# Help! Need more storage!!!



## Tom Auger (Jun 11, 2021)

So I maxed out my NI13 (Ultimate) (Collectors) AND I have 500Gb of Spitfire, and then a bunch of other stuff.... and nowhere to store all this musical cornucopia.

My Samsung T5 external SSD (500Gb) has been doing great for Kontakt for a few years now, but as I contemplate a 4Tb SSD approaching $1,000 I have to ask... can I get away with an HDD? What's been working for you? Splitting Kontakt stuff vs. non into separate disks? 

Aaargh! all these awesome libraries that I own and cannot play with! Suggestions? (serious AND jokes are welcome, but I'm getting desperate....)

T


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## d.healey (Jun 11, 2021)

HDD is fine, that's all we used to have a few years ago 

Rather than getting one big one it's better to get several smaller ones and split your libraries across them, that way you'll get faster read speeds overall (this is also true for SSDs but doesn't matter as much). Also be sure to get the fastest drives you can.


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## Technostica (Jun 11, 2021)

You do need to budget for storage to go with the libraries. 
There's no need to install and keep everything on an SSD. 
With Komplete CE there is bound to be stuff you will hardly or never use. You can move that to a HDD. 
But keep your workhorse stuff on an SSD. 
No need to spend $1k on a 4TB SSD. 
One option to keep the price down is to buy a 4TB SATA 2.5" drive and pop it in an enclosure. 
If I am patient I can do that for £240 - £300.


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## Reid Rosefelt (Jun 11, 2021)

Most of my Komplete libraries are on a regular 7200 hard drive. If something loads too slowly, I move it to an SSD. 

And if any of my libraries load too slowly on an SSD, I put them on my NVme drives.

I don't think there's any reason to waste expensive SSD space if you are satisfied with the speed.


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## LauraC (Jun 11, 2021)

I use 2Tb SSDs and they are much more cost effective. I back then up on a couple of 14Tb HDDs. I Don’t know where you live but 2.5” SATA internal 2Tb SSDs about 200-250USD, and the externals are about the same.


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## sostenuto (Jun 11, 2021)

LauraC said:


> I use 2Tb SSDs and they are much more cost effective. I back then up on a couple of 14Tb HDDs. I Don’t know where you live but 2.5” SATA internal 2Tb SSDs about 200-250USD, and the externals are about the same.


Agree ! Newer 10 /12 /14 TB 7200 HDD(s) are good place for large Libs _not_ demanding SSD.


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## Technostica (Jun 12, 2021)

How much do sample libraries cost per gigabyte on average?
How much do SSDs cost per gigabyte?
The difference is a factor of at least twenty I'd say.
So for every thousand you spend on libraries you are only spending fifty on storage.
Sure, you can buy more premium SSDs, but this is more as a baseline to compare with HDDs.


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## Tom Auger (Jun 22, 2021)

Thanks everyone, for some great advice!

Many of you speak of load times in terms of making the determination whether to store on HDD vs. SSD. However, what about Kontakt real-time performance? I remember a few years back I had an improperly formatted drive and my Kontakt libraries (Grandeur, notably) performed horribly during playback - dropping samples. At the time the NI support staff told me it was the hard drive (format), and indeed, reformatting it actually solved the problem.

So let me just ask the dumb question: other than library load time, is sample playback a consideration when deciding whether to store Kontakt libraries on HDD vs SSD?


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## vitocorleone123 (Jun 26, 2021)

Also, if you don't need every single sample library available all the time for every project, consider moving them to a backup/slow location (e.g., NAS) - still available if you just have to try it out, and can be moved in a few minutes back to the main drive(s) if/when required. I don't have that many libraries, but it's not nothing - I only keep half of them on my SSD and the rest on the network.


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