I've always used external drives. I started using Serato in 2005 and it went like this.

120GB
250GB
500GB
1TB
2TB

I currently use a 2TB drive. Well, actually 3. Two for back up. I've never had issues with any of them. All Western Digital and all Firewire. I was always using Firewire 400 but finally upgraded my computer this year (again) so now I use Firewire 800. I also mix music videos now so that's why a 2TB was essential.

Oh, and I have on occasion mixed with USB 2.0 without issues too; Same drives since they've all had multiple connections.

other comments?

External Drive.

internal strictly.

i've had enough issues personally and have heard some nightmares about externals.

btw, if your storage is running low, delete stuff. you don't take every t-shirt you own on vacation, why take every song you've ever heard to your gig.

external fw800 lacie rugged no issues

internal when Im spinning but I archive on my external and have about 3 backups of my music

There are actually quite a few reasons why you would want to take every song you have with you.

1. Storage devices aren't heavy or huge. You are not carrying actual records or CD's.
2. If you do a lot of different types of gigs, you may be hit with something that you wouldn't otherwise "carry" if you only did one type of gig. It's best to have everything you own with you at all times.
3. Easier to back up one drive with all your stuff than different ones with different stuff.
4. Easier to organize as you will find dupes easier. Otherwise, you will end up with the same copies of songs across different drives.
5. Just cause it's in your drive, it doesn't mean you have to play it. You should still be in control but this way, you won't ever have to wonder if whatever song you wanted to play and couldn't find is somewhere else at home or in another drive.

Internal on my mac is faster then using an external.

External

Internal for music and external for videos. I also have one of these www.tigerdirect.com which I have 3 2TB drives in and have 2 different volumes raided for backing up everything separately.

Always used an external unless it's for a rave or showcase/battle type of show where the set is put together in advance....and for the most part they have worked ok but I have had some nightmares with crashes, getting dropped, disconnected, running slow etc. but I still use them for all of sixxx's reasons...even when it was with all vinyl, I always took way more records than I actually thought I needed & it still never failed that whatever records I took out of my club crates & left home would end up being what I needed

Internal, but everything is backed up to an a pair of external drives at home. I always just use internal because it makes more sense to me to minimize the number of connections in order to simplify the setup and remove potential points of failure. That being said, it probably wouldn't hurt to bring a backup HD with my library just in case, or eventually to have a backup laptop, but I'm not to that level of paranoia yet. Yet...

External + 2 External Backups with mirrored data.

^^I do the exact same, for the exact reason. But I can see why some of you use Externals, especially you video guys

Completely agree.

Bringing everything you own is simply illogical. You are the DJ. You are the one the is the paid professional, that is being compensated to know what is and is not appropriate to play.

A DJ who brags that they have 40, 50, 100K songs - is just a juke box. Better to have some taste and 5K of the right songs, than every crappy track every recorded.

A system crash in front of a live audience is worse than those school aged nightmares about being naked in the lunch room. I have NEVER ran on an external during a live show. But I have to admit I'm so paranoid that I have an extra laptop locked and loaded and booted during every show as well. The ONLY DJ I know of that has had success on externals is T Quest in Tampa. You could hit him u on facebook under Quest World Famous and ask him what he does to prevent crashes.

Im kind of freaking out now, I have about 60-80GB of music on my ED

I have been running an external 1 TB G-Tech for the last year or so and have never had a failure. Not to say it can never happen...it just hasn't happened to me.

As far as storage space, you always want at least 15% free space on your drive. This will also help prevents ScratchLive failures.

I DISAGREE!!! (in british family guy voice)
But your point is valid though, the only reason why I disagree it that there are always times when I'm playing and there is that really random track that you ALWAYS forget to play. I always love finding those gems during gigs and actually remembering to play them, if I was to start filtering out my hard drive I would find these less often.

I am all for finding gems last minute that work in your set...and take it in a different and successful direction, but you can still do that with 5k or 10k or 20k songs. No one needs EVERY song they own at every gig. In fact, the easiest way to get out of playing a shitty request - is to simply not have it.

Every successful DJ set I have ever played (aside from wedding or private shows), has come from good pre planning. Playing random tracks off the top of your head is a bad idea 9(% of the time.

So... is 9(% a lot or a little?
hahahahahahaha

That is true, having a completely random set does seem to get out of hand at times. But if your organized with your music then it works out. I make plenty of edits for myself and I have tracks organized by key, bpm and type of crowd (I have playlists for different venues) so I can get away fairly well with no planning. It all really matters how ready you are beforehand as to whether or not you can pull it off

I agree. Just find it hard to believe, no matter how organized you are - that you could have 50K tracks with custom edits and detailed notes etc.

Mixed in Key and smart playlists man, helps a lot with organizing

I roughly make 5-10 edits a week and I definitely have well over 40 smart playlists

I am very organized, just see no need to bring more than a couple thousand tracks - just makes you lose focus and play all over the place. But, to each his own.

touche

I play audio & video off an external Firewire 800 (1T) but also have a Top 100 1950-2012 backup on my internal. I also carry a backup HD and have matching 16g flash drives plugged into each of my Denon HS5500s that I can use in case of a complete computer failure.

i bring my whole collection, but with Smart Playlists, my usually "freestyle" crates only show a few thousand tracks...

with smart playlists, it's easy to pare out anything you don't need regularly...

internal for music external for porn

I couldn't disagree more. I freestyle EVERY SINGLE TIME I PLAY. I don't have a single crate. I do nothing but codes. But, to each his/her own.

