So many hard drives, so little knowledge...

ZV Yoda

Hi folks,
Sorry for the long post… I’m a relative newbie to home recording & have had my home set up for about 6 months now. I want to make sure I optimise my workflow/real-time processing power while also ensuring I have a good file back up system in place.

Here’s my current set up:
20” Intel iMac (early 2008 model), 2Ghz, 250Gb drive, 2Gb RAM (running OSX 10.5.2)
Digi 003 rack & Digi Command 8 control surface (running Pro Tools 7.4.2)

External hard drives (I'm not actually using any of these in the studio yet):
750Gb Medion USB/SATA/eSATA, 8MB cache, 7200rpm (new, but pretty noisy – not used at present)
250Gb Maxtor One Touch Firewire/USB, 8MB cache, 7200rpm (5 years old, but fast/quiet/reliable – currently used as the home pc backup & storing my music collection)
Maxtor One Touch 3 USB 80Gb 5400rpm 8Mb cache (new - not used at present)
Everything is on the iMac internal drive at the minute, with no back up plan other than memory sticks (I know, I know). I’ve also recently invested in (but not yet installed) Sample Tank 2.5L plus some other virtual instruments/plug ins, so memory usage needs to be sorted now to avoid problems in the future. I’ve 3 external HDDs sitting around, so I want to get the best configuration I can with what I have.

I’ve done a fair bit of on-line research, & from what I gather, general opinion seems to suggest the following “best practices”:
• iMac internal drive: contains the usual Mac applications & audio specific applications (inc Pro Tools & ptf session files). Ideally partitioning the drive… prob not an option for me, since I’ll lose what I have already?
• External drive 1: Sample database & actual audio/wav files referenced by the ptf sessions
• External drive 2 (if possible) : Act as a back up for the whole lot

Here’s what I’m thinking:
• iMac internal drive – use only for Mac & audio applications (Pro Tools) plus ptf files
• 250Gb Maxtor drive (connected via Firewire) – use for sample databases & actual audio/wav files referenced by the ptf sessions
• 750Gb Medion drive (connected via USB) – use as back up for all of the above (via USB or SAT?... no sure which is best)
• Not sure if there’s any place for the 80Gb at all… I may just use this as back up for the home pc (I’m using the 250Gb Maxtor drive for that at present, so would need to do a clean up & then dump whatever I keep onto the 80Gb & set it up as home pc back up).

Does this sound like a good plan? Would I expect to see latency due to PT having to go to an external drive for samples/wav file, or will the Firewire connection be fast enough?
How does eSATA fit into the equation... is faster than Firewire & if so, should I use the 750Gb for the samples/WAVs instead?

So before I delve into the world of eSATA / Firewire / HDD formatting, I’d really appreciate any advice from folks in the know about how to make the best use of the drives I have. I have the potential here to create a monumental cock-up if I get it wrong.

Thanks in advance!

jimi_t

Muffle the 750gb with polysterene or something and use it with eSATA for anything your streaming. Given the RPM/Interface its by far the fastest option.

Backup your internal drive to the 80gb. Format. Partition. OS and system specific files in one half, PT and everything else in the other.

Use your 250gb to auto backup the internal drive twice a week and to sync on shutdown and you're gravy. Isn't there some great mac specific app for this (TimeMachine or something?)