Recording to external disk?

Because usually your system disk is busy running the shop. You can get away with it for a while if your projects are small, but after a while, things will start to slow down, and audio may not always have top priority over system functions. Result - gliches. If you are a privateer, maybe no problem, but if you are doing it for a living, it would be almost suicidal.

Most professionals have been using a MacPro with several internal disks, system, audio, and maybe a couple of sample library disks. Lately with the advent of Thunderbolt, external disks are stating to be a more reasonable option, which has been bringing the iMacs and laptops more into play.Firewire is OK, but if you are running dozens of tracks with lots going on, as well as a firewire interface, things can start to bottle neck.

if you have the option of only one internal drive, make sure your extermal audio drive is AT LEAST firewire 400. 800 is much better, and eSATA or Thunderbolt is as good as an internal drive. USB2 is not a feasible option for external audio, unless you are only talking about half a dozen tracks, and you don't mind a bit of skittishness.

Hope this helps.

That's exactly what I would expect would happen. Yes, record to your external drive. What interface are you using, and is it sharing the Firewire 800 port, and if so, is it down speeding to 400?

I would be getting at least one other drive to back up to. There's no reason you can't use cheap USB drives for this if money is an issue. It's really only an *** saver if your main drive crashes, which does happen. Just don't try to run big audio projects direct from your USB backup drive. And while you're at it, clone your system drive. Or use Time Machine backup. Just not to your audio drive, because that's what you want to be protecting. Nervous people would keep an additional backup drive at a different location, in case of fire or theft. That happens too.

Depends on what's important to you.

cauchy wrote:

to record to my external drive I just choose my external drive when prompted to save a project?

Yes, it is as simple as that.

cauchy wrote:

Sounds too good to be true.😉

In that case it probably won't work on your Mac...😝

What happens after you've recorded a track and you're trying to save it to either your mac or your external hard drive but nothing is saved. When I try to recall the song it says air audio is not found. Help?

big_alwhite wrote:

What happens after you've recorded a track and you're trying to save it to either your mac or your external hard drive but nothing is saved. When I try to recall the song it says air audio is not found. Help?

Did you elect to save all audio files, apple loops, alchemy content, Sound Library content and so on... along with the project, in the save dialog box?