I got a Samsung T5 and in a rush to transfer the huge BBCSO Pro onto it as it was clogging up my new M1 Mac hard drive, I didn’t realise it had to be reformatted. Is it possible to reformat the Samsung T5 (which I know will wipe it) and redownload the BBCSO library? I’d rather not have to waste more money buying a new external SSD. This sample library buying is a scarily expensive hobby!! Thanks for any info


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## Justin L. Franks

Katarisk said:


> That’s good to know too as I got a Samsung T5 and in a rush to transfer the huge BBCSO Pro onto it as it was clogging up my new M1 Mac hard drive, I didn’t realise it had to be reformatted. Is it possible to reformat the Samsung T5 (which I know will wipe it) and redownload the BBCSO library? I’d rather not have to waste more money buying a new external SSD. This sample library buying is a scarily expensive hobby!! Thanks for any info


Yes, you can redownload it through the Spitfire app. There is a limit to how many times you can do so in a certain amount of time, but downloading it a second time shouldn't be an issue. If it won't let you download, you just need to contact Spitfire support and they'll reset your limit.

Is your T5 formatted as ExFAT or APFS? If it is APFS then I would just try it as-is. My T5 is APFS and I have had no issues with performance, both with Kontakt and the Spitfire plugin. I did reformat one of my T5's to HFS+ to test performance, but didn't notice any difference at all. ExFAT was another story, which gave absolutely horrendous performance in Kontakt.

If you do want to switch from APFS to HFS+ on your T5, is there anyone with an external drive that you could borrow for an hour? Even if it's an HDD, copying the library to it, then back onto your reformatted T5, that would be quicker than having to re-download the whole thing.


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## Katarisk

Justin L. Franks said:


> Yes, you can redownload it through the Spitfire app. There is a limit to how many times you can do so in a certain amount of time, but downloading it a second time shouldn't be an issue. If it won't let you download, you just need to contact Spitfire support and they'll reset your limit.
> 
> Is your T5 formatted as ExFAT or APFS? If it is APFS then I would just try it as-is. My T5 is APFS and I have had no issues with performance, both with Kontakt and the Spitfire plugin. I did reformat one of my T5's to HFS+ to test performance, but didn't notice any difference at all. ExFAT was another story, which gave absolutely horrendous performance in Kontakt.
> 
> If you do want to switch from APFS to HFS+ on your T5, is there anyone with an external drive that you could borrow for an hour? Even if it's an HDD, copying the library to it, then back onto your reformatted T5, that would be quicker than having to re-download the whole thing.


Wow Justin Thank you for that super quick and really useful reply. As far as I can work out the T5 factory setting is ExFAT and I guess I was looking to format to APFS but haven’t done anything yet. Have ready conflicting reports about compatibility of the T5. Good idea about transferring library to one of my HDDs to just store rather than reinstall BBCSO PRO which takes forever! Great I’ll have a go. So pleased I’ve found this forum. Spitfire do get back to you, eventually but seem only able to answer one thing every 24/48hrs. Busy guys! Thanks again. Kat.


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## Justin L. Franks

Katarisk said:


> Wow Justin Thank you for that super quick and really useful reply. As far as I can work out the T5 factory setting is ExFAT and I guess I was looking to format to APFS but haven’t done anything yet. Have ready conflicting reports about compatibility of the T5. Good idea about transferring library to one of my HDDs to just store rather than reinstall BBCSO PRO which takes forever! Great I’ll have a go. So pleased I’ve found this forum. Spitfire do get back to you, eventually but seem only able to answer one thing every 24/48hrs. Busy guys! Thanks again. Kat.


Yeah, T5's come from the factory formatted as ExFAT for compatibility. MacOS can't write to NTFS drives (they can read from them though), and Windows can't read or write HFS+ or APFS. There are utilities you can purchase which allow this (such as Paragon's software), but out of the box, ExFAT is the only format which is compatible across platforms.

Some people have had issues with performance on APFS volumes, but it is not anything I've experienced with Kontakt or the Spitfire plugin. It's designed from the ground up specifically for SSD's, unlike HFS+ which has had features added and cobbled together over the past three decades.


