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Dual hard drive, setup help
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Dual hard drive, setup help

DJCheLu 7:23 PM - 20 August, 2016
I finally ordered an SSD for my old MBP (laptop crashed and took 10 minutes to reboot during a live set). Going to be running it as the boot drive with all my music and videos on a 2TB internal as well.

Can i just leave everything on the 2tb as is and keep it as a bootable drive back up, but transfer everything else but the music folder to the SSD using carbon copy cloner? How would i set it up to do this?

How do you install everything but the Itunes music folder on this drive? I have carbon copy cloner, is it as easy and just transferring everything except that folder?

Is there a way to have certain folders go to the 2tb, for example iTunes to only store on it. Maybe my downloads folder as well. Pretty sure its a setting somewhere in iTunes.

Will I have any issues with losing serato data but changing the location of the music folder in iTunes since I use it for organization? Last time i updated iTunes it took a few months with serato help to fix all the locations.

Trying to make this as seamless as possible since I DJ every weekend. I have already started to google most of this but i figured other djs have already done this since im late to the SSD party.

I read up on the MAC fusion drive option but it doesn't seem like it would work well with me only putting data on one drive and everything else on another.

Thanks for the help!
LeJan Sound 9:12 PM - 20 August, 2016
I have the same setup and i found it best to keep OS and applications on the primary (1TB SSD) and music on a (2TB SSD) in the optical drive bay, this is probably overkill but i intend to keep my mid 2012 MBP for a very long time.
Just make sure to copy your serato folder over to the secondary drive along with your music files and you should be fine
DJCheLu 7:46 PM - 22 August, 2016
Quote:
I have the same setup and i found it best to keep OS and applications on the primary (1TB SSD) and music on a (2TB SSD) in the optical drive bay, this is probably overkill but i intend to keep my mid 2012 MBP for a very long time.
Just make sure to copy your serato folder over to the secondary drive along with your music files and you should be fine

Perfect thank you! I was doing some research and I think I can leave everything on the existing drive and just link my SSD iTunes media folder to the existing. That way I have a bootable back up if the SSD fails.

Did you just carbon copy it over to the SSD or do a fresh install? I read that fresh installs don't really matter on OSX.
LeJan Sound 9:09 AM - 23 August, 2016
I used carbon copy to clone my original main HD to the SSD and just copied the mp3 files from my external to the new secondary internal SSD drive, I then used Time Machine to back up everything on a 4TB fire wire external HD and that stays at home in my office, i have not tried your specific setup because from most places i researched the general idea was that you want your OS and Apps to be on the main drive and just music or videos on the second one, a clean install maybe what you need to do for your setup, good luck
Culprit 6:09 AM - 25 August, 2016
Been eyeing that 2tb ssd for quite a while.
DJCheLu 4:35 PM - 25 August, 2016
Quote:
Been eyeing that 2tb ssd for quite a while.

I was trying to stay away from going all SSD because I spin videos and I read that constant large file writing causes early failure or something. Im new to SSD though so I have no idea.
Culprit 7:08 PM - 25 August, 2016
Quote:
Quote:
Been eyeing that 2tb ssd for quite a while.

I was trying to stay away from going all SSD because I spin videos and I read that constant large file writing causes early failure or something. Im new to SSD though so I have no idea.


These will be issues in 10 years or so yes, not for new drives. large writes for any drives cause wear and tear
LeJan Sound 3:45 AM - 26 August, 2016
I have had my setup for over a year now with zero problems, i have a mid 2012 MBP 2.3 GHZ 16 GB of RAM and 3TB of storage total can't do that with the Retinas as far as i know so i am all set for awhile, SSD's have no moving parts so they should last a long time (should)
DJCheLu 4:40 PM - 26 August, 2016
I installed the data Doubler and SSD last night. only took a few minutes. I put the SSD in the OEM section per OWC recommendations. I then booted to the original HD and formatted the SSD. Carbon copy everything but ITunes Media folder to SSD. Made SSD the start disk. Then changed the iTunes storage location to the old drive.

Now I have everything working perfectly and if the SSD fails I can boot to the original drive and keep playing. Only down side I can see is all my Serato playlists can no longer find the files now...... but that's why I mainly use ITunes.
Culprit 6:55 PM - 26 August, 2016
Quote:
I installed the data Doubler and SSD last night. only took a few minutes. I put the SSD in the OEM section per OWC recommendations. I then booted to the original HD and formatted the SSD. Carbon copy everything but ITunes Media folder to SSD. Made SSD the start disk. Then changed the iTunes storage location to the old drive.

Now I have everything working perfectly and if the SSD fails I can boot to the original drive and keep playing. Only down side I can see is all my Serato playlists can no longer find the files now...... but that's why I mainly use ITunes.


www.amazon.com

Take out that backup drive, slap this one in, and put the backup drive inside the very same enclosure. You got a portable backup just incase the ssd doesnt boot, and you got 2TB of extra storage for your crates.

