EDITED APRIL 11, 2012:

Here's a massive, but important bump:

I'm considering these two hard drives, and I'm hoping that some power users will share their opinions on the products:

GLYPH GPT50 1TB

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/GPT50-1TB/

OWC MERCURY ELITE PRO 1 TB

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/MEA Q7S1TB32M/

I'm looking for something that is very durable and lasts a long time. It also must be quiet, since I will be using the drive for sample streaming.

GLYPH is also releasing an external SSD drive soon; I am not going to purchase it, as I doubt it will be in my price-range. Still, I'm interested.

In any case, would anyone be able to corroborate the quality/lack of quality of the two products?

THE ONLY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO IS THE CAHCE SIZE: OWC 64mb, GLYPH 32mb. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR ME?

Thank you everyone!

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OLD FOR THE RECORD:

Hello! The main premis behind this topic revolves around hard drive priorities. Cache size, external/internal, etc.

After quite a while, a few people from KVR and Steinberg forums helped me find this external hard drive to go with my macbook pro 17 inch, a computer that need extra space and rpm speed desperately.

http://www.tekserve.com/store/382/Desktop_Hard_Drives/-15549

Before I continue, here are my system specifications:

Cubase 6.0.5 64-bit
Macbook Pro 17 inch
2.66 GHZ Intel Core i7 (Dual Core)
8GB 1067 MHz DDR3 RAM
5400 RPM HDD 500GB Capacity - 350 GB reserved for Mac OSX 10.6.6 150 GB reserved for Windows XP Pro SP3

Notice a problem? All of my samples are stored on a 5400 rpm internal drive. From my understanding, this is bad on two counts.

My question is: should I go for the above hard drive, which has 1TB of space and 32mb cache (runs at 7200 rpm), or should I replace my computer's internal drive with one with a larger capacity, and a 7200 rpm speed?

--if I purchase an external drive, I'd have to do a lot of files transferring, kontakt instrument re-saving, and so o. How would I accomplish this, considering I have many libraries such as those included in Komplete 8?

Also, is cache size a priority? The 64 mb OWC model is $250; $60 more than its 32mb/smaller capacity counterpart.

What is the best plan that I should follow, in my case? Will the internal 5400 rpm drive continue to act as a bottleneck, even if I use an external 7200 rpm drive with a 32mb cache via firewire 800?

I'm looking forward to a response.

Thank you all in advance!
Last edited by synchronizer on Wed Apr 11, 2012 1:51 pm; edited 2 times in total

This is extremely important, so I hope that responses will come soon.

Do you have songs which use ALOT of audio tracks?
Do you constantly have error messages about the disk not being fast enough?

(Also I wasn't aware they made a dual core i7)

I use a lot of sample libraries (not audio tracks) to create songs using midi. For some reason, Cubase's audio constantly crashes and locks up, even at an acceptable buffer rate. I get red asio spikes, and in the Mac OSX Activity monitor, it looks like the internal drive is put to its limits. Most likely, the streaming is not fast enough. What is my best course of action? 9It could also be that Apple's macbook pro i7s aren't very good. I hear the cache is small.)

This is very confusing. Are you using OSX or XP? Sounds like youre using both. OSX dosnt have ASIO. You may have 2 seperate problems. ASIO spikes can be caused by CPU power saving modes, I dont think you can do much about that on Mac.
Last edited by UltraJv on Mon Mar 12, 2012 11:36 am; edited 1 time in total

Really? I thought I made it clear, but I guess not. I bootcamped Windows XP and gave it a partition with 150 GB, leaving the main Mac OSX drive with the rest. I use Cubase 6 on Mac OSX, and it's still called ASIO, even though it's actually using coreaudio.

Again, a 5400 rpm drive, and so on. Either the problem is Cubase (plausible, but others with dual core macbooks with worse specs don't report problems), the CPU (not the best i7... Mac Pros are better suited to music work), or the hard drive. I'm running out of space to store the sample libraries though, so I need extra storage in any case.

I remember there are certain issues with Bootcamping XP and low latency audio. I cant recall exactly what they were. Im sure someone will put you on track...

Okay--- Windows XP has no bearing on this. I should not have even mentioned it. I'm using Mac OSX with Cubase 6 for mac. I only mentioned XP in case partitioning the drive had any possibility of hampering the performance of Mac OSX and sample streaming. Sorry for the confusion.

i understand - you would like a faster sample drive - the one you have selected is a deluxe model (having FW, eSATA, USB) - you would probably be just as happy with an external Western Digital 7200 rpm for about $130.. unless you would like to replace your internal drive with a WD 750gb 7200rpm for around the same $180..

Western Digital - WD is a good brand right now for performance and reliability.. i have a Caviar Black on my main DAW and another Black on the way for my media pc..

Thanks; I'm glad I sorted out all of the misinformation. I'd also like to know how important the cache size is...and if an external via fw800 would be better than a new internal drive (I'd have to hire someone for at least $100 to get the internal drive installed too, since I'm not much of a hardware tech person.) Anyway, I'd like to know what would be best for my system. To be honest, i'd rather get a Mac Pro with 8GB or RAM and two separate internal drives, but that would cost more than $4,500.

Heres some info on tracks and hdd speed :

http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php?t=841581

an internal drive would be identical to external basically as far as transfer speed - you may get slightly faster response time from an internal, but no consumer hard drives max out firewire 400 or SATA - some very expensive SSD drives come close - but, the bottleneck will still be the physical drive - not the interface..

Okay thanks... but what is the importance of the cache size? Is the hard drive I chose good, even though it's 32mb cache instead of 64? It's too bad that macbook pros don't have esata interfaces. An expresscard wouldn't get the full speed or much more speed than a simple fw800 would right?

the difference between 4mb and 16mb cache is big - but, 32 to 64 is not such a great jump - the 64mb drive will probably be slightly newer, more expensive and offer SATA 6.0gb interface which most computers don't have yet.. am i right?

no matter how you hook it up - it will be as fast as the physical drive itself - these input/output buses on new computers are made to handle vast amounts of data - more than one consumer hard disk can muster.. that is why i suggest WD Caviar Black or an internal Scorpio Black..

...but those are both internal drives. I need an external one since I'm using a laptop. (I COULD get an enclosure from OWC but that would be even more pricey.) Thanks for the cache information though. 32mb seems fine then.

Let's say I DO get the scorpio black for my laptop---that would be $100 or $150 more for installation.