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## Justin L. Franks

Note: You may need to use the "Locate" option in the Spitfire app to point to the newly-formatted APFS volume. If you use the same volume name, it may work without having to do this.


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## Michael Antrum

Does anyone know if the issues with APFS and Kontakt with certain libraries have been resolved yet ?

I've just purchased an OWC Thundrbolt 4 drive enclosure, so I'm re-jigging all my sample SSD's. It's time consuming so I'd rather do it right first time.

Also, I have a 4TB SSD drive exclusively full of VSL stuff, and currently it's formatted APFS - does VSL have any issues with APFS, or is it just a Kontakt thing ?

Cheers,Michael.


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## jaketanner

Michael Antrum said:


> does VSL have any issues with APFS,


Not as far as I can tell. I have several VSL libraries and they all load pretty fast. And it’s also not all Kontakt libraries. For me, the biggest culprit is idio and their choir libraries. Other than that, I barely notice any issues.


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## synthnut1

Perhaps sometime in the future there might be a “sticky” or 2 on various topics that come up....I don’t own only a couple of VSL products that come with part of the Komplete library....Of all the libraries that I own, there are only a couple that load slowly in APFS....Sorry, but I’ll have to report back..I’m not so sure that they would load any faster in the older format...???


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## Michael Antrum

I heard mention that it affected Embertone too....

Thanks for the advice. I think I'll leave one drive on HFS+ as I do have at least one library that is affected.


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## mscheurer

Hey all, 
sorry to resurrect this old thread, but...
My main sample drive is an SSD formatted as APFS, I find that some libraries, 8DIO & some Pianobook won't load their GUI's, if I move the folders to a drive that's formatted as Mac OS Extended everything loads as it should. Has anyone come across this?

Cheers
Michael


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## jaketanner

mscheurer said:


> Hey all,
> sorry to resurrect this old thread, but...
> My main sample drive is an SSD formatted as APFS, I find that some libraries, 8DIO & some Pianobook won't load their GUI's, if I move the folders to a drive that's formatted as Mac OS Extended everything loads as it should. Has anyone come across this?
> 
> Cheers
> Michael


Yes. 8dio does recommend their libraries be journaled. This is not their fault but Kontakt. Depending on how fats your ssd is, journaled is best for Kontakt instruments to load at their fastest.


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## mscheurer

jaketanner said:


> Yes. 8dio does recommend their libraries be journaled. This is not their fault but Kontakt. Depending on how fats your ssd is, journaled is best for Kontakt instruments to load at their fastest.


I do get the speed thing and have seen big improvements with MacOS Extended Journaled even when just copying files, I just don't understand why the GUIs isn't loading from APFS drives, makes no sense...


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## jaketanner

mscheurer said:


> I do get the speed thing and have seen big improvements with MacOS Extended Journaled even when just copying files, I just don't understand why the GUIs isn't loading from APFS drives, makes no sense...


That I don’t know. Sorry


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## Daren Audio

mscheurer said:


> Hey all,
> sorry to resurrect this old thread, but...
> My main sample drive is an SSD formatted as APFS, I find that some libraries, 8DIO & some Pianobook won't load their GUI's, if I move the folders to a drive that's formatted as Mac OS Extended everything loads as it should. Has anyone come across this?
> 
> Cheers
> Michael


I ran into the same issue when bringing my Samsung T5 (AFPS formatted) over from Intel Mac to M1 Mac. It would load properly on Kontakt Stand-Alone but not as a plug-in inside a DAW (GUI was missing). I also checked if the plugins are native or need to run on Rosetta.

Make sure you have the latest version update of Kontakt. I was one update behind on my Kontakt so downloaded the latest version. This did the trick for me and all plugins load properly after restarting my system.


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## webs

Thanks for this thread everyone! I was having some weird quirks and load times for some Kontakt instruments on a drive that was APFS, and it *appears* going back to "Mac OS Extended, Journaled" may have solved it.

