I hate to be the voice of paranoia, but... I currently have BIAB 2009.5 (and Real Band) on a 500GB, 7200RPM drive that I use exclusively for my audio programs. What's been the general experience with you folks as far as the responsiveness of the drive that the programs are shipped on? And what if the drive fails?
mine just did.
I was having problems from the start and dl'd everything to my c drive. Then biab went corrupt for a reason and I plugged in my hd and it wont load.
I need to send it back.
My BIAB 2009 HDD was bad out of the box. I contacted PG Music by email. They shipped a replacement upon receipt of the UPS tracking number for the bad drive. I believe I received the replacement in two days from the time I gave to package to the shipper. The replacement drive is still going strong.
Richard
Here's the deal, and I hope that maybe I'm not misreading... When Biab, or anybody for that matter, sends something on a hard drive, it's merely a convenience for storage space, as opposed to sending out 20 DVDs of stuff... You get the hard drive.. You use it to install the program on the hard drives that you are using for your programs presently, from the hard drive you got from pgmusic... Once you install the program, you put the hard drive away that you got from pgmusic... that's the equivalent of in the past receiving 20 dvd's... Do not use the hard drive as another hard drive to use wiht your programs...
My experience with the hard drive has been very good... I received it, I installed the new program, there were some, files that I realized I hadn't copied over so I took it out of it's leather pouch again, and afterwards, it's been sitting in a drawer now...
However, as another suggestion, because I had this problem and it had nothing to do with the hard drive, after you install the new 2010, download the upgrades cause they're going to fix some bugs that are with the program right out of the box... But this is not unusual with any new release so it's par for the course...
I received the USB drive in Australia in 5 days and all worked excellently. I did not try the drive to see how it performed over usb, I simply used it as an installation drive and put all the programs on C: Rightly or wrongly, I reasoned that since it's quicker to copy files from one location to another on the hard drive than it is to copy from flash disk to hard drive (or hard drive to flash disk), my 7200 rpm hard drive would be faster at running BIAB.
Tradivoro,
You CAN run BIAB from the external hard drives, and from what I've heard, it isn't that bad. In fact, I'll be setting my laptop up to do that, instead of installing it to the hard drive.
However, I would agree that you should probably install it on your main computer.
As always, read the licensing agreement.
Gary
Here's what I do.
I received 2009 on an 80G drive, 2009.5 on a 160G Drive & 2010 on a 160 G Drive. I installed 2009 on the C and put the drive in the drawer. I installed 2009 to the C and put it in the drawer. I erased the 80G and use it as a backup for my songs. I installed 2010 to the C AND updated the older 2009.5 drive to 2010 put them both in the drawer. I now have TWO copies for backup and they just sit in the drawer.
Next update I will do the same. Erase one of the 160G drives and update one to the next. This way I'll always have two backups and I'll accumilate drives for son storage and backup as well.
The hard drive version (particularly this year at 80 odd gig) has been a treat. I also managed to get about 5 years of updates deleted from my C: drive, and just run BiaB and RealBand from the USB drive - great idea by PG!!
Roy
I ran 2009, 2009.5 and now am running 2010 from the PGMusic supplied hard drives with no problems I couldn't solve.
Of course, the first thing I did was make a complete backup of every folder and file on the drive to another drive, just in case. All you need do is copy and paste Select All from one drive to another.
--Mac
Like Mac the first thing I did was to back up the PGMusic HD to another external USB drive. Then I loaded BB and RB onto my computers C drive. I kept the RTs and RDs on the PGMusic HD and use them from there.
All HDs will eventually fail so it is very important to back them up IMHO.
Quote:
All HDs will eventually fail so it is very important to back them up IMHO.
That's not exactly true.
The only time the HD will fail is when the user has not backed up the data.
That is one of those "Murphy's Law" situations, of course.
if you back up the data properly, the drive will then last forever.
It will still be running fine long after the format is no longer supported by any current OS, long after any files on the thing are no longer needed, it will run *forever*.
