I'm thinking of upgrading from BIAB 2008 Ultra to BIAB 2017 UltraPlus on my Windows PC.
Unfortunately, my PC only has an internal 120GB SSD, and I only have 37GB of free space available.
I noticed that PG Music recommend having at least 200GB of free space before downloading and installing BIAB 2017 UltraPlus, so even if I was to uninstall BIAB 2008 Ultra beforehand, I'm still only going free up another 18GB, leaving around 55GB of free space available.

However, I do have an external HDD with approx. 1.2TB of free space, so I could download and install the software to that (or at least the Realtracks).
Could anyone tell me if they run BIAB from an external hard drive, and does it run well ?
I'm aware that the Audiophile version is actually supplied on a hard drive, so I'm hoping that the answer is going to be yes.

My PC's specs:
AMD FX (tm)-4100 Quad-Core Processor, 3.60 GHz.
8.00 GB installed RAM
Windows 10 Pro, 64-bit operating system, X64-based processor.

Andy,

PG Music also sell the UltraPlusPak on a USB drive. I've had a few of these over the years. It performs fine. Many users on here run the program directly from such a drive.

All you will need to do is to install BIAB on your computer with the minimum installation (around 20 megs if I recall correctly). This sets up Windows so that BIAB will run. The BIAB directory and all associated files will then reside on x:\bb where x: is the USB drive's letter assignment.

While you can easily install BIAB and Realband directly to a USB drive, you could also get that drive from PG Music for a little extra. Something to watch out for, though, is that hardware deliveries seem to attract duties on arrival in the UK. I daresay someone from the UK can shed a some more light on this.

All the best,
Noel

• my latest song : This Road

Thanks Noel. According to the packages screen, UltraPlusPAK for Windows is only offered as a D/L or on a HD, so I'll have to contact PG Music to see if they will supply it on a USB Flashdrive.
Unfortunately, I think that the import duties and shipping costs may make it disadvantageous (especially for a HD), but I will check it out.
I'm not actually short of storage space because I've got three external HD's, so obtaining it as a download would seem to be the most efficient option (timewise and cost).

If BIAB only takes up around 20MB on my internal drive, then I expect that I'll be fine installing the Realtracks and Realband on one of my external hard drives. I just wanted to know if anyone had encountered any problems running BIAB with Realtracks and Realband on an external HD.

NEW! Band-in-a-Box®... on a USB Flash Drive!

"The flash drive option will not be offered if you have an UltraPlusPAK, EverythingPAK, or Audiophile Edition in your cart, since these ship on a portable hard drive."

Have you price a 240gig SSD, you should be able to clone your system drive to it.

Andy,

The hard drive you mention is a USB hard drive (that's what the symbol above the HD means). All you need to do with this drive is...

1. Connect it via USB.

2. Run the minimum install (as mentioned above).

3. Run the program from the PG Music USB drive.

Regards,
Noel

I suspected that it must have been an external HD that you were referring to, Noel.
I'm well aware that both drives connect to a PC's USB port, but PG Music refer to one as 'HD' and the other as 'USB' on their packages screen.
Hence the confusion when you said that you received UltraPlusPAK on a USB drive.

I've got an empty 2TB external drive which will be ideal for installing the Realtracks and Realband onto, so I'd much rather choose the download option to save the shipping and import duty costs. It will mean that I receive it a lot quicker and it will also eliminate the chance of the package going astray or being damaged in transit.

I just wanted to know if there were any known issues when running BIAB with Realtracks on an external HD, on a PC with similar specs as mine. (eg. caching, latency problems).

Thanks for the info though.

You should have no problem running BIAB and RealBand from that 2TB external hard drive, so using the downloads should be fine. Just make sure to install everything you need from those individual downloaded installers.

Just run the main installer and change the defaults to say that's where you are going to install BIAB/RealBand to. That way, the minimum stuff that needs to go on your C: drive (fonts, DX effects, etc) gets installed there; everything else can get installed to the external 2TB drive.

Just make sure that when you use BIAB, that drive always has the same drive letter (sometimes Windows will change it on you).

I have generally found (but it's not always consistent) that if I label the drive and then intentionally assign a drive letter (say X: or Y:), but somewhere away from the "next available drive letter", that it remembers that the next time you plug it in. For example, I've got an external USB drive that stores all my installation applications (along with all my authentication codes and whatnot) that I use to install all my apps (don't have to have a stack of CD's or DVD's or other folder locations) assigned to S:. My computer picks it up as drive S: everytime I connect it, regardless of which USB port I connect it to.

A few random thoughts on drives, BIAB and speed:

RealTracks and DealDrums would be an ideal type of file to store on a SSD because the files are read, not written to. As I have the audiophile version, that is not practical for me to do yet; the SSD would have to be well over 1 TB.

I load my BIAB main program from an SSD, and it definitely improved the initial loading time and overall performance when I did this. I have a suspicion this will not be as much of an issue in the future.

The external hard drive supplied by PG Music for the audiophile version is USB3. I don't know what they use for the regular non-audiophile version. Is it USB2?

The speed of reading anything from an external drive, USB 3 or just 2, is considerably slower than the speeds obtainable from an ordinary internal hard drive. In other words, an internal hard drive might be faster than a USB SSD drive (I have one, but not for BIAB). In my case, I use an internal 10,000 rpm Western Digital Black Caviar drive for my RealTracks and RealDrums. The conventional hard drive speed is slower, at 7,200 rpm. Laptops may only run at 5,400 rpm (making the replacement of a laptop boot drive by an SSD a particularly nice speed improvement).

