external drive for samples in VSTi's, worth it?

[b4serenity]

For your test you should have looked disk through-put not CPU usage but unfortunately Ableton doesn't have a disk usage meter. At my previous job I wrote automated tests that stressed the disk I/O of DAWs by recording 64 tracks while simultaneously playing back 64 tracks (and then reduced that track count till the DAW could could complete a 2 hour recording without dropouts). This is where you'll start noticing the benefits of using an external drive or disk round-robin.

Justin3am, you seem like you have the type of experience in these matters to help me...from my previous post...

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So....I have a laptop w/ a 7200 drive. I know I'll have to test this myself to find out for sure but at least in theory would it be better to use just the one drive for everything OR have the recording of the music sent to a USB 7200 external drive? And would another external USB 7200 drive also be good for samples?

To me, it seems to make sense that even though USB is slower than an internal drive that it could still help speed things along by utilizing 1 or 2 extra USB drives instead of just the one internal drive. I seem to read both points of view here and there on the net...
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Thanks for your help!!!

[Neon Breath]

@b4serenity: yep indeed all this is very theorical. This is better than that, that is better than this, etc... I strongly suggest you to test it on your own system and configuration and see the resulats on your performance system. This is what I did and tested with different configurations and realise, for my situation, that in practice in my DAW it doesn't really matter and I didn't see any difference using a FW external drive or not. After all, what was important to me was to see if I could see real results IN MY DAW, not only in theory on paper...

[justin3am]

It depends on how big you projects are. If you are playing back less than 20 tracks and recording less than 8 at a time, it shouldn't make a difference if you use your internal drive or an USB drive. Once you get into high track counts, I'd suggest getting a eSata or FW drive.

Personally, I like to keep my projects on an external drive just for the sake of my sanity and keeping my file structure organized.

[Neon Breath]

Personally, I like to keep my projects on an external drive just for the sake of my sanity and keeping my file structure organized.

Yes, good point. And as a backup too.

[b4serenity]

Thanks Justin3AM!