making space on hard drive

682

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I have Cubase AI on my SSD. But I need some room now. Can I copy Cubase and the associated files
all onto my 16 gig SD card in 1 simple copy?? How should I do that.?? I don't need Cubase right now
on my Hard drive..
 
Probably not. Program files usually have additional files in various places, along with pointers in the Windows registry. If you move the program to and SD card, then the registry won't point to the right places. Its a bit like moving and not having your mail forwarded to your new house.

Data files can usually be moved without any issue. I would recommend you look to see what data is clogging your drive, and see what you can remove. Check your download folder. That thing can get huge.

Most times, it's not the program files that cause the damage unless you go crazy installing everything in the world. My laptop has a 256G SSD and its got 170GB free. I've got Open Office, Reaper, video capture and editing, Firefox, Chrome, Audacity, and a few more on there.
 
What he said ^^^

Additionally, if you are feeling a lack of space, it maybe because you are storing all your data on it. If that is case, it's worth considering getting an extra drive just for your WAV and other files.
 
What OS are you on?
That for windows ^. On MacOS you can probably just move it.
Not sure if you want to move it for storage or to actually run it from a different location - some applications may refuse to run from USB media.

+1 to that advice. If space is so tight that removing your DAW makes all the difference then maybe your machine is full up with data files which could be archived or trimmed.
 
You can move and samplers and other vsti's to another drive happily, cubase needs you to just add a new location in the vst manager and it finds them. Loading old projects produces a "I can't find..." Error and you point it to the new location and it works fine. You cannot move cubase but you can uninstall it and reinstall it but that's more of a faff, so I'd leave the program and just move the audio files that belong to the included instruments.
 
I put all music files and their related stuff onto a separate drive, and back that up a lot. That's the way to go. I assume that most users of any and all DAWS do the same--the program itself in the computer's main drive, all the music files on other outboard drives. Back it up!
 
Hi 682, how did you get Cubase AI? It usually comes bundled with an interface or other hardware.

Since AI is basically 'free' if you bother the A off Steinberg you could probably get a fresh download activated? I did this some years ago when I bought a second hand Tascam US144, after several email too'ing and fro'ings they gave me a free go. So, you could probably get it going again if needs be...Or! Buy the $100 'lesser' version, will still be klicks better than AI. (if you do, also get a dongle and don't tie the software to one machine)

I am in a similar position to yourself, this Lenovo W10 laptop only has a 160G SSD (why did I not get bigger y'all say? Because it was HARD enough to get the spec I wanted, had to be 15.6" screen, would have gone bigger if possible. SSD and 8G of ram and my budget limit was about £400)

I reasoned that 160G would be enough since the machine was not intended for any serious recording use, I just wanted a W10 machine for internet and 'office' purposes. I have other computers with Cubase an Samplitude Pro X 3 on them. This Lenovo does have Audacity and Sam Silver freebie on it. I see even the basic AI needs 20G of hard drive space? That would be a serious chunk of my 160G!

And...you can buy a 'shockproof' 1tB USB 3 drive now for about $50 to keep the other drive spruced.

JUST come to me! You should be able to make an 'image' of your drive and store it on an external drive? Then (in theory!) you could uninstall stuff but go back to square one if ever you needed to.
I HASTEN to add! Although I have images stored for all my machines (and boot discs) I have never formatted a drive and tried to reinstall from one. (I have, a few times formatted a drive and reinstalled XP and W7)

Dave.
 
Dave, you might consider snagging a nice 500gb SSD to pop into that T510. i replaced the HD in my 10 yr old ASUS a while back. It was pretty easy, I have a SATA>USB external unit that had a drive failure. I simply pulled that drive out and installed a new 500g hard drive, then ran the cloning software that you get from Seagate, Samsung, etc. After that was finished I swapped the drives and everything came up, but with lots of empty storage space.

The T510 drive is really easy to replace, if its like the one I had at work a few years back.

I was just looking at a video about my S340 which has a 256G M2 SSD. It seems there's an empty SATA slot just waiting for a nice SSD data drive, so there's likely an upgrade in my future. 756GB should be plenty for a general use laptop.

... back to the OP:

With SD cards now readily available in 64 and 128GB sizes, that might be a prudent option, although reading from SD cards is never as fast as a true SSD. I don't know how well Cubase would run from an SD card, especially if he's used to the lightning fast SSD, but you could certainly move your data files there. Can any of you Apple folk comment on if its a major deal to upgrade an Apple to something like a 1TB SSD?
 
Can any of you Apple folk comment on if its a major deal to upgrade an Apple to something like a 1TB SSD?

Depends on the model. With macbook/mac pro it's easy enough to upgrade the system drive.
With iMacs and minis it's more of a job and certainly not for everyone.
Modern models are going to have thunderbolt, though, so with those models it makes more sense to expand that way.
 
Depends on the model. With macbook/mac pro it's easy enough to upgrade the system drive.
With iMacs and minis it's more of a job and certainly not for everyone.
Modern models are going to have thunderbolt, though, so with those models it makes more sense to expand that way.