There are things that work for some and not others. I've used external drives since I started SSL. Not a single crash. Not a single problem. Now, I'm sure there are a few folks who have had problems, and I understand that you get paranoid once that happens.

The beauty of an external is that you can plug and play with another computer without having to switch computers. Now that most SSL mixers will have double USB's, this isn't an issue... but anyway.

I hate pre-planning shit. But, if I was doing nothing but 30 minute shows, I would definitely prepare and ple-plan.

Having said that, stick with your style. You can't knock someone who carries all his music to all his gigs and vice versa, you can't really knock those who only carry what they think they need. We are all different.

I have a penis. You have a vagina. hahaha

That last line was a joke. :P

nm

Btw, ideally, I would want to have all my music on an internal drive but this is impossible at the moment. Until they come up with larger drives (at least 2TB's), I'm not able to.

Yes, I could have two 1TB drives... but that's not what I want to do.

nm

PS. If you need to NOT HAVE A SONG to be able to say no to someone. You lack balls.

nm

Started out on a XP machine, was using 160Gb WD USB external at the time, then 240GB WD USB external. Switched to MBP after a year or so, went with 320GB FW LaCie Rugged external, then 500GB FW Rugged.

Later, I put a 500GB internal in the MBP, and lately switched the 500GB for 1TB internal.

I don't spin video (yet), and being able to run everything from the internal just makes life a little easier IMO.

Started with:
15" Acer TravelMate
Windows XPH SP2
Internal, 160GB, 5400rpm
No backups

Went on with:
13" Sony Vaio
Windows XPH SP3
Internal, 250GB, 5400rpm
Backups on external, 250GB

Now with:
13" Apple MacBook Pro
Mac OS X Lion
Internal, 750GB, 7200rpm
Backup on Time Capsule, 1TB

I keep a bigger library/mirror on an external drive but I trim my video library to fit on the 1TB secondary drive I have in my MacBook Pro.

Main reason? One less cord/device in my setup and one less (paranoid) worry something will come unplugged.

This.

No one is talking about "pre planning" anything. I am talking about having logical crates and playlists with 200 or 300 tracks that you are thinking will fit your set.....and then picking the best 75 or 100 tracks from that playlist for your gig.

This is the same thing that vinyl DJs had to do for decades. Take only SOME of our collection with you. Not because you couldnt handel carrying 20 crates of records - but because it makes no sense to do so. 2 crates of the right records are better for a million reasons.

Unless you are a wedding DJ getting paid to play what the bride wants, a DJ is not a juke box
You know better than your crowd what you should and should not play....so saying you need to carry everything you own, means you are either too disorganized to have a sense of what you want to play that night....or you dont have enough of a backbone to tell people no.

If you want French food, you go to a french restaurant...and that chef has 10 or 20 things on the menu tops. That way he knows everything on that menu inside and out and can deliver it perfectly cooked - if you dont like his menu, go someplace else. Same with a Club DJ. If you dont have taste and style and a sense of 90% of what is going to happen in the venue that night, you are in the wrong profession.

Keep telling yourself that Groove Factor, to make yourself feel better about how YOU do your stuff.

I've given you all the reasons why I think it's best to carry everything you own. Believe me, if 20 years ago I could bring every piece of vinyl I owned to a gig, I would have.

A DJ is definitely not a jukebox but if you're playing from the same 200/300 tracks that "will fit your set" every night, things will get old very quickly and without even knowing it YOU WILL HAVE BECOME A JUKEBOX.

Don't compare DJing to going to a French restaurant. And, don't compare whatever club you're doing to whatever club or bar I may be doing. They're all different in every part of the world.

Btw, keep playing those 200/300 tracks and keep 'em on rotation. Congratulations! You sound like 99% of the DJ's out there.

i always use 500 gb external, but i have an exact copy of about 5-6 of the main crates i use most often at clubs/parties (about 4gb) stored internal just incase.. so basically i dont HAVE to use external hd unless im doing a wedding or something, somewhere i mite get an odd request, the external got all the stuff i mite not use on the reg. basis but if i get a request for something i dont usually play at a wedding i can just scan my external.

If I could have brought every piece of vinyl to every gig, I would have too. Every Dj is different and every crowd is different. Just because something works for you doesn't mean it works for everyone.

Exactly, I keep tons of music with me. but its all very organized.

Agree on this, always used to carry way to many (physical) vinyl crates to gigs, as I wanted as much selection as possible. Had a lot of back ache trouble those days. It's the single most important reason I switched for SSL in the first place....

That said, I often prepare a small crate of about 20-30 tracks as a "backbone" for a gig, probably won't play more than half of them, but it's nice to get into the feel...

^^Yeah I tend to do that

Sixx....you make me laugh. I was throwing down sets in clubs when you were in diapers....so dont try and lecture me with this BULL SHIT logic.

Any vinyl DJ that knows what he was doing, only brought a reasonable number of records, because he knew his crowd and what he was being paid to play. It is the same with a DVS DJ that knows his ass from his elbow.

Each gig, you make a playlist with 300 or 400 songs which make up the bulk of what you want to play. Should something come up and you have to pull something from you collection that is beyond those tracks...fine. But just randomly searching from 50K or 100K tracks makes you look and sound like an amateur. Period.

who says you lookin for ish randomly? I got everything on a 500gb lacie rugged + 2 backups, never any issue. I always bring all my music. Like somebody said here before, I make a backbone list for the gig but it's so fun when you find a track you never thought of spinning while prepping, but in the booth you're like 'oooh shit imma hit 'em with this!'

so basically you're just saying you haven't actually figured out a system on how to search your files properly and reduce the clutter.

that's fine for you but don't assume that the rest of us haven't figured out a system that works for us...

