Recording to external disk?

Do most of you do this instead of recording to your system disk? If so, why?

Because usually your system disk is busy running the shop. You can get away with it for a while if your projects are small, but after a while, things will start to slow down, and audio may not always have top priority over system functions. Result - gliches. If you are a privateer, maybe no problem, but if you are doing it for a living, it would be almost suicidal.
Most professionals have been using a MacPro with several internal disks, system, audio, and maybe a couple of sample library disks. Lately with the advent of Thunderbolt, external disks are stating to be a more reasonable option, which has been bringing the iMacs and laptops more into play.Firewire is OK, but if you are running dozens of tracks with lots going on, as well as a firewire interface, things can start to bottle neck.
if you have the option of only one internal drive, make sure your extermal audio drive is AT LEAST firewire 400. 800 is much better, and eSATA or Thunderbolt is as good as an internal drive. USB2 is not a feasible option for external audio, unless you are only talking about half a dozen tracks, and you don't mind a bit of skittishness.
Hope this helps.

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I have 2 macbooks each with an account for me and one for my wife. I use one Macbook logged in with my account and my wife uses the other Macbook only loged in on her account. We both make regular time-machine back-ups each on a separate external disk

I have 2 Macbooks each with an account for me and one for my wife. I use one Macbook logged in with my account and my wife uses the other Macbook only logged in on her account. We both make regular time-machine back-ups each on a separate external disk. Is it possible to update her account on my macbook using her external disk without overwriting my stuff on the same Macbook and vice versa?

Time Machine does not do individual accounts. It records the complete drive. So if you were to use her TM backup on your Mac it would make your Mac just like hers. Both yours and her account on your MAC.
Just copy the missing files over from her Mac to yours. If there are differennt programs on each then they would need to be installed on both.

Time machine not backing up, no error message,plenty space in external disk

Hello,
Every time the Time Machine starts a back up, it stops 2 seconds later, it records that the back up has been made, but no file gets updated. It gives no error messages. For it, the back up has been made, when in reality it has not. There is plenty of space in the external disk (twice as much as the space used in the Mac HD). Do you know what may be going on?
Thanks
Message was edited by: F A

See #D5 in [Time Machine - Troubleshooting|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).

Moving iPhoto to external drive; have formatted external disk to Mac OS Extended (Journaled), moved the iPhoto library to external drive; when trying to change the library, the iPhoto file on new external is greyed out can't be selected.What went wrong?

Must have done something wrong..
1. formatted external disk to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) - required a partition, but that went fine. Entire new external disk was included in the partition formatted to Mac OS Extneded (journaled).
2. moved iPhoto library to new external disk
3. Holding Option key down, opened iPhoto
4. Choose library feature appeared, however when new library function option appeared and "choose library" selected, the iPhoto folder appearing in the new external drive was greyed out and not able to be selected. Therefore the default library remains the original iphoto library on the Mac.
I've moved the original iphoto library to the trash and then tried to start iPhoto. A message comes up that the iPhoto is in the trash and needs to be pulled out before iPhoto can start (clearly the new iphoto library on the external drive is not being seen.
Can anyone suggest where I went awry? Thanks!

Try trash the com.apple.iPhoto.plist file from the HD/Users/ Your Name / library / preferences folder.
(On 10.7 or later: Hold the option (or alt) key while clicking on the Go menu in Finder to access the User Library)
(Remember you'll need to reset your User options afterwards. These include minor settings like the window colour and so on. Note: If you've moved your library you'll need to point iPhoto at it again.)
What's the plist file?
For new users: Every application on your Mac has an accompanying plist file. It records certain User choices. For instance, in your favourite Word Processor it remembers your choice of Default Font, on your Web Browser is remembers things like your choice of Home Page. It even recalls what windows you had open last if your app allows you to pick up from where you left off last. The iPhoto plist file remembers things like the location of the Library, your choice of background colour, whether you are running a Referenced or Managed Library, what preferences you have for autosplitting events and so on. Trashing the plist file forces the app to generate a new one on the next launch, and this restores things to the Factory Defaults. Hence, if you've changed any of these things you'll need to reset them. If you haven't, then no bother. Trashing the plist file is Mac troubleshooting 101.
Then try select it again.

