Using Three Drives - Help Please. . . Options

[Humaniversally]

Hi everyone. I just bought a third hard drive which again brought up the question of how to set-up things for optimal performance. While I’ve read around forums about this, I’d appreciate feed-back on certain points.

I’m planning to do this :

First 80GB drive for apps and DAW.
Second 160HG for samples.
Third 160GB for recorded audio.

My questions are : What about soft-synths and such ? There are 3 components here, the software itself, the “sampler instruments files” and the actual samples’ files (wav. Sf2. Aiff. Etc). Is the whole thing better off in the samples’ drive ? Or the app stays in the first with the sampler instruments’ files while the samples go to the samples’ drive ? Or both the sampler instruments and the samples go there ?

Then. About the third recorded audio drive, is it better strictly used for audio that’s recorded with one’s sequencer or can it be also used to store other audio stuff – such as recorded audio made with other programs (in wav, aiff formats and such) as such or compressed as MP3s, MPEGs, etc ?

Also. Some mentioned making a partition on first drive to separate the DAW’s sequencer from all other apps. Any value in this ?

That’s it for now. Thanks in advance,

[lepetitmartien]

First thing : each and every apps ad plugins should be on system drive. Final.

Secondly, for the samples, if the plug-ins let you, try to move them elsewhere. Now it won't work each time as some don't have the option to find the samples back. Now for just files non audio ones, leave them with the plugs!

Anyway, for the plugs the right way of thinking is :

- try with the default install
- if an issue arise, move samples library on another drive.

As long as you have enough RAM, the strain on the drives is low save if you're very heavy on samples all the time.