I have a very involved system including keywords, tags, color codes, pre-picked crates, among others that makes searching and freestyling through my entire collection a breeze. Just because you can't figure out how to organize your files for a gig without removing dead weight doesn't mean others haven't incorporated that system in their libraries.

Again, what works for you may not work for me which may not work for the next guy.

it's all personal preference. But i choose to be streamlined and organized. i'd rather have a neat, curated collection of 10k than 100k of poorly tagged, assorted quality files. Though, i came up in the day where your record collection was in milkcrates, not harddrives so my mentality may be a little different.

750 gig internal. I've had bad luck w/ externals in the past...

I was using a dell inspiron from 2002 for my gigs with external drive. The external mirrored the internal and I deleted the serato file for the internal so I actually play off the external drive. This machine had 512mb memory and 60gig drive with only 2 gigs freespace. I had one crash in two years running SL 1.8.3. I tried 1.9.2 and it lagged a lil and had some USB dropouts so I never gigged with it. I am now running MPB 15" with OSX snow leopard, I still have the external but havent run trials on it yet to see if its a reliable setup.

lol @ random....

Codes.... If you don't know, then you don't know shit.

I've been DJing for 20 years so I came up in the same era...


It is personal preference but it can be done. Why not?
Again, this is NOT JUST FOR CLUBS.

Mobile gigs that have a huge variety of ages and taste is why it is wise to bring your entire collection.

Again, do what WORKS FOR YOU.

Codes... Like tha G code or... the be sure to drink your Oveltene secret decoder ring or... code names like GI Joe or... morse code... ?

Codes

serato.com

Right on. I do the same thing, just not in short hand : )

+1

Another very silly analogy.

I do agree with this first part though: btw, if your storage is running low, delete stuff.

But that's just common sense.

MP3's = Internal 1
MP4's = Internal 2

Haven't used an external for 3 years and would never go back to one for djing.
Nothing like plugging in and going.

Papa Midnight what software do you use in order to keep mirror copies of all three externals?

Internal, I don't have to worry about forgetting my music. I also heard that, some external hard drive fails.

Copy and Paste :P

Lmao. I thought you used some type of cloning software. So basically, you highlight everything on the source drive, copy...go to the destination drive and paste...and when it says the files already exist do you want to replace you say YES...To be honest I wasn't even sure if that would work properly, that's why I never tried it, silly me.

Thats a real slow way of doing it,
have a look at Carbon Copy Cloner and save yourself a LOT of time.

Not entirely, but effectively: yes. I usually wipe the target drive, and send over a fresh mirror. I do it over night so it's usually done by morning.

Papa, you need to check out Carbon Copy Cloner on the mac, Free File Sync on the PC.

Internal

I use time machine its free and you have as many hard drives as your time machine. I currently have 2 and they stay up to date within a month of each other

oh yea internal HD all the way, when my HD gets full I just start erasing more music I will never play and music I will never listen to

KEEP IM MIND TO EVERYONE AN EXTERNAL IS GREAT BUT IF YOURE MACBOOK OR YOURE PC HAS A LOT OF INTERNAL MEMORY WHY NOT.

I use a usb 3.0 external hard drive with my MBPr hooked via a usb 3.0 Rocketfish 7-port hub. The disk read speed is faster than usb 2.0/firewire 800 combined. It's close to thunderbolt speeds with the exception usb 3.0 being cheaper. I've had quite a few gigs running the hub and external hardrive with no problems. I ran a test the other day with both my TTM57 and seagate Go Flex hardrive hooked up to the hub and had no dropouts. I didn't try it for long as I was scared something might burn up with so much data passing through one cable. I also have 3 midi devices hooked up to the hub.

BTW, I confirmed the disk speeds myself using the Blackmagic Disk Speed Test app and I got the thunderbolt speeds via a youtube video review.

OK SOUNDS GOOD IM DEFF CHECK THAT OUT CAN U SEND ME THE LINK FOR ONE OF THOSE TYPE OF HD

Notice: These will only work if you have usb 3.0 ports in your laptop/computer.

Hardrive: www.amazon.com

Rocketfish Hub: www.bestbuy.com
Your local bestbuy might carry them at a cheaper price than online. I bought mine for 20 bucks. The only downside is that the usb cable is small so I ordered an extension (www.amazon.com) for like 6 bucks and all worked out smooth.

The hub fits nicely inside my coffin underneath my technics.

AH OK GOOD LOOKS ON THE ADVICE

I USE THAT HARD DRIVE I GOT THE 500G EXTERNAL ONE
SEAGATE HARDRIVES IS DA WAY TO GO IDK HOW TECHNICAL YOU ARE
WITH HARD DRIVES BUT THE . LACIE AND THE SEAGATE HARDRIVE ARE
CONSIDERD GREEN HD .. THEY HAVE THE MOST LONGEVITY

AND U CANT USE THAT HUB ONLY UNLESS YOU HAVE 3.0 ?

Yeah segate makes good HD's.

No your laptop/pc requires the usb 3.0 chipset for it to work.

I spin all video and bring every video every gig so all external been doin this way for 4+ years just make sure you get a quality external hd and use fw 800 or better

Internal for gigs, Multiple externals for backup.

This is the IT common sense in me:

Less devices = less points of failure and less stuff to get jacked.

