Second HDD on a Laptop

L

luca.staffiere

New member
Hallo!

I have a HP Compaq Presario CQ61 with an IntelCore2DUo and 4 GB ram.

It's not much and I only use it to record or mix a pair of tracks at the time. But a little upgrade I could do without buying a new one would be adding a second HHD. The one I have is 5200 rpm... is it worth keeping? if so, should I use it as a software HDD or as a file? wich one should be faster?
And more importantly, if I remove the DVD reader and only use an external one those little times I need it, could it be possible to install the second HDD there or do I have to take a SSD?

thanks in advance!
 
The two important things to keep in mind with hard drives are speed and capacity.

The usefulness of improving capacity should be pretty obvious: the more space you have, the more stuff you can record.
Speed affects how quickly data can be added to or removed from the hard drive which is important for 1) launching software 2) loading samples 3) loading tracks 4) saving tracks and 5) swapping.

So if you're using your old (and pretty slow) hard drive for software, its speed will come into play when you launch your DAW and load your VSTIs, etc. If you use it as your data drive, speed will come into play when loading tracks in for playback and when writing new tracks as you record.
You don't have a lot of RAM, so swapping will also occur much sooner in both instances.

So if you're only recording 2 tracks at a time, and it's been up to the task so far; it's probably not a bad choice for your data drive.
If you're planning on using more complex DAW software or adding a bunch of virtual instruments or plugins, then it's probably not a good choice for your software drive. If you're using pretty limited features from the DAW though, it's probably find for it.
 
My HP i3 is admittedly a bit quicker CPU wise (and now has 8G ram but that does not seem to have made much diff!) But it plays back 20 tracks of Cubase no sweat and has (AFAIK, can't find the info) a 5400 drive so I don't think it will be a limiting factor for us "ordinary folk".

Is it Win 7 64 bits? If not the laptop cannot utilize even 4G of ram fully and that might be giving the hard drive more work than it need have. Adding a second drive will reduce battery life and increase heat build up (tho' SSDs are of course much better than mechanicals but you won't get the full benefit of an SSD unless you re-install everything on one.)

Does the laptop have an Express card slot? If so see if the PC can handle a USB 3.0 card. Installing such a card would allow a huge external USB 3.0 drive running at light speed!

With 64bit op', an external drive to dump stuff onto (even if only USB 2.0) and a bit more ram if you can, you can keep the system drive as clean as possible and that will speed things up no end.

Naturally check out all the Audio tweaks and optimizations for 7 and get shot of programs you don't need for music like Office if it is on there. If have any other anti-V software than Win SE I advise you to get rid of it.

Dave.
 
VomitHatSteve said:
Every copy I've installed has been. I don't remember if they were *requiring* a 64-bit processor for 7 yet, but it's the usual configuration.
(even XP supported 64-bit)
Click to expand...
Err? I was asking if the OS was 64 bits. (I have W7 in both formats) I dare say the laptop can handle 64 bits.

Most of the audio world thought XP 64 was a clusterfuck.

Dave.
 
VomitHatSteve said:
So if you're only recording 2 tracks at a time, and it's been up to the task so far; it's probably not a bad choice for your data drive.
If you're planning on using more complex DAW software or adding a bunch of virtual instruments or plugins, then it's probably not a good choice for your software drive. If you're using pretty limited features from the DAW though, it's probably find for it.
Click to expand...
that was a little hard to read due to the double litotes XD
no well, it´s preatty obious what u mean. Thanks for the tipp

ecc83 said:
My HP i3 is admittedly a bit quicker CPU wise (and now has 8G ram but that does not seem to have made much diff!) But it plays back 20 tracks of Cubase no sweat and has (AFAIK, can't find the info) a 5400 drive so I don't think it will be a limiting factor for us "ordinary folk".

Is it Win 7 64 bits? If not the laptop cannot utilize even 4G of ram fully and that might be giving the hard drive more work than it need have. Adding a second drive will reduce battery life and increase heat build up (tho' SSDs are of course much better than mechanicals but you won't get the full benefit of an SSD unless you re-install everything on one.)

Does the laptop have an Express card slot? If so see if the PC can handle a USB 3.0 card. Installing such a card would allow a huge external USB 3.0 drive running at light speed!

With 64bit op', an external drive to dump stuff onto (even if only USB 2.0) and a bit more ram if you can, you can keep the system drive as clean as possible and that will speed things up no end.

Naturally check out all the Audio tweaks and optimizations for 7 and get shot of programs you don't need for music like Office if it is on there. If have any other anti-V software than Win SE I advise you to get rid of it.

Dave.
Click to expand...

thanks to u too. I have a poor XP 32 I bought some 4 years ago, it takes some time to load Cubase or other big software,but since I haven´t been using a lot of effects this far it has not failed me... not that much :P

I don´t understand the thing with the SSD, do u mean I have to install the software on the external device even if I use it as a library? the thing is anyway that I don´t like the idea of attaching another usb in the whole process or recording, but overheating and less battery life are also a problem now that u mention it...
 
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