Having said all that, the performance of my laptop with the PG Music external drive, even with the audiophile version on it, runs just fine.

UPDATE CORRECTION: The drive is a USB-2 not USB-3 drive, as originally posted.

Matt, the regular version of BIAB also comes on a USB-2 drive; however, I don't know the specs of the internal drive itself in terms of rotation speed, which will affect the throughput you get. SSD drives will basically saturate a USB-3 interface; mechanical drives not so much.

+++ Here's +++ an interesting write-up on the throughput you can expect from different configurations.

Thanks John. At one recent point, the regular BIAB was shipped on a USB2 drive (I have a bunch). I think they then changed to USB3 only for audiophile. I'm glad all drives are now USB3. EDIT: this has been called into question. Does anyone know, was regular (not audiophile) BIAB 2017 shipped on a USB 2 or 3 drive?

Of course, it depends a lot where you plug them in, and with what else. The USB bus runs at the speed of the lowest speed device connected.

Excellent info. Thank you John and Matt.

It's good news to hear that the program can run trouble free from a SSD USB3 drive.

I suppose that if I do encounter any problems running it from my 2TB external HD, I can always purchase an additional SSD external USB3 HD and copy everything across to that.

I wouldn't want to install everything on my internal SSD drive anyway, even if it did have plenty of spare capacity.
I like to keep it free from clutter, which is the main reason why I keep three external hard drives in reserve for particularly large library files that are not accessed that often.

FWIW I'm pretty sure the last drive I got was USB2, but that may have changed in 2017. I chose the thumbdrive option this year, since it was a new change, mine included the Bonus tracks, and with 20 gig free on it when it arrived, it'll probably get some use .. maybe as much as the HDD would.
I see 5 PGMusic HDDs from here in a neat little pile. That'll probably be enough for another couple years. <grin>

I keep my most updated, licensed and current copy on E: (one of my internal drives) so I have enough copies of BiaB/RB at any point in time. My E: drive is one of eight 500gig drives and is used only for BiaB/RB.
Plus I still received the download files in my account to fall back on.
Many of us don't realize we have a current copy backed up in 'My Account' on this site. Just log in, plug your license number in and you're good to go.

/I'm paranoid of data loss, so I also keep copies of my keys for the last few years in a text file that gets copied to multiple drives. Having your keys sure speeds things up when restoring software.

If you have only a 120gig SSD, as mentioned before it would be a good idea to price a 240gig - 256 - 480 SSD to replace the main with a simple clone, unless you have the Audiophile that needs a 2T drive.
You can put the old 120gig SSD in a USB 3 enclosure.

Thanks for your helpful advice Pipeline.

In your opinion, am I likely to experience a significant advantage by installing the full BIAB 2017 UltraPlus package on a new internal 240Gig SSD rather than simply installing the main BIAB program on my existing 120Gig SSD and Realtracks/Realband on my empty 2T external HD ?

If the answer is yes, then I would consider installing a 240Gig SSD BEFORE I purchase and download the BIAB 2017 UltraPlusPAK.

Perhaps the best way forward would be to choose the latter option first, and if I experience any problems with performance, I could then install a 240Gig SSD and re-install the whole BIAB package to it.

Does that sound feasible to you ?

Right now the best way is download the PG Pak to an external drive, install it selecting C:\bb and X:\RealTracks X:\Drums then you are good to go, no import VAT.
Then at a later date if you find a good priced SSD grab it as they are getting cheaper all the time.
You can just clone the drive, swap it and copy the RealTracks & Drums folders to C:\bb\, then in Prefs set the RT & Drums to the bb folder.

Thanks again. I will follow your advice.

Andy, I realized a nice speed improvement by putting the program on an internal SSD, even while leaving the RealTracks and RealDrums on a regular hard drive.

One thing you were correct to be aware of is putting too much on a hard drive. The general rule is never let it have less than 15% free space, to avoid thrashing. A similar guideline applies to SSD drives, but for different reasons having to do with drive longevity, not loss of performance.

Yes Matt, I've already began de-cluttering my internal SSD in preparation for BIAB 2017 (well it's an
ideal time for a spring clean anyway).

There's a fair amount of stuff on it which can be transferred to one of my external hard drives.
I'm planning to go ahead with the install by the weekend. Looking forward to trying it out, and hopefully it will inspire me to create some good music.

Your comments remind me of one of my pet peeves, that many software vendors force their programs to be installed onto your boot drive. Sometimes you can relocate them, sometimes not if they rely on a Registry entry that cannot be modified.

Good luck.

UPDATE: Actually, now that I think about it, I may have misspoke. I believe the regular version BIAB (as RHARV indicated) is USB2. I was going from memory, and confused one of my USB3 drives with the USB2 from PGMusic.

That being said, it's pretty easy to clone from that USB2 to a USB3 drive. I have picked up several USB3 2GB drives from warehouse clubs for about $80 on sale.

For me it doesn't matter, because my 2011 vintage computers only have USB2 ports (however, the USB3 drives work just fine on them).

Whenever I upgrade my computers, then I'll get the bandwidth of USB3, as well as SATA3 (I have several SATA drives capable of 6Gbs; however, my computers only have SATA2 connections available, so I'm stuck at 3Gbs for now.

OK, I modified my post above. Thanks.

After calculating the shipping and import duty costs, I've decided to purchase the package on a HD. It wasn't quite as expensive as I was expecting in the end, and it will be useful to have.

I'm still going download it while I'm waiting for the HD to arrive though.

You'll have a lot of fun with it, I'm sure.

Good choice Andy. Yes, you won't be disappointed.