But -- If you attemp;t to run that same drive only one time without backup, it will crash and burn on ya.
Of course.
--Mac
<<Tradivoro,
You CAN run BIAB from the external hard drives, and from what I've heard, it isn't that bad. >>
Oh, there's no question about it that you can, that's not the point I was trying to make... The point is, that's your backup, that's what you bought and if in the future you get a new machine, you install the biab from this drive to your new drive, or if you present system fails and you have to reinstall all your programs, you use the hard drive you bought from pgmusic to reinstall the program, just like in the old days, you would use floppies and now CDs...
I would never use a program delivered on hard drive and use that hard drive as a drive... If it dies due to use, you just lost the entire program and you gotta go out and buy it again... I have various orchestral libraries that I've bought that came in hard drive and they're still in their hard drives, however, I transferred them to the hard drive that I use to store musical instruments... What I bought from the manufacturer, that stays as the backup for always.. Just like CDs and floppies..
My BIAB HD wouldn't always get recognized via my hub so I decided to install it on another USB HD that seems to work fine.
I like having the original HD stored safely away just in case.
Thank you all for your input. I'm embarrassed to admit I never thought about actually transferring all the files from the HDD to my computer and using the USB drive as backup instead of ordering the discs to do the same thing. DUH! Happy holidays!
Quote:
Quote:
All HDs will eventually fail so it is very important to back them up IMHO.
That's not exactly true.
The only time the HD will fail is when the user has not backed up the data.
That is one of those "Murphy's Law" situations, of course.
if you back up the data properly, the drive will then last forever.
It will still be running fine long after the format is no longer supported by any current OS, long after any files on the thing are no longer needed, it will run *forever*.
But -- If you attemp;t to run that same drive only one time without backup, it will crash and burn on ya.
Of course.
--Mac
Maybe, just maybe, my last laugh from the forum in 2009.
Very funny Mac!
Later,
Quote:
Quote:
All HDs will eventually fail so it is very important to back them up IMHO.
That's not exactly true.
The only time the HD will fail is when the user has not backed up the data.
That is one of those "Murphy's Law" situations, of course.
if you back up the data properly, the drive will then last forever.
It will still be running fine long after the format is no longer supported by any current OS, long after any files on the thing are no longer needed, it will run *forever*.
But -- If you attemp;t to run that same drive only one time without backup, it will crash and burn on ya.
Of course.
--Mac
This is so true 
My views are exactly like doremus. Now, I see how the external hard drive is used----or at least the purpose most are using it for. Guess I'll go that route next time instead of the DVD discs. Since I use BIAB for live play, I just saw the external drive as another piece of gear to keep up with, to plug in, etc.., and I didn't want to go that route. Less is more for me.
I love this forum.
I'm picking up my HD tommorow, and will now take everyone's advise and load BIAB onto my computer, keeping the HD safely put away in case I need it down the road or for upgrades, etc.
If I hadn't of read this post, I probably would have just used it from the HD.
You have options.
I like using the USB drive and have been doing so for the last several versions of BB that have shipped on the USB drive. This way, I can work on songs on my desktop computer and transfer everythng over to the laptop for performances or travel very easily. Of course, the first thing I did was copy a complete backup of the shipped USB drive to another drive, for archival purposes, just in case.
--Mac
Thanks for that post Mac.
I was thinking that my best bet would have been to load BB onto my laptop since it's newer and faster. But, I see that if I work from the portable hard drive, it doesn't use much space after all.
The other reason for putting it on my laptop is that I'm using it for practicing the upright bass. There's no way that the bass will fit into my computer room. Good idea of transfering what I want onto the laptop though.
Thanks again. As I mentioned, I'm learning so much just from reading the posts online here.
Scotty
There's nothing preventing you from taking the install to laptop drive route, either.
Just be sure to use the Installer file from the USB drive and carefully read, understand and follow the directions in the readmefirst file before diving in.
--Mac