Mac OS X 10.5: Time Machine stops backing up to external disk

Official Mac document:
Issue or symptom
After about 10 GB or more of data is backed up to an external disk, Time Machine may stop backing up. This may happen the first time Time Machine backs up your files.
Products affected
Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard
Time Machine
Solution
Some hard disks ship with a Master Boot Record (MBR) partiton type. You will need to erase the external disk so that it is supported by Time Machine. Important: Erasing a disk deletes all files on it. Make sure that you have or make a copy of important files in another location first.
Use Disk Utility to erase the external hard drive:
Use "Apple Partition Map" partition scheme if Time Machine will be used on a PowerPC-based Mac.
Use "GUID" partition scheme if Time Machine will be used on a Intel-based Mac.
Once the external hard disk is reformatted, select it again in Time Machine preferences and use it for your backups.
This document will be updated as more information becomes available.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306932

If you have more than one user account, these instructions must be carried out as an administrator.
Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Console in the icon grid.
Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left. If you don't see that menu, select
View ▹ Show Log List
from the menu bar.
Enter the word "Starting" (without the quotes) in the String Matching text field. You should now see log messages with the words "Starting * backup," where * represents any of the words "automatic," "manual," or "standard." Note the timestamp of the last such message. Clear the text field and scroll back in the log to that time. Select the messages timestamped from then until the end of the backup, or the end of the log if that's not clear. Copy them (command-C) to the Clipboard. Paste (command-V) into a reply to this message.
If there are runs of repeated messages, post only one example of each. Don't post many repetitions of the same message.
When posting a log extract, be selective. Don't post more than is requested.
Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.
Some personal information, such as the names of your files, may be included — anonymize before posting.

Proven external disk for Time Machine backups?

I'm looking for a good, reasonably priced, external disk to temporarily use for Time Machine backups. My 10.9.4 install is messed up and Time Machine no longer works with my ReadyNAS NV+ system. I want to use the disk to backup my MBP and reinstall the OS. Can someone please suggest a proven external disk (2TB+) with a USB 2.0 (or Ethernet) interface?
Thanks,
Ira

Hello all,
I decided to give my 2007 MBP one last upgrade with a new 1TB internal disk that I will install with 10.9.4 from scratch and will (slowly) migrate all my digital hoarding over to it. I've been using the same OWC FW800/USB enclosure since upgrading the original 160GB disk way back when. If TM still doesn't work with the new install (which will narrow down the TM issue to the ReadyNAS NV+), then I will put the current 750GB disk into the enclosure, flash it, and retry TM.
For the record, I chose the HGST Travelstar 2.5-Inch 1TB 7200RPM SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache internal disk. It was just $75 from Amazon and I used Amazon Points to pay for half of it.
Regards,
Ira

Slow start when record to external hard drive

I'm new to this so bare with me. When set up to record multitrack to my external drive, (via firewire 400 connection) it takes several minutes to start on my macbook. Seems to start ok with internal hard drive. Also experiencing disc too slow error about 40 minutes into recording. Any help would be appreciated.

Open up Disk utility. It's in your Utilities Folder.
Select your external disk in the left column.
In the lower left corner, you should see this, which will tell you how it's formatted:
!http://web.me.com/johnalcock/filechute/DiskFormat.png!
If it says Mac OS Extended, you're OK, and there's another problem.
If it doesn't (it might say FAT32 or NFTS) then _backup all the contents of that drive first_, and after you're sure it's backed up, format the drive, following the instructions in Disk Utility.

One USB port does not work with external Disk or USB key

Hello,
Back to my iMAC there is 3 USB port. The second one - in the middle - does not work pluging an external Disk, an USB key or an iPOD nano. However it works well connecting a Wacom tablet.
Is there an explanation to this behaviour ?
More the keyboard is plugded on USB port 1 and the mouse on the keyboard. Time to time - especially at reboot - I have to unplugged the mouse and plugged again it in order it works.
In advance thank you for your answers
Regards

Since it does not work for three different devices, I will assume it is not something simple like a faulty USB cable. Since it does work for one device, I will also assume that the port is (at least partially) working.
As a test to narrow down the cause, I would try restarting from your Mac OS X installation disc (insert disc and restart with the C key held down).
At the first Installer screen (after language selection), go up the menu bar. Under Utilities, select to run Disk Utility. Now, connect the USB drive into that center port. Does it appear in the Disk Utility sidebar?
Please post back the result...