That's true, although sometimes, when I have my laptop plugged into a USB hub with a hard drive, scanner, keyboard and Hauppage video capture plugged in, it takes me back to the days of the Atari 800 with the daisy chained peripherals! I guess we've come full circle, eh?
 
With Apple portables you can add in all the adapters and hubs required to even get you ports for all that crap ^.
Going to need a bigger desk... :laughings:
 
"Dave, you might consider snagging a nice 500gb SSD to pop into that T510. i replaced the HD in my 10 yr old ASUS a while back. It was pretty easy, I have a SATA>USB external unit that had a drive failure. I simply pulled that drive out and installed a new 500g hard drive, then ran the cloning software that you get from Seagate, Samsung, etc. After that was finished I swapped the drives and everything came up, but with lots of empty storage space.

The T510 drive is really easy to replace, if its like the one I had at work a few years back."

Thanks Rich but I am a 'storage slob'! I have about the house probably 7 or 8 gigs of storage on various drives in computers and external USB drives (and a NAS*) The low capacity of the one in this Lenovo keeps me tidyer! I am aware of its limitations and so dump stuff off periodically to a wee 1Tb USB 3.0 drive (no home should be without one!)

If I had 500G to play with it would just get stuffed silly. MOSTLY I might add with .pdfs of manuals and test recordings for peeps on here!

Also IF I did want a bigger drive in it I would hand the job over to my local laptop tech, five minute walk down the frog.

* Oh yes! The NAS. It is an old one on my network (copper) and painfully slow. Can anyone tell me if the new ones are faster? For example, this i7 lappy shoots data from hard drive to a USB 3.0 stick (they vary mind) well fast enough for my needs. Would a modern NAS be about as quick?

Dave.
 
NAS speeds depend mainly on two things, Dave. The speed of the drives in the NAS and the speed of the network connection you're using to access it.
If you're accessing via wifi then that's almost certainly going to be the bottle neck.
Gigabit lan, on average, might be 10x faster than that but, compared to direct access to a hard drive, still not that fast...in and around 100MB/s
10 Gigabit lan is, shocker, 10X that.

In short read the r/w specs for any NAS you're considering then work out realistic throughput based on your network connection, then your max speeds will be the slower of the two.
 
I gave in and ordered a Samsung EVO for my Lenovo laptop. It took 15-20 minutes and now I've got a 500gb data drive for Reaper and video files. Definitely worth $69 not to have to worry about it anymore. So glad they designed it for both M2 and regular hard drives. Pop the back, unscrew 8 screws to remove and unmount the caddy, screw in the ssd, close up the back, format and PRESTO!

It took longer to upgrade the desktop downstairs.
 
I have another question regarding extra storage. I had a USB 3.0 Express card in this T510 but it was always a bit wayward and then I tried to remove it and it sort of fell apart! I think you can get an SSD in E card format but I am having trouble finding one.

I don't really need another two USB 3 ports, have two plus a 2.0 but another say 128G in the side slot would be handy.

Dave.
 
I'm not sure if that's a thing, Dave. If it is I don't think it's very common.
I'd just go with USB. Whether that's a traditional 2.5" drive with an adapter, or in a caddy, or something tiny like the Samsung FIT Plus.

May as well be compatible with other computers. ;)
 
One thing that I noticed is that my 32gb micro USB flash drives run REALLY warm, and seem to drag power to the extent that it makes the USB mouse work erratically. They work great in USB2 slots, but USB3 slots act weird. That's one reason I avoided just getting a 128g flash drive. Plus, being SATA it is much faster. I could have also gone with an SD card but it would stick out, making it vulnerable to damage.


Dave, I do remember someone making a hard drive in PCI Expresscard format, but that was many years ago. I'm assuming you're looking for something like this:
WIntec FileMate

I had a 10baseT PCI Espress card with a really old Digital laptop, mono with a 20mb hard drive. I also had a USR Sportster 56k modem. There were not SSDs or flash drives back then.
 
Yes Rich, that FileMate is the very chap I was looking for!

My reasoning was, such a card would be 'fit and forget' and I could quickly dump stuff onto it without having to plug in an external drive. I dare say I could 'instruct' Samplitude to use it as the default recording drive?

But I doubt I shall find one? I briefly considered looking for another USB 3.0 card but, as I said, I haven't really missed it. Brand was 'CSL' and it looks flimsy and was a very tight fit in the slot.

However! A light has come on in potato head! Under the E slot is one for an SD card so I can get a 128 gig one O dem and have extra, out of the way, storage. Maybe not as fast as an SSD but I's in no hurry.

Bit of a jungle SD cards! I can get 128G for forty quid or pay nearly £200 for one. Then saw one that was "1024G" but the wording said "512G/1024G. What does that mean?

I was also wondering if speed was inversely proportional to capacity? It seems not and the received wisdom seems to be that there is no advantage to having several smaller cards to one larger capacity one. Mind you, that information came from a camera/video site.

On balance I think I shall go for 128G as that seems the best bet for cost-v-capacity. 128G will nearly double the storage in the laptop.

Dave.

Dave.
 
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