I have done this with 3 macbook pro's so far. (1) 2010, and (2) 2012 Macbook Pro's. Works Great.
DJCheLu 7:18 PM - 26 August, 2016
Quote:
Quote:
I installed the data Doubler and SSD last night. only took a few minutes. I put the SSD in the OEM section per OWC recommendations. I then booted to the original HD and formatted the SSD. Carbon copy everything but ITunes Media folder to SSD. Made SSD the start disk. Then changed the iTunes storage location to the old drive.

Now I have everything working perfectly and if the SSD fails I can boot to the original drive and keep playing. Only down side I can see is all my Serato playlists can no longer find the files now...... but that's why I mainly use ITunes.


www.amazon.com

Take out that backup drive, slap this one in, and put the backup drive inside the very same enclosure. You got a portable backup just incase the ssd doesnt boot, and you got 2TB of extra storage for your crates.

I have done this with 3 macbook pro's so far. (1) 2010, and (2) 2012 Macbook Pro's. Works Great.

I already do this :) I have a full back up in an external with firewire. SO technically I have two bootable backups in case an internal drive fails. The back up is only 1tb though so hopefully I don't go over that with video storage too soon.
Culprit 9:22 PM - 26 August, 2016
nice :)
DJ Fa2LA 6:34 PM - 10 November, 2016
Could use some advice here. Just installed a SSD, and moved my old HD to the optical drive. Installed latest OSX and made SSD the startup disk. Meanwhile I can still view and access my old HD, where all my music still is.

Copied _Serato_ folder into my new Home > Music folder, open Serato and did the Scan ID3 to break all the links. Then re-located the files which all works perfect. My tracks play and everything is great UNTIL I close Serato. When I re-launch all the tracks are gone, as if import never happened.

Left my old HD as is, so it's still bootable while I try Sierra and 1.9.3. Anyone else have a similar issue before? Already submitted a help ticket and started a thread. (prior to seeing this one)
DJCheLu 7:06 PM - 10 November, 2016
Quote:
Could use some advice here. Just installed a SSD, and moved my old HD to the optical drive. Installed latest OSX and made SSD the startup disk. Meanwhile I can still view and access my old HD, where all my music still is.

Copied _Serato_ folder into my new Home > Music folder, open Serato and did the Scan ID3 to break all the links. Then re-located the files which all works perfect. My tracks play and everything is great UNTIL I close Serato. When I re-launch all the tracks are gone, as if import never happened.

Left my old HD as is, so it's still bootable while I try Sierra and 1.9.3. Anyone else have a similar issue before? Already submitted a help ticket and started a thread. (prior to seeing this one)

My issues was no songs were being saved in new serato crates. Turned out I forgot to make the new SSD read and write privileges. Rebooted after that and everything works great.
DJ Fa2LA 7:47 PM - 10 November, 2016
I even just tried manually dragging a single track from my old HD into Serato. Played fine, then quit and was gone once I relaunched. Sucks because I was really hoping to keep my music where it was on the HD.

I even tried rebuilding the V2 database. For some reason Serato really doesn't like that path to my old HD. Maybe because it's no longer the startup disk, but other DJ's use external drives.
DJCheLu 8:51 PM - 10 November, 2016
Quote:
I even just tried manually dragging a single track from my old HD into Serato. Played fine, then quit and was gone once I relaunched. Sucks because I was really hoping to keep my music where it was on the HD.

I even tried rebuilding the V2 database. For some reason Serato really doesn't like that path to my old HD. Maybe because it's no longer the startup disk, but other DJ's use external drives.

Im not sure, I use ITunes for music management so all I had to do was redirect iTunes folder to the old drive and all my songs came up fine. All my previous serato playlists are useless now though. All songs are lost.
DJ Fa2LA 9:32 PM - 10 November, 2016
@DJCheLu You are the man! Never thought of that being the issue because I've already read & written to that drive so many times. But now that it's no longer the startup disk I guess configurations needed to be changed. Files are retaining now! Thanks again man!
DJCheLu 9:34 PM - 10 November, 2016
Quote:
@DJCheLu You are the man! Never thought of that being the issue because I've already read & written to that drive so many times. But now that it's no longer the startup disk I guess configurations needed to be changed. Files are retaining now! Thanks again man!

You are very welcome!
DJ Marv the Maverick 8:05 AM - 14 November, 2016
I did similar on macbook pro. I never lost any crates or tracks during the whole migration.

I don't use iTunes.

I remember having to reconfigure the home folder to the drive in the optical bay.

I installed a new 128gb SSD and 2TB HD at the same time.

After the install, I had my previous HD in an external enclosure

Then copied everything in my old Music folder (music and Serato files) to the new HD

And installed Serato on the SSD

Did the relocate file feature and that's it.
DJ Fa2LA 2:31 PM - 14 November, 2016
2TB that's sweet. You must have a lot of tracks. I'm 500GB solid state and 500Gb. Couldn't believe how easy the solution was. Now if Sierra could get NS7ii support I'd have all my gifts for Christmas!
DJ Marv the Maverick 3:28 PM - 14 November, 2016
I had a 1TB HGST drive rather in the optical bay.