Your external drive fails, you lose your external USB/Firewire/power cable, AND if your internal drive fails, you're screwed.

External .......

I just don't like having my Music,OS,and Software running off same drive.

same here...

external LaCie Rugged 7200RPM USB2/FW400/800 (small, bus powered, military specs shock resistant)

ay
I use an external Western Digital 3tb usb 3.0. Only thing is, my usb ports are 2.0. Since upgrading my MBP to 8 gigs, it is must faster. I only have 856gb left out of a 3tb which is not really a true 3tb but it wouldn't fit on my hard drive.
yep

sorry bro but Western Digital is not secure and they have a bad history

Spinnin' on externals since 2005, none of them have failed me. All Western Digital.

keep enough to get though the night on the internal, take a external with me that has everything, keep a back up external elsewhere, also have enough on my phone to get though the night if the computer dies...

ay
mine have been doing good. I had a 300gb that I fried because I put the wrong power adapter in it and another got wet. I have a 1tb that I have had over 4 years and it has had no problems with it sooooooooooooo... www.gifbin.com
yep

Used to use external in the days when 80 gig internals were considered "huge", moved to internal once they got large enough (my entire collection is a "paltry" 13,743 songs/153.92 gb).

p.s.: this thread serves as further evidence that some DJ's will argue about how anyone does anything if it's different from the way they do it. lolz

Since when? I have only ever had 1 Western Digital ever fail on me (Mind you, IT is my background. I've seen more HDDs in the past year alone than most you have seen in 20). Ever.

I've had two Samsung's fail.

As for Seagate (the Samsung drives we had were bought prior to the buyout of Samsung's HDD division by Seagate)... I don't like to count how many Seagates I've seen fail (Both internal and external).

Just remember, it wasn't Western Digital who had an entire series of 1TB Hard Drives fail due to manufacturer error (See: 7200.1).

i have used WD internal and/or external drives since 1990. no failures whatsoever. i just recently started using samsung and seagate drives and they are just as reliable.

wait what? is this on their recent 1tb's? i just bought two of them at costco a few weeks ago...

A few years ago. Here's an example article - www.theinquirer.net

thanks, its good to hear it was a few years ago and it looks like it was only a firmware issue.

Firmware issue it was. In many cases, the Firmware fix corrected the issue. However, a significant amount of drives did indeed suffer failures.

Ive never had a western digital fail

Ive had plenty of seagates, and maxtors fail.

Never buy maxtor drives everyone Ive had as failed my current 2 TB maxtor has bad sectors all over it. Corrupted my itunes library.

The best so far has been IoSafe drives

Maxtor was purchased out by Seagate almost a 6 years ago. Prior to that, they were pretty solid drives (especially their series of 120GB an 160GB IDE drives back in the early 2000's.

Dude I still have maxtor drives I think the newest one is from 2009 its 2TB. Before that maxtor drives were not great in my experience I lost so much music and beats saving my stuff to external maxtor drives....anyways IoSafe ftw

RAID 1 :)

RAID 1 is not really RAID its not really redundant...but ok:)

I used to play from a 1TB external but I noticed there were delays loading and looking for music, I even experienced serato freezing up on my macbook while loading a song during a gig. That seemed like the longest 45 seconds of my life. After those situations I decided to start relying on my internal hard drive for most gigs. I prepare crates for each gig on my internal hard drive now. However, I do plug my External in for gigs that are unpredictable with a mixed audience just incase my planning is off. But in my humble opinion, internal is the way to go when comes to playing it safe and avoiding possible problems.

Internals for gigs.

I mainly only use externals for backups.

On some occasions i have used externals/flash drives into other peoples laptops and things ran fine.

As a rule of thumb, I always go internal for gigs, but have jammed many times off just an external with no issues.

Audio - Internal
Video - External

You don't know what you're talking about...

Internal

7200 RPM.

That is all.

He's from Bizarro world. Everything is backwards.

To be prepared and ready to entertain whatever walks threw the door?

external and WD's are fine....the last time I used an internal drive was 07 I think....started with seagates migrated to WD my books all have worked fine...

I am just about to move over to external. But I have done everything in my power to avoid this. I have a opt bay in 2011 MBP giving me 1.75 TB of storage and that would have been more than enough before really getting into video's, but now its just no enough.

for all dis on this Blog look into the buffalo brand hd .. the performance is smooth and they don't even heat up .. I've used toshiba its ok …also used lacie gets hot enough to cook an egg …lol all jokes aside ..the buffalo drive has proven me wrong its not fully known yet but a very good drive.

and WD drives are the most unreliable for live performing dis…just use it as a back up instead

So the drive knows you're a live performing DJ... and then it dies? Interesting.

nm

its common sense as a dj you're an entertainer you're there to "perform" as a Dj the crowd depends on you how you & your'e drive responds to you're iOS or Pc and the speed to load up a track and let you search through you're music library without the lagging and the Hard drive not getting very hot is good.if not then a bad sectors gets created .then all the sectors in you're hard drive go bad . then you're hard drive dies. so the cooler you're drive runs the best performance you have..believe Me i lost 1.5 Tb in my Lacie triple rugged its . and the western digital drives have not survived the beating of constant use. check out the specs in the buffalo and the reviews.i work with guys from record pools whom have dropped every drive for what buffalo offers .

Reason I'm saying is because I've never had a WD die on me and most people here recommend them.

nm

WD drives have ALWAYS proven to be reliable for me. I baby everything, so maybe that helps.

