PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows BiaB Audiophile SSD arrived today

Ordered six days ago,,, delivered today via UPS.
Much smaller than I expected... seems to work ok...

Nice!
Looks like cased m.2?
Flac was a great move. As Matt mentioned, my plan for the next year would be same, to just download the update portion of tracks. No more accumulating of Hard drives!!!

I am guessing this drive should have around 300gb free?

Mine arrives tomorrow.

I'm showing 124GB free

Yes, confirmed. I did some fast tests and the Flac RealTracks I chose at random took up 38% of the space that the corresponding WAV files did.

The drive contents are 48% of the prior size overall. That makes sense because WMA and style files etc are unchanged. I already had some new Flac files from 2025 which also skews the comparison.

I’m amazed how small and light the new drive is.

I think I remember that they included WMA version on that drive too, that' why my math not adding up.

Yes, WMAs are included.

Mine arrived today also. After the large drive that arrived last year, I had to do a double take to make sure nothing was missing as it was small and compact. 48% in size - so about 1TB in size to do a full install, Matt? I work on my laptop, so 1TB is generally the size most of the latest laptops come in, and so storage is at a premium.

Sounds right. I have 2 internal M.2 drives of 2 TB each. If that was a question, then I agree, I do not know any stock laptop where installing BIAB audiophile internally makes sense.

Lol the box is huge, seems full of emptiness.

Yes, I thought maybe all that was in the box was a cable!

Hello everyone. Can anyone tell which USB connection have it, USB3.0 or.....?
Considering that this year's upgrade has been 30 GB of flac files, and has 124 GB free, we can deduce that this drive will be able to store at least three more upgrades.

Did you see that the cable end contains an adapter that can be removed to get USB A? At least that's what the audiophile upgrade drive has. Does that help?

"we can deduce that this drive will be able to store at least three more upgrades."

This drive also has WMA version on it. If you move it somewhere else, I believe it's safe to assume it will go a long way.

Yes, totally sane Rustyspoon. If you think about it, it is even possible,I know because I've checked it out, to have the Realtracks folder on one drive and the Realdrums folder on a different drive. Logically you need one more usb port. But it can be useful at some point.
When Biab2028 we will make the decision. I hope we can discuss it then

Hi Matt. I'm going to clarify my previous question: does anyone know what transfer speed the ssd has, Usb 3 or Usb 3.1 or Usb 3.2. I live in Spain and I don't expect to have it as soon as others. Best regards

My laptop only has a 512 GB drive but it also has a slot for a 3.5" drive to be added. I was thinking about adding a 2 TB drive and making that the BiaB drive. The new little SSD drive is really cool.

I thought someone said 3.2. I’ll see if I can find that.

mgrimaldi

fyi when i receive the pg drive i immediately copy it to the fastest m.2 ssd drive i can get. last year only cost 50 bucks includeing enclosure.
well worth it. the drive transfer speed with my ryzen pc is crazy fast.

haveing copied the pg drive to the crazy fast m.2 i store away the pg drive and use the copy daily attached over usb 3.
no probs...pg content gets genned in a blink of an eye.
i always do a minimal install pg option....and do all work off the crazy fast copy.

merry x

om

Matt,

You weren't imagining it. Rustyspoon mentioned it in the Pre-Release Testing forum. I think this is what mgrimaldi wants to know.


--Noel


★ my latest song: How Do I Love Thee? (vocals by Synth V’s vocaloid, Natalie)

Hello,

Yes, this compact 1TB SSD is the Kingston XS1000 and it is USB 3.2. Definitely a big size difference from the previous Audiophile Edition drives!

The details on Amazon state: “Kingston XS1000R 1TB SSD | Pocket-Sized | USB 3.2 Gen 2 | External Solid State Drive | Up to 1050MB/s | SXS1000R”
You can check out the link on Amazon.com as well: https://www.amazon.com/Kingston-Digital-XS1000-External-SSD/dp/B0CCQB7BN7?th=1

Thanks!

Hello!

Thank you for pointing out the card says 3.0. We will get that updated!

Best,

Thanks to Matt, Noel and Catherine for the information.
USB 3.2 (1050 mb/s) is significantly faster than the previous 2024 Hd (approximately 70 mb/s). Very good news

Yes, it was a question, but also we wondering out aloud! Matt, I apologize for being unclear.

My current drive it 1TB, which I have pared down from 80% full to 40% full by moving files to second 2TB drive which has a LOT of immovable (or difficult to remove) Native Instruments sounds, EST's etc. It was a nightmare installing and registering those, so they will stay.