I was getting into videos then,so it filled up quite quickly.
JDforKing 4:01 PM - 14 November, 2016
Quote:
I did similar on macbook pro. I never lost any crates or tracks during the whole migration.

I don't use iTunes.

I remember having to reconfigure the home folder to the drive in the optical bay.

I installed a new 128gb SSD and 2TB HD at the same time.

After the install, I had my previous HD in an external enclosure

Then copied everything in my old Music folder (music and Serato files) to the new HD

And installed Serato on the SSD

Did the relocate file feature and that's it.


What MacBook Pro are you currently using?
DJ Marv the Maverick 4:47 PM - 14 November, 2016
Quote:
Quote:
I did similar on macbook pro. I never lost any crates or tracks during the whole migration.

I don't use iTunes.

I remember having to reconfigure the home folder to the drive in the optical bay.

I installed a new 128gb SSD and 2TB HD at the same time.

After the install, I had my previous HD in an external enclosure

Then copied everything in my old Music folder (music and Serato files) to the new HD

And installed Serato on the SSD

Did the relocate file feature and that's it.


What MacBook Pro are you currently using?


2014 15" Pro with non replaceable Ssd & 16gb Ram.
DJJon1200 12:11 AM - 27 March, 2018
I skimmed over this thread so pardon me if this has been addressed.

The optical bay / hard drive needs to be a 3gb/sec speed as opposed to the regular internal at 6gb/sec. this caused me major problems early on when i was doing this. had to replace the optical bay ss drives.

my gig MBP is a mid 2012 2.9ghz i7, 16gb ram 2tb samsung internal SSD (mp3s), 1tb crucial SSD (videos).

Now that samsung has released a 4tb SSD, i'm thinking of switching to that.

I had a problem last weekend, where at the end of a 4 hour set, i tried loading something and the audio dropped out off and on for the first minute and made me do the stomach flip.

i had to play it off and get on the mic like "stop actin like yall don't know the words" which worked. phew.

all my videos are on the optical ssd (where the cd/dvd bay used to be)

if and when i get that new 4tb internal ssd, am i better off leaving the optical bay alone and just doing all my mp3s and vids on the internal? Just wondering about bottlenecking.

thanks if you read and understand this :)
Culprit 12:31 AM - 27 March, 2018
Quote:
I skimmed over this thread so pardon me if this has been addressed.

The optical bay / hard drive needs to be a 3gb/sec speed as opposed to the regular internal at 6gb/sec. this caused me major problems early on when i was doing this. had to replace the optical bay ss drives.

my gig MBP is a mid 2012 2.9ghz i7, 16gb ram 2tb samsung internal SSD (mp3s), 1tb crucial SSD (videos).

Now that samsung has released a 4tb SSD, i'm thinking of switching to that.

I had a problem last weekend, where at the end of a 4 hour set, i tried loading something and the audio dropped out off and on for the first minute and made me do the stomach flip.

i had to play it off and get on the mic like "stop actin like yall don't know the words" which worked. phew.

all my videos are on the optical ssd (where the cd/dvd bay used to be)

if and when i get that new 4tb internal ssd, am i better off leaving the optical bay alone and just doing all my mp3s and vids on the internal? Just wondering about bottlenecking.

thanks if you read and understand this :)


I have the 4TB Samsung, split into 2 equal parts 2TB, one for my classic crates labeled vault and my other labeled current for my current music. I only do this because my backup system uses resilio sync to my cloud and I can backup to those cheap 2TB Seagate Slim USB 3 Hard Drives so in a pinch if my laptop goes out I can use a backup laptop with those and still be up and running.

No issues so far. My operating system is 500GB SSD
Culprit 2:36 AM - 31 March, 2018
First time having issues with my samsung ssd hard drive. Always when battery is low and i power off non forcefully. I am thinking these samsung ssd's are having issues with low power or a power setting.

Reformatting my secondary partition. Thank god its just my vault files backed up.
djpatspillers69 3:21 AM - 6 November, 2019
Hi guys! I really need your help because it is really frustrating now. They installed a new ssd on my macbook pro 2011 mac os sierra. My old HDD is still the same but the ssd is now the start up disk. I installed serato in the ssd then copied the _serato_ folder from the hdd to the ssd. Crates are loading up the I relocated the files. Everything is perfect until i restart my serato the everything is gone. what do i have to configure in the old hdd so i can use the songs there in the serato in the ssd. Thanks in advance!
DJ Fa2LA 12:16 PM - 6 November, 2019
Definitely sounds like my scenario. See above on the permissions on your HDD. It’s been years but outside of making sure its set to “read/write” which I assume it already is, you have to check something off. “Ignore ownership” I think it’s called. After that all your songs should retain.
Culprit 2:52 PM - 6 November, 2019
Make sure you got space on your ssd