For anyone on recent OS where Disk Utility doesn't _seem_ to let you erase a drive back to anything except APFS... I found this article helpful: 









Reverting an APFS Drive to HFS+ the Easy Way


When APFS was introduced in Mojave, we featured an article showing the rather arduous method of reverting an APFS drive back to HFS+. It's now gotten easier.




eshop.macsales.com





(yes, it's no fun to have to back up the drive contents, erase/reformat and reinstall the files, but it's nice to have it working better!)


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## LinusW

I've done a few tests with both NVMe and SATA SSDs and I could not reproduce the GUI issues mentioned above. Also, NI recommends APFS on their web.


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## Justin L. Franks

I have noticed slow loading times in the past with SSD's formatted as APFS, specifically with libraries that used individual files for each sample instead of the NI monoliths. But with recent versions of Kontakt, things appear to be comparable, but I have not run any actual tests. All of my SSD's are formatted as APFS, and everything loads quite fast, without the (rather obvious) slowdowns I've experienced in the past with certain libraries.

I do have a HDD which is partitioned partly with APFS, partly with HFS+, so I can test that with the current version of Kontakt if anyone is interested, but the results might not carry over to SSD's. The next time I need to expand my SSD storage, I'll be sure to run some HFS+ vs APFS tests beforehand.


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## NeonMediaKJT

Hey guys,
I’m sorry for reanimating this thread but I’m having some issues.

Currently I’m copying my sample libraries from an external hard drive to two external SSDs. The first drive I filled up was a Samsung t7 formatted to Mac OS extended journaled. This seems to have copied just fine.

When I went to transfer the rest of my libraries to the other ssd (a sandisk extreme), the finder just will not copy certain library folders to the drive (8dio ones specifically). It gets stuck on “preparing to copy files”.

Any ideas why? I was able to transfer a few other 8dio libs to the t7 no problems.

EDIT:
Turns out transferring on the t7 also gets stuck. The libraries I can’t seem to get in these drives on Mac are a few 8dio libraries and Nashville scoring strings. I also tried using the cp transfer technique and this wouldn’t do either.

An I missing something? 

Cheers


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## telecode101

how old are the ssd drives? also, how are they connected to computer?


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## synthnut1

check all your drives and make sure that they are formatted Mac journaled and not APFS….Certain programs (8dio included) don’t want to load properly using APFS….and make sure you have the most recent Kontakt that you can run on your systems OS….What OS are you running in your computer ?


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## NeonMediaKJT

telecode101 said:


> how old are the ssd drives? also, how are they connected to computer?


Brand new, connected via usb c


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## NeonMediaKJT

synthnut1 said:


> check all your drives and make sure that they are formatted Mac journaled and not APFS….Certain programs (8dio included) don’t want to load properly using APFS….and make sure you have the most recent Kontakt that you can run on your systems OS….What OS are you running in your computer ?


They’re formatted to Mac OS expanded. Everything is freshly setup as it is a brand new Mac


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## synthnut1

You better look again….Mac’s from OS 10.12 up until now are formatted APFS…format mac extended was pre OS 10.12…..Sounds like this might be your problem..


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## HCMarkus

Can you just re-download and install the problem files? Apple is pretty firm on recommending APFS for SSDs these days.


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## NeonMediaKJT

Ok so I had a look and only one of my ssd’s allow me to format in afps the other only allows exfat and Mac OS journaled. I wonder why


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## styledelk

NeonMediaKJT said:


> Ok so I had a look and only one of my ssd’s allow me to format in afps the other only allows exfat and Mac OS journaled. I wonder why


Sometimes this is because it’s registered as a boot drive instead of just an average external. Do you have more than one partition on it?


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## NeonMediaKJT

styledelk said:


> Sometimes this is because it’s registered as a boot drive instead of just an average external. Do you have more than one partition on it?


I just have it how it came out of the box


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## rAC

Have another carefu look at it in the drives part Of preferences check tha it is set to show all drives not just Volume. I suspect that you will find the drive has been formatted with a MS/FAT partition table once you delete that you should be able to format it APFS.


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