Can I back up iphone to an external disk?

can I back up iphone to an external disk?

You can move your /Home/Music/iTunes folder to the external drive. Then hold down the OPTION key while starting iTunes. In the file dialog locate the /Music/iTunes/ folder on the external drive and click on the Open button. iTunes will now use the library on the external drive. When you sync your data and backups will now be saved on the external drive.

How to connect an external disk to time capsule?

Hi,
I've just connected my new external disk 2TB to the time capsule device. However, it doesn't show in the disk tab in Airport express. Yes, of course the disk is on, it's hfs+journaled formatted and works fine when connected directly to my usb port on my MacBook Pro.
Any suggestion, please?
Thanks.

Unless this is a really new feature, Airport Express doesn't support external USB disks; only USB printers.
The Wireless-N Time Capsules and Airport Extremes support external USB disks.

I want to set up the Time Machine and I would love to use the Time Capsule but since I already have a wireless router I need suggestions on what other external disks Apple could recommend to use with the Time Machine and how to configure that disk

I want to set up the Time Machine and I would love to use the Time
Capsule but since I already have a wireless router I need suggestions on
what other
external disks Apple could recommend to use with the Time Machine and
how to configure that disk.
A complication that I need to resolve is the fact that I am using Vmware
Fusion to be able to use Windows on my Mac. Now it seems that Time
Machine is not backing up my files
on that virtual Windows without additional configuration and my question
is whether you can advise me here or whether this is only a matter for
the Fusion virtual machine.

If you want to use Time Capsule you can.. you simply bridge it and plug it into the existing router.. wireless can be either turned off or used to reinforce the existing wireless.. eg use 5ghz in the TC which is much faster than your 2.4ghz.
You can also use a NAS.. many brands available but the top brands are synology, qnap and netgear readynas series. These will all do Time Machine backups although how well always depends on Apple sticking to a standard. There are cheaper ones.. I bought a single disk zyxel which was rebadged and sold through my local supermarket. It actually works very well for TM at least on Snow Leopard. Major changes were made in Lion and again ML so do not instantly think it will work on later versions. I haven't tried it yet with those versions.
Any external drive can be plugged into the mac. Use the one with the fastest connection or cheapest price according to your budget. USB2 drives are cheap and plentiful. But no where near as fast as USB3 or FW800. So just pick whichever suits the ports on your Mac. Interesting Apple finally moved to USB3 on their latest computers.
TM should exclude the VM partition file.. it is useless backing it up from Mac OS side.. and will slow TM as it needs to backup that partition everyday for no purpose.. TM cannot see the files inside it to backup just the changes.
You need to backup windows from windows. Use MSbackup to external drive.. if you have pro or ultimate versions you can backup to network drive. But MSbackup is a dog.. at least until the latest version it cannot restore the partition without first loading windows. There are about a zillion backup software versions for windows.. look up reviews and buy one which works for you. I use a free one Macrium Reflect which does full disk backups and is easy to restore.. to do incremental backups though you have to pay for it.

Can't open iPhoto after copying to external disk

After i had made a copy to the external disk, i can launch the iphoto. Everytime, i clicked on iphoto library, it showed
'Angs-MacBook-Air:iPhoto Library_old.photolibrar hooitang$' in terminal. Also, when i click iphote in dock, it showed ' You can't open
the application "iPhoto" because it is not supported on this type of Mac.
Please advise what to do now.

Rather than copy and paste drag it over
and very important
what format is the EHD?
The best way to move the library to a properly formatted EHX is
Moving the iPhoto library is safe and simple - quit iPhoto and drag the iPhoto library intact as a single entity to the external drive - depress the option key and launch iPhoto using the "select library" option to point to the new location on the external drive - fully test it and then trash the old library on the internal drive (test one more time prior to emptying the trash)
And be sure that the External drive is formatted Mac OS extended (journaled) (iPhoto does not work with drives with other formats) and that it is always available prior to launching iPhoto
And backup soon and often - having your iPhoto library on an external drive is not a backup and if you are using Time Machine you need to check and be sure that TM is backing up your external drive
LN

Can i put my itunes library on an external disk?

hi,
i want to store my itunes library on and external disk but want it to work just like it does on the internal hdd. is that possible?
i tried to store it on a