External for storage & backup. Internal for gigs.

OS on SSD, Music on 7200, both internal.

Same setup here on my Mac. I also carry a bootable external clone of my internal hard drives, partitioned to mimic the 2 hard drives in my laptop. In addition, I have clones of my hard drives sitting on a desktop hard drive at home.

It's only common sense for me. I've seen a lot of external hard drives fail, even the G Drives and LaCies. I think the reason is that these external hard drives get thrown around a lot. They get moved around in bags, taken in and out for use, or just moved around more in general.

My guess is that most of you out there would handle your laptop a bit more carefully than an external hard drive. I know I do. That is why I try to keep my gigging data internal on the laptop.

I am sure that external drives would last just as long if handled carefully, but knowing me, I would rather not take that chance.

Yes - I have a partition bootable clone of my SSD on my 7200. And then carry an external copy of my music drive.

I use 13" Retina and to be honest it's the best laptop you'll ever own! I've used it with usb 2, 3 and thunderbolt and they all work great. My Retina is 2012 and I prefer it over my back up (the $1199 model they offer right now), which I really don't like because it runs Mavericks, but for best performance run usb 3 over anything other then thunderbolt (if you can afford it use a thunderbolt dock which is awesome!)

that might just be the way you handle them and which type of WD drive you are using....

I have 5 my book studios...all have been used for MANY gigs at one point or another for years and never a single issue...they have treated me well enough that I bought the next one...

I also have a couple other WD externals that get used for various other things..those have been rock solid as well...

+1, ive had 6 WD mybook studios and the only one that crashed was the one i dropped a krk speaker on

Ssssh!!!!!!! Don't say WD's are reliable. They won't believe you. lol

nm

My understanding is that WD sucked in the SCSI and part of the IDE days, but they got better.

i just bought my 5th WD external HD. no serious issues.

i guess you need to know how to properly handle a hard drive....?

I've never had a WD laptop-type (2.5-inch) drive fail, and I've had probably 20-25 of them over the years, maybe more.

I've had a couple of WD's 3.5-inch drives fail (one of them a "Raptor", another was an early "green" drive), and their RMA process was straightforward and prompt.

WD was known as a "second-tier" drive manufacturer in the late 90's (along with Maxtor) but those days are long past.

Anyway I'm back to using external drive for DJ-ing since I have a new MBP, it's a 1tb Samsung 840EVO SSD in an Oyen Digital Thunderbolt enclosure (bus-powered). Working just fine.

Internal. I don't want the hassle of carting drives around with me, especially if they're connected with a cable.

Now if the manufacturers could find a way of transferring data quickly and wirelessly, either by wifi, Bluetooth or some other new standard, while i'm carrying the drive in a pocket or somewhere nearby then that could be the just the thing that would make me consider the retina macs, instead of pimping my older mbp's with 2 internal drives.

I love my aluminum my studio 2Tb gonna need a 3Tb here soon with these video's hogging up all the space....

just so you know...thunderbolt isn't as fast as many think...it's speed is only theoretical at the moment...the speed of TB is as good as USB 3.0...using an SSD however improves speed of both...so now we can do external all day :-)

here's the tests

www.macworld.com

One thing to be said for Thunderbolt: Target Disk Mode between two Macs with Thunderbolt is incredibly fast compared to how it was over either version of Firewire.

I don't see any real need to run an external mechanical hard drive on Thunderbolt (unless you are otherwise using all the USB ports), but my own experience is that with SSD's the speed advantages of Thunderbolt are worthwhile.

In practical use, it means that loading HD videos from my external SSD seems to happen just as quickly as if they were on the internal SSD.

when i first starting using scratchLive i got a external, than moved all my music to a internal drive…….

than i started doing video and had to go back to external, so my current setup is a 4tb external firewire 800 & a 60gig internal ssd

i have no issues at all……

You're right on the 1st part, but USB 3.0 still is not better because it's a USB port. And you should try to avoid using USB ports for other reasons.

What Code:E said. Also once you go with SSD drives, you dont really wanna go back. Then again, I also do 4k video editing, so my needs are higher...

This is not true at all.

I CHALLENGE you to copy 1 TB of data to a USB 3.0 HDD then copy the SAME 1 TB to a thunderbolt drive. I have copied over 450 drives and I have some interesting finds:

[[[[[[[[[[DISCLOSURE: As far as technical I could go deep into it but I will instead go with a MUCH easier way to understand. I saw the tests above included 10 GB files/folders as well as. Furthermore it seemed to keep the actual hard drive as a constant while the actual drives are variables in my tests as the drive included in the enclosure is the drive used in the test. Maybe this is a better example of which USB drives to buy OVER a Thunderbolt/USB comparison


Lastly I will point out the article was created back in May 2013 on a 2012 MacBook Pro. Technology has progressed since then thus SOME of the statistics will have changed. Not for nothing Thunderbolt 2 is around the corner. www.macworld.com LASTLY you can guarantee I have NOTHING to gain from this so I promise unbiased info (not that the above WAS biased. ]]]]]]]]]]]]]]


HERE WE GO:

Copying 1 TB (actual about 920 GB as I leave room for optimal performance)
USB 3.0 1 TB drives

Toshiba Canvio Slim II takes 4 hours 30 Minutes
Toshiba Canvio Connect takes 5 hours & 45 minutes
WD My Passport Ultra takes 4 hours 20 Mins.
WD My Passport Takes 4 hours (=/- a few mins)
Seagate Expansion Takes 4 hours
Seagate Backup Plus Slim takes 3 hours 30 mins
G-Technology G-Drive Takes 4 hours
Lacie Rugged Thunderbolt (HDD) not SSD) Takes 2 hours 45 minutes.


