Running out of disk space

  • Thread starter Thread starter fritsthegirl
  • Start date Start date
A couple of things that I didn't see mentioned:

1). Having a second hard drive for your data gives the advantage of having two read/write heads operating simultaneously,
so it should be faster.

2.) I have read that it is unwise to compress the data on your drive, so please don't try to "shrink it." ;)
 
And a third.. You really ought to consider two drives. The current working projects/recording drive-- and the backup drive.

The phrase in digital is 'it doesn't exist until it's in two places.
 
mixsit said:
And a third.. You really ought to consider two drives. The current working projects/recording drive-- and the backup drive.

The phrase in digital is 'it doesn't exist until it's in two places.
Click to expand...

I do this. I learned from experience that losing the contents of a drive is considerably upsetting when everything vanishes in one go!
 
^^ Agreed.^^

It's not a matter of "if," but "when" your computer is going to take a dive.
Mine did it last month, I had it all backed up in the "cloud," still took me week to sort it all out after I reformatted.
 
gecko zzed said:
There are a number of things you need to think about

1 You are right about your limited storage, but it need not be a handicap. You've got an external hard-drive, so use it. Forget about the 2Gb.

2 Reaper is very good at not losing stuff. That's a blessing and a bane. It means that unless you explicitly delete files, they will just hang around. This includes all the crappy takes and false starts etc during a recording session. Deleting them from the Reaper screen doesn't delete them from the drive, so you can accumulate unwanted files very quickly. Reaper has a file option called 'clean up directory' or something like that, and that's a handy way of getting rid of unwanted files and freeing up space. But it is risky . . . see the next point.

3 It is wise to develop a way of managing your songs. There are many ways of doing this, but one way is as follows:
* first of all, go to your external drive and create a folder called 'my songs' are similar.
* when you want to record, and before you do, load up Reaper, then go to 'save project as' and save the project with the song name into the folder called 'my songs'. Check the box that says 'create sub-directory'. The files for that song and the Reaper Project file will all then be saved in a new folder within 'my songs'. If you have a need to move that song around, you can just grab the whole folder. Or you can delete the whole folder, knowing that you are only deleting the files for that song.
* when you've finished work on that song, you can go to to File/Clean Current Project Directory, and Reaper will get rid of all the stuff not actually used in the song.
* If you get excited and forget to create a directory for a song and just start recording, Reaper will save the files to a default folder (something like Reaper media or similar). That's okay. Just go "Save Project as', specify the location, and check the box that says 'move all media into project directory'. Doing this prevents (a) files being scattered across various folders, and (b) different song files ending up in the same folder.
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That's really helpful!
I did a sloppy paint as I tried this method, worked really well and easy.... very nice.
 

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I keep my current couple of projects on a good thumb drive & work directly with that.
I also do as Gek says in terms of managing files & when I'm done with a project I move it to the external drives (I use a back up of the external because I've had tthe odd bad experience).
Easy as with Repaer - much harder with my old version of cakewalk proAudio 9.3 - though it would do a nice job of compressing a completed project (bundle) so that it'd fit onto a CDR.
 
Thankfully I was using this type of saving/folder structure already, so had no probs moving everything over to my external drive in a jiffy. I did use the file clean up on a few old things before archiving it, and that is really good to know about.

Since moving all my working files to removable drive no more storage alerts when recording and also no recording or playback issues by doing this - as promised above.

I will still go for a third TB drive, and use this purely for reaper. I'm currently sharing the external drive with my mp3 collection so it won't be long before I run out room on this as well.

Thanks for all the tips!
 
Couple of thoughts..
I know there is contention here but most of the "pros" use 44.1kHz (48 for vid). Going for higher sample rates gives no real sonic improvement but bigger files.

Then, although it is better to record at 24bits, when a song is "done and dusted" whether it gets burned to CD (??) or has the crap MPThreeeed out of it, you might as well save it as a 16bit/44.1kHz file.

As for our (son does music, I solder and earn) storage? The working music W7/64 PC has a barely touched 320G system drive, a 500G drive to record to and we have a 2TB NAS drive where stuff gets duped to.

Dave.
 
rayc said:
I keep my current couple of projects on a good thumb drive & work directly with that..
Click to expand...
I was just getting started with RME's DURecording direct off the UFX to thumb drives. Looks like their having fast enough throughput for general drive duties has come around as well then?
 
quick solution if you have an ipod classic plug it in and use it as a portable hard drive. but yeah you need an external hdd. if your machine has a usb 3 port then get a usb3 one as they are so fast and you can keep everything on them. I use a seagate usb3 3TB. Costed me €100 space is not an issue for me. Also if I get a new laptop which i did i dont have to worry about transferring, just plug it in again. Also if i go back to my desktop I dont need to sync either. again just plug it in. and done.
 
@gecko zzed:
I wanted to take time-out to thank you for this very wise and informative post on file management with Reaper. I have the Kenny Gioia "Reaper 4 Explained" DVD from groove3.com and albeit still learning, but this post of yours is reason I have read many hours/days of posts here doing proper searches without to date posting a question; a big kudos out to you!
 
Redlad_ said:
quick solution if you have an ipod classic plug it in and use it as a portable hard drive. but yeah you need an external hdd. if your machine has a usb 3 port then get a usb3 one as they are so fast and you can keep everything on them. I use a seagate usb3 3TB. Costed me €100 space is not an issue for me. Also if I get a new laptop which i did i dont have to worry about transferring, just plug it in again. Also if i go back to my desktop I dont need to sync either. again just plug it in. and done.
Click to expand...
See ya and raise you one; RME's now doing what'cha call 'Class Compliant with their UC and UFX.. Apparently full multi-track recording to a frickin '$600 i-Pad!?


And now back to the thread;)
 
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