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Joined: Dec 2002
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Journeyman
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Hi, My BIAB 2011 is up and running well......I'm learning all the time! I copied everything on to one of my inernal hard drives....that seemed the best option for me. My "Computer guru" has built a tower from old parts, with a small hard drive...XP Pro.....that I want to use EXCLUSIVELY for BIAB, in another room. I've tried it out using BIAB's own hard drive.....with files opened from another ext. 500gb drive, where I keep my back-ups. Question........I'd like to copy BIAB to another ext. hard drive........so that I can run it in much the same way as I do on my main PC. It obviously only has to be big enough to run BIAB successfully. Any advice on brands, sizes, what to look out for...bearing in mind my "lack of experience?  Joe G.
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160gb or larger, what with the ability to shrink the realtracks now it could be even smaller, but I like to maintain headroom both for future upgrades and the fact that a drive with freespace on it tends to run better longer than one stuffed to the gills. These days I'd go with 16mb cache, minimum, although I have indeed run BiaB from 8mb cache USB drive and that's about all there is to it. RPM isn't as important as it used to be, if the drive is 5400 or better, it will run BiaB, with faster speeds being more desirable, of course, but certainly not mandatory.
BiaB doesn't stream from the hard drive, rather it loads a song into system memory, so the hard drive issue is not the same as it would be for use with many DAW recording programs or the like.
So pick one that is affordable and of a brand that you happen to know to be reliable from experience or internet reviews and go for it.
Just don't buy the extreme lower-priced offerings, that's likely to be trouble. The same can be said for the extreme higher-priced stuff as well, while nice, such is not really a necessity to run BiaB at all.
--Mac
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Joined: Nov 2008
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Expert
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Don't know if you read my posts...but...as an old guy who hasn't EVER bought an external drive (except for BIABs) for his XP PC's, my recent plunge into the terrabyte world has been documented here on another response.
What I intend to do is buy more Seagates...a flood of Seagates that with a price under a hundred smackers a terrabyte, and features that offer USB-3 speed...
I'd rather buy a flock of these than a flock of memory gigabytes of memory or new PC's.
Anyway, I think I'm hooked on Mr. Job, with his "touchy-feeley" hardware and cloudy futuristic approach for the creatively bent artist, whether into art for art sake or music for musicians sake!
I still have my original powerbook with, what was it, 4 megs of ram that you could "double" with available softare...unbelievably it "did its work" with eary DAW software for the Mac Products...but...that is long ago and far away from today's harware and techy advancements...all I'm saying is ...
"Give Piece of Seagate a Chance", and "why can't we all just get together for a "Piece"??
Yamaha...Motif ES-8, Motif Rack, CS6X
Korg...Karma,Triton Classic, PA-80, M-1+
AkaiSampler-S5000, Roland.. X5080 Rack/G-1000 Arranger
Various Guitars/Basses Amps Pedals Rec.Equip.
Plus, BIAB 2015 and Sonar Platinum 2015 Upgrade from Cakewalk's Sonar X-3
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Joined: Dec 2002
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Journeyman
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Hi Mac, Thanks for the advice. Point taken about value for money. Here's a link to one that I had considered.....what do you think? Joe G. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Toshiba-500GB-2-...89&sr=1-184
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Joined: Dec 2002
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Journeyman
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GDaddy, Yes, I had indeed, read some of your posts.............probably where I got the idea from! I also thought of Seagate 500s.......but Google revealed quite a few 'sudden failures'......could happen to any drive I suppose? You obviously think highly of them. They are certainly good value....better more than less.....and they would fill all Mac's requirements. I'll have another look at Seagate.......will I mention your name?!!  Regards, Joe G.
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Joined: Dec 2002
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Journeyman
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GDaddy, I looked further at a drive whose specs I sent to Mac.....and realised that the cache was only 8mb. this model would seem to be more suitable.....opinion? Regards, Joe G. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Seagate-FreeAgen...mp;sr=1-1-fkmr3
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I am a Western Digital guy, because whenever I have had a failure (twice in all these years) you call, get an RMA number, and send it. Boom. Done. No questions asked.
Seagate may be equally as customer centric but I have not had any dealings with them.
I will always suggest, however, that BIAB be run from the internal drive. Just the difference in running data through the motherboard bus rather than from a USB port....
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Joined: Dec 2002
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Journeyman
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Eddie, I take your point ...but the installed C drive is too small....and as he hardly charged me.....I'll take what I've got! That's why I'm going the ext. drive route. As I said...I have BIAB on a n internal drive on my main PC. Thanks for the interest. Joe G.
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Joined: Mar 2004
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Quote:
Hi Mac, Thanks for the advice. Point taken about value for money. Here's a link to one that I had considered.....what do you think? Joe G.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Toshiba-500GB-2-...89&sr=1-184
Joe,
I have been running a 500G Toshiba for a few years now (looks a bit different than this one, perhaps older model thats all) with no issues. And man all I can say is this thing is running more than it is resting, very often for hours at a time. No issues to date.
Good Luck!
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Joined: Dec 2002
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Journeyman
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Posts: 491 |
GDaddy, I've taken your advice!  Bought a 500gb Seagate. I hope all will go well with the copying. I'm hoping to copy the whole of BIAB 2011 & Real Band on to the NEW Seagate & run them from there on the "bitsa PC". Is there anything I should be looking out for. The PC only has a C drive.......so I'll make sure (from my own point of view) to open BIAB on D drive first...then the files from my back up drive. Thanks to all. Joe G.
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Joined: Nov 2008
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Expert
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Hey Joe...
I just realized you're in Scotland!!! And I'm telling you to check out these Seagates at Sam's Club, a division of Wallmart. Do you people even understand the difference between a "WallWart" and a "WallMart"?? (Just kidding, of course!...so don't get your Kilts in a bind!
Is Scotland goin' broke like we are over here in "big government Land"?? Don't answer that...at least you'll have you're kilts and bagpipes to exist, over and above any problems your hard drives will give you.
Anyway, I'm just in a funny mood thismorning...perhaps it's this damn Florida heat, huh?? I just had a big helping of coleslaw...hope it didn't have any fresh cucumber in it!!
If I lived in beautiful Scotland, I don't think I'd worry about anything... with all the beautiful lasses you've got there!! But, I do have a very loving Cairne Terrier!!
Thir breeks o' mine, my ainly pair,
That ance were plush, o' guid blue hair,
I wid ha' gi'en them off my hurdies,
for a blink o' the bonie birdies"
No, my lad, we ain't talkin' bout Seagates, Sea-Seals or ....we jus drinkin' our Skotch!
Yamaha...Motif ES-8, Motif Rack, CS6X
Korg...Karma,Triton Classic, PA-80, M-1+
AkaiSampler-S5000, Roland.. X5080 Rack/G-1000 Arranger
Various Guitars/Basses Amps Pedals Rec.Equip.
Plus, BIAB 2015 and Sonar Platinum 2015 Upgrade from Cakewalk's Sonar X-3
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Joined: Dec 2002
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Journeyman
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Journeyman
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Thanks for the verse GDaddy.......glad to see that your meds are still working!  Regards,from a cold, windy. but still 'bonny' Scortland!
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Ask sales and support questions about Band-in-a-Box using natural language.
ChatPG's knowledge base includes the full Band-in-a-Box User Manual and sales information from the website.
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