I have even more transfer time data if needed as I have used MOST name brand drives. In short Seagate has the FASTEST transfer of all tested USB 3.0 drives but Thunderbolt clearly beats it in terms of write speeds.

In terms of read speeds the difference is NOT so drastic but is ABSOLUTELY present as well.

This is all tried & true and I can prove at ANY time as I regularly have most of the drives mentioned.

Other fun facts:

- The OEM USB Cable for the ED drives has failed the most

- G-Drive (Owned by WD) has the BEST warranty of 5 years with WD & Toshiba following at 3 years then Seagate & Lacie at 2 years.

- Lacie & Seagate get the hottest while WD stays the coolest (during transfers & normal use)

- Slim versions of a given drive typically not only look better but work better yet heat up more & faster obviously.

- Have had more Seagate failures than any other which was only two.

- As many here said Internal SSD is absolutely the superior method if you are looking for fastest speed possible. That being said Thunderbolt or USB 3.0 are BOTH plenty fast for SDJ even if you are using video.


I tried to get this together as best I could to offer the most info with the least confusion. This as always is in no way saying I know best or that what I say is the ONLY way. I can ONLY tell you my personal experiences. If anyone is EVER thinking of buying a hard drive and has ANY questions on it DO NOT hesitate to PM me and I promise I will either have used it already or will be willing to use it as long as it is comparable in cost to the drives mentioned.

That test is not scientific at all, I'm sorry to say. It also faces the incumbent problem of bottle-necking.

Without getting into it to much, I will touch on a few points:

At the current spec, USB 3.0 can support up to 5Gbps. Once the new spec is approved, it will support up to 10Gbps in full duplex.

Likewise, Thunderbolt supports up to 10Gbps.

Both interfaces support full-duplex, meaning they are capable of transferring at full speed in both directions simultaneously.

The drives you use ALL use different sata interfaces, and may have varying rates. In example, some you noted may have a rate of 3Gbps (which is the standard SATA3 spec) and some may have a rate of 6Gbps (the SATA6 spec). The rate of the drive is irrelevant and is dependent on the rate of the interface.

Assuming you're reading from the fastest source possible (which would be the only way to provide for a fairly consistent result as the source rate would need to be consistent and above the maximum rate of the drives to be delivered to), your problem is going to be multifaceted.

In example: Is the WD Passport using a 4200RPM drive or a 5400RPM drive like the Lacie Rugged Thunderbolt? The G-Drive is a 7200 RPM drive. By default, it's writing significantly faster than either.

In either case, it doesn't matter, as your bottleneck is going to be the drive itself. As these are standard HDDs, chances are they're not topping 160MB/s (at 7200PM). With that rate in mind, the debate over USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt is absolutely pointless as both have more than enough bandwidth to support even a SATA3 SSD at Maximum rate. The only advantage would be in the usage of a SATA6 drive with Thunderbolt (for the next few months), and that's assuming that the interface in the enclosure is SATA6 as well.

That said, it all realistically comes down to a matter of preference. For most of you that use OS X exclusively, that's probably going to be Thunderbolt. For the rest, that will probably be USB for compatibility reasons (especially as, despite being developed by Intel, Thunderbolt is pretty much exclusive to Apple devices).

ALL of the USB drives tested are 5400 RPM including your G-Drive which for some reason you think is 7200. www.g-technology.com.

I am sorry if you got the wrong idea but as I realized the same myself I clearly said



Is why I said



I was under the impression EACH & EVERY drive I tested was native USB and NOT SATA at all............

I am not trying to pass this off as scientific but more of an actual real world comparison between similarly (with the exception of the Lacie) priced HDD's. Furthermore they are ALL 5400 RPM drives with the transfer rates being VERY similar on paper. The "on paper" thing is the exact reason I wrote this though. As an example the G-Drive has a higher Transfer rate than the Seagate yet the Seagate is actually faster.


I am VERY specific in what & how I tested it and am claiming NOTHING more just how these did with 1 TB worth of data all copied in the exact same manner all formatted the exact same format. Nothing more.

I should also probably remind this was a closed test of JUST one collection of files and only done one way. Maybe some are better at smaller files. Maybe some are better for backup purposes. I couldn't tell you as that is NOT what I have done 450+ times in the past year LOL.


For the record NOBODY is being forced to listen to anything I said and as I said this is real world comparison's between popular consumer external hard drives that for instance can be found at Best Buy for $55 - $70 (again with the exception of the Lacie) and this AS I SAID in turn is a better example of such as opposed to an actual Thunderbold Vs. USB comparison.

That being said I will be bold enough to say that NO USB 3.0 drive I have EVER tested has approached the speed of the Lacie Thunderbolt I described earlier though admittedly I have NOT tried them all.


@ Papa Midnight - Since you know what you're talking about Any suggestions on a USB 3.0 external that you WOULD think is as fast as a thunderbolt? If I have not tried it I would love to. Again this is in real world as we stand TODAY not in the near future or on paper. I WOULD LOVE to find one as this could only help me out.

Real world speeds of Thunderbolt vs USB are not what I'm trying to argue. This point is irrelevant, both USB3.0 and Thunderbolt drive (assume they dont have shitty shitty drives inside) are both more than fast enough for what we need them for, DJing and Video DJing.