I have about 600MB available on my main drive. On chat, the rep indicated that the drive does have about 750GB of 1TB on the shipped drive, and so a full install won't happen. My remaining files on my main drive are my DAW (Mixcraft 10.5) and the files I have created from mixing songs there. That's basically immovable.

I am therefore about to do option 2, as described in the install process below (I pasted it from the drive - I hope I am not wasting too much space or time pasting it here deep in a forum response).

Just for fun, I clicked on Option 4 "Custom Installation" where in the process, as I clicked next, it is interesting to note that the FLAC files alone are "585,110.7MB" (see attached file BinaBox01 121424) - that right there confirmed for me I don't have enough space, unless I don't write and record any more songs!!

Thank you for reading (or ignoring) my out-loud musings.

Tom Marvan / Dunabr7376



---

TEXT pasted from the Install Process:

Band-in-a-Box© and RealBand 2025 Setup

In the next screen, choose the type of installation you prefer.

Option 1: Run Band-in-a-Box© directly from this USB hard drive --- Minimal disk space required. This will install and register the PG Music Notation Fonts, along with a few other things such as VST plugins that need to be installed on your computer hard drive to function properly. This option will not install Band-in-a-Box©, RealBand, or RealTracks on your computer hard drive. You can use the programs as they are, pre-installed on the USB drive.

Option 2: Install Band-in-a-Box© on my computer hard drive, but leave the RealTracks on this USB hard drive --- about 35 GB disk space required. This will allow you to run the Band-in-a-Box© and RealBand programs from your computer's hard drive. This also allows you to upgrade an existing version of Band-in-a-Box© that you have installed on your computer. You can still use RealTracks and RealDrums, but they won't take up extra space. Instead, you will use the RealDrums and RealTracks preferences dialogs to specify a custom location of the folders (X:\bb, where X is the drive letter your computer has assigned to the USB drive).

Option 3: ALSO Install Band-in-a-Box© AND RealTracks on my computer hard drive --- about 180 GB disk space required. In addition to the Band-in-a-Box© and RealBand program files, this will copy the RealTracks and Drums folders to your computer's hard drive. Since these are the audio files, this option requires much more hard disk space, around 130 GB more than option #2, and may take about an hour to complete.

Option 4: Custom Installation - Let me choose exactly what I want to install (Advanced). This will allow you to select all the specific components that you want to install. This option is useful if there is one particular component you need to reinstall.

Please see the "ReadMe First" file on the hard drive for more detailed information.

Have Fun !
PG Music Inc.

This is step to get the same audio format on Win & Mac, if the Win version could just be made now to decompress m4a also and phase out wma.
"BiaB Audiophile SSD arrived today" mine was supposed to be here on the 12th via UPS. You would think UPS would charge less now for shipping with a much lighter weight, maybe PG could put in a smaller package.

Were you naughty?

If so "he's gonna find out..." ♩♪♫♬

Hello Tom.
I installed Biab2025 using Biab Install Manager. I don't have the SSD yet. There you don't have to select between the four options that do appear when installing from the ssd. You just tell it which unit it will be installed in. I choose C:/ and it will be only 35 or 50 Gb.
But the "Realtracks" and "Drums" folders can be copied to other external or internal drives and tell Biab where to find them.
"Options/preferences/Realdrums/Custom drums folder"
And "Options/preferences/Realtracks/Custom Realtracks folder
You can even put the "Drums" folder on one drive and the "Realtracks" folder on a different drive
So by doing so you get what the aforementioned option 2 proposes
Best regards

My BIAB arrived today! It's incredible speed. It left PG Music on December 10, crossed the international date line and had an extra day added to it, and it is now December 16.
The difference in drive sizes between last year and this year is enormous! It's now more "Band In A Matchbox" rather than "Band In A Box"


★ my latest song: How Do I Love Thee? (vocals by Synth V’s vocaloid, Natalie)

That is a great idea!

Namely, I currently have the Real Tracks and Drum Tracks folders set to D (my where my SSD drive is plugged into, including the newly-arrived one) anyway, why not just load the program as I always do on my first internal 1TB drive (C:), and direct the files for Real Tracks and Drums to my second internal 2TB drive (E:)!

Hmmm, I am loving the portability of the little drive and prefer spending time on composing, but I may have to do spend some time rearranging things this way. Thank you for making a better path clear to me!

Hmm, I wonder how I would do this. Run reinstall and tell it load Real and Drum tracks to E:?

See size comparison, though I would rather the flac files were 24bit 48khz, maybe in 2040 we will get that