Wondering if my Intel i3 9100 is good enough for BIAB 2023 UltraPAK?

I want to upgrade from my 2022 MegaPAK version, which works fine on the i3 9100.

Would this be a go or no-go for the 2023 UltraPAK?

Also, would the UltraPAK external HD work with USB 2.0?

In my opinion the answer is that you will be fine. I have not noticed any new features that would stress a system in 2023 more than in 2022.

An i3 of your 2018 vintage should be well more than enough to run BIAB just fine. 4 cores, decent sized cache, decent frequency. It's better than what I have on my backup system.

I also believe the supplied USB drive will work OK with USB 2 since USB is backward compatible, but of course you know it's designed for USB 3. In other words, it will work; it just won't work as fast to generate RealTracks.

The Intel i3 9100 should be fine for the 2023 UltraPAK. The same Band-in-a-Box and RealBand programs are provided in all packages, ProPAK, MegaPAK, UltraPAK and Audiophile. The amount of content each package contains is different.

The 2023 UltraPAK hard drive works fine on a USB 2.0 port.

However I would go into the computer power management or device settings and make sure "sleep" setting is disabled, or turned-off, for all USB ports. Sleep is a power saving timer setting that turns off usb port power when the port is not accessed for some time. You want an external hard drive to always have power.

Leo.

anytime you need info on a processor just enter in google..
'cpubenchmark.net and the model of the processor'

eg in your case cpubenchmark.net i3 9100.

and you will see the processors performance stats.

SO in your case ….


https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i3-9100+%40+3.60GHz&id=3479

notice particularly the 'math scores' downpage as music production software // dsp uses math. huge amounts of it. so comparing math scores using cpu benchmark can be rather useful imho.

let me say tons of songs have been done with less than a 9100.BUT there is one 'wrinkle' and a 'depends'.

eg if you anticipate using huge trak counts outside biab and also very importantly plug ins that hog cpu processing cycles.
in summary the 9100 might choke on huge track and large numbers of plug ins needing lots of 'cpu grunt'.
so in this respect without getting further details from you tis difficult to say..eg do you anticipate a change whereby you use new cpu hogging plug ins ??

having said the above if your current biab version works i see no reason why 2023 wont.

further if your longer term needs are to run huge track counts in a daw with gobs of cpu plug ins that demand lots of cpu grunt…you might consider one of the upper end processors in the following list depending on trak n' plug in count needs…..

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html

but of course the processor costs get very high rather like joining an elite golf club…lol.

in my case i just got a new pc...a ryzen mini pc running biab/rb/reaper which cost peanuts.. and am a happy little lad.

but ymmv i dont run loads of cpu hogging plug ins etc etc.
my typical song maxes out at 40 traks and a smattering of low cpu useage plug ins.

have a great year

om

Appreciate all the replies!

No, I don't use a whole lot of tracks, and I have just a modest amount of plug-ins, which in any case I don't think I would ever use in BIAB. So I should be fine.

Why would I need the UltraPAK HD to always have power? I had intended to just unplug it from the USB port when I was done with a session.

And of course just plug it back in for the next session. Why is this wrong?

Nothing wrong the way you are using the HD. If you keep the HD plugged in and are a heavy user, that's a different story.

Presumably you dismount the device from the Operating System first before unplugging it?

Thanks for that tip, but I never used an external HD before. What is "dismount the device?" And is that a PITA process?

On Windows, usually on the right-hand side of the task bar, there is a "safely remove hardware" icon. You should use this before unplugging the HD. In my experience, occasionally you need to click on it twice to eject, but it is not in general a PITA process.

Here is a handy tip.
Right-click 'This PC' --> Manage --> Disk Management. Find the UltraPAK HD, right-click and 'change drive letter'. Set it to a letter like "U" (doesn't matter, as long as it's later in the alphabet).

The reason for this is the drive letter used for the UltraPAK can change if you are disconnecting / reconnecting it, if you also have some other USB devices, and this can sometimes cause some hiccups (for example BIAB might look for a recently loaded file at G:\bb\songs, when your drive is in fact now H:\bb\songs.

That’s a great tip by Andrew. All my USB external drives have drive letters from L through T for that reason: the drive letters remain constant. This dates back to the very early days of personal computers when your floppy disk was drive A, and they made the boot drive C because someone just might have another device using B!

The reason you must always eject a drive properly is that there may be data in the buffer not yet written to the drive, so a file can become corrupted. This is not as likely with BIAB because you are mostly reading files, not writing them, if you only use the drive for RealTracks and RealDrums. But don’t take the risk; eject the drive properly before unplugging it.

I use a handy utility for this called USB Safely Remove. It can deal with the case Andrew mentioned where a drive doesn’t want to let go.

Aha! "safely remove hardware" is all what "dismount the device" meant. Do some computers (Macs, presumably) use "dismount the device?" So that's all it is, I was afraid there was a 13-step cable-pulling, 63-click process involved lol

Thanks for that tip about renaming the HD!

Different terms for eject and dismount; same thing.

Another reason to eject / safely remove the drive is to avoid a head-crash, where the drive head remains somewhere over the disk surface when power was removed, rather than correctly parking it in its home position.