What I'm saying is you dont want to waste your USB bandwidth on a Hard drive. Sound card's (SL boxes), Midi Controllers (CDJ's to APC's) and Hardware controllers (DDj's NS7's, ect) All need and use tons of USB bandwidth. You will get slowdowns and dropouts quicker and more often with USB 3.0 drives. Plus track load times will be longer.

So I say again Don't waste your money on USB 3.0, when in our case eSata, Firewire, and Thunderbolt will all do a better job.

I'd say I agree but as none of this even has to do with the actual OP topic it is getting a little confusing.

To stay on topic I say internal SSD. Not everyone has this option. Some as a matter of fact ONLY have the means for a USB drive IF the need external.

Again I say my CHOICE is internal SSD BUT for my needs what I actually use is in fact a Thunderbolt external and in SOME cases the USB 3.0 externals with which I get NONE of the side effects you bring up. I try for FLAC, WAV & aiff whenever possible but admittedly I DO NOT use video.

In terms of gear connected this is regardless of it being my controllers or main rigs with CDJ's via HID. As in track load times can't be any quicker than instant even with a 90,000 file library. I now primarily use a smaller 1 TB collection though being about 55,000 tracks.

On paper you are 100% correct though. The thing is for me real world matters are the ONLY things that matter. AS I said the test was NOT meant to be A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G other than what it is. N-O-T-H-I-N-G more.


In retrospect this probably wasn't the best place for it and I apologize. Was just kind of excited to post the results of an almost year long test................ not that I was testing just for the hell of it.



For the record IF you have the means and this fits your needs I completely agree.

This is exactly why i said both are ok for SDJ/Video despite some folks being paranoid about using USB...the data flow to Serato video is perfectly fine with usb 3.0...hell even usb 2.0 worked.

Everybody has their likes and will argue their points to prove they are right. Just use what works best for you.

If I'm using my laptop then everything is internal (removed the CD on my mac to add a secondary hard drive for music/video's.)

But have a external with my crates and music/videos mirrored for using with other peoples laptops.

don't do this as often now as we always use a Rane 62 so not an issue running multiple laptop compared to the 57.

the external has firewire 800 and USB 2.0 connections and not had issues with either.

+1

Yeah for these purposes (actual DJing) I NEVER had any issues. I can't use such a drive ^^^ for my copying purposes as using FW 800 takes about twice as long and USB 2.0 takes about 14 hours to do the same collections. Again these are standard consumer drives I am speaking of as there are always exceptions to the rule HOWEVER

I completely agree with this. In theory using USB SHOULD slow things down but if it is unnoticeable (even when I have 5 USB devices plugged NOT INCLUDING the USB HDD itself) then what good is this theory. Again you can't get any faster than instant. As said if it works for you why not use it.

What do you think is the best memory format for external hard drives? That works well between IOS and windows, serato as well?
ExFat Fat32 ?

There isn't a best, Use what workd bets fgor your system. NTFS for large windows drives - osx journal for mac - fat32 for small USB sticks.

@Papa Midnight I agree with everything that you said, but you made a typing error in SATA3 and SATA6. SATA3 is the 6Gbps connection while SATA6 does not exist. The 3Gbps connection is the second gen of SATA which was SATA2. Not trying to nitpick, but just wanted to throw that out there since if anyone sees this while in the market for a new drive, I don't want them to think SATA3 means it is lower spec'd.

Good spot. Thanks for catching that.

use FAT32. that file system can be read by both windows and mac...only caution is make sure you don't have a single video or audio file bigger than 4GB...Fat 32 won't store that....that's for NTFS or OSX HFS+ which is Journaled by default to enable storage of files larger than 4GB....for most DJs...FAT32 is best since it will work on both windows or Mac Computers.

It's called EXFAT now, fat32 is the old version.

FAT32 in 2016 is suitable only for temporary/"sneakernet" type usage.

You may find out why the hard way sometime, when a FAT32 device gets accidentally disconnected.

More modern file systems like NTFS or HFS+ are far less likely to corrupt data when "accidents" happen.

I use EXFAT32 between my mac and pc. No 4gb limit. Works great. Never had any issues but i back up often.

You have the following choices when erasing a drive on a Mac.

Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted)
Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled)
Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled, Encrypted)
MS-DOS (FAT)
ExFat


If you notice, all the Mac versions now are Journaled (don't know if they were in the past) but you always want to choose Journaled anyway in case your drive gets unplugged by accident. You can do MS-DOS (FAT) or ExFat if you don't what that 4GB Limit. I've never had data corruptions by accidentally unplugging a drive, flash drive, thumb drive, etc. The instance of that happening is actually quite rare it seems (by my experience) - but of course, just unplug the way you should to be safe. Also, a CURRENT back up is always essential.

________________________________________
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nm

Yeah I've been using exfat with my last hd but it's kinda slow to access songs in it in serato, granted my macbook pro is a little old. I use IOS but want to be able to plug into windows if I need to. Just wondering if the word changed, guess I'm sticking to exfat.

I would never recommend that anyone uses any FAT file system (or any derivatives such as exFAT) on any production system where reliability is key, as well as data integrity.

If your primary OS is Windows, know that OS X can read NTFS, but it cannot (natively) write to it. For me, personally, this is not a big deal as I manage my music under Windows, and take it as a bonus that my drive cannot be written to during performances (less risk of data loss). However, if you absolutely need to write to an NTFS formatted drive, I'd suggest taking a look at Paragon NTFS (www.paragon-software.com).

Likewise, for those who use OS X primarily, HFS+ (Mac OS Extended, Journaled) is your best solution. I would suggest also looking into Paragon HFS+ (www.paragon-software.com) if you need to access HFS(+) file systems under Windows.

@ Papa Midnight...

How does Serato handle NTFS on a Mac when it needs to re-write tags EVEN when you don't actually mean to do so. For instance, I've noticed SSL and even SDJ will write tags when certain songs or videos are played - even when you're not changing any information on the file. All you're doing is playing it. Will this cause the system to crash or stall or behave weird?

________________________________________
Bragging rights for life bitch! 😂😂😂😂😂😂
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nm

I've seen paragon NTFS fail miserably on a mac, and would never trust it for live performance. If your performance machine is a mac, then stay with stay with the native Mac Os Extended (HFS+), and install MacDrive on your win machine.
If your performance machine is Win, by all means, use NTFS.

I've experienced no issues. The interface simply shows the file as read-only.

Cool. Good to know. I always wondered about that.

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Bragging rights for life bitch! 😂😂😂😂😂😂
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nm

So basically you are not able to add cues, loops or flips during performance.
That would be a dealbreaker for me personally.

Correction, add and save for later use...

Still internal

Correct. That is definitely not something you want to do. That's why it's best to use the format that your system was intended to use.

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Bragging rights for life bitch! 😂😂😂😂😂😂
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nm

Amen to that!

Question: If you use Parallels and run Windows can you R/W to an HFS+ Drive? Example: I want to use a Windows program to edit tags on my Mac formatted external.

From what I understand you would need to install macdrive on the win partition.
kb.parallels.com

Im curious, what tag program are you running? Myself, im kinda anal about tagging, but I do get along with a combo of SDJ and MediaRage.

The NTFS thing is something i'm running into right now. Finally got a MBP for DJing/production and i've used Windows with externals up to this point. I really want to continue to use my NTFS drive for the short term. i am determining right now whether i want use something like Paragon or copy my data and reformat the external. Ideally i would just have everything in my OneDrive and sync back and forth as needed, but the MBP's drive isn't big enough to handle that (yet).

Another question i have for you guys using externals, how do you secure them? I stole a trick Z-Trip was using way back when where he was velcro'ing the drive to the laptop. But i'm thinking of going a different route this time. Do you have it in your turntable cases, just out on the table, secured to your laptop stand, or what?

Mp3tag, personally.

I've never heard of Paragon NTFS before, but I have a mac as my performance machine while I use Windows Natively. I use an External Hard Drive to backup all of my data (both Windows and Mac). I use a program called Tuxera NTFS on my mac to read the NTFS filesystem of the drive and it hasn't ever failed me before. Infact, it even helped me in recovering all my data one time when I lost it all while transferring to the drive (acting as a translator for the MacOSX Verify Disk & Repair Disk functions).

I was asking Taipanic to be honest, or do you also run parallels now Papa?

Thought I'd already answered this pretty clear...
I'd go HFS+ on the drive, and install mad drive on the win machine(s)...

Tag-N-Rename for Windows. Very powerful once you figure it out. Best one I've seen on any platform so far
www.softpointer.com

Gotcha, personally I would think a tagging program is not enough incentive for me to run parallels, but then again, I dont know your "pipeline". I was about to recommend MediaRage, quite a powerful program too. However their site is down, so not really sure about the future for it... www.chaoticsoftware.com

Ok seriously guys... don't get this whole "Should I bring all my music? argument" I've been spinning mobile for 26 years. Back in the day of course you wouldn't bring all your music because you'd spend half the night loading wax in to your gig.

With digital... what the heck difference does it make? Does having too much music with you make your hard drive heavier? LOL!

I say, if you got 1 million songs and they all fit on your drive, bring all your music. It only sits there as 1's and zeros until you need that one song.

BTW, if you have WiFi at your gig, you got access to hundreds of millions of songs too.

:)

What about using two separate drives, one NTFS and the other extended journal. And use a software like Carbon copy to duplicate the data. Is that possible?
Hard drives are dirt cheap now.

just a heads up with this program....you WILL LOSE set cue points and loops if you change the metadata (Tags) of an .mp4 video file in mp3tag... [not sure about mp3's as I have no need to test them]

Is Macdrive still the go to for reading HFS on Windows?

Just copped a Dell XPS 13 which will be my knocking about computer i.e general use & not for performance. I will like to be able to do some organising on it too such as downloading from DJ pools and buying music.

My main music/videos are stored on a thunderbolt 2 drive formatted for Mac only.

External hard drives here reason being if you stress out that internal and it breaks your done due to losing your operating system unless you have a backup computer.If an external craps out and you have another just plug it up and keep going.Much more economical.

Stress out your "internal"? what on earth are you talking about? I have been using the same mac mini for 5+ years stressing the hell out of the "internal" and it still runs like a dream. I guess the reliability and quality is what you pay for with a mac right?

out of curiosity why a Mac mini? I can’t imagine a single scenario where it would be preferred unless it is permanent install and you don’t leave the house/studio........ aside from its low cost of course.

because Rane 72 and Mac Mini are a match made in Heaven, no screen needed whatsoever.

Low cost? the one I ordered yesterday came out to $4,199.00- I wouldn't consider that "low cost".

Very low cost relatively speaking. Probably got 64g ram, six core processor and 2tb ssd....... throw that all in a MacBook Pro (if it was available which it’s not) and see how high it would be then.......

my MBP was almost 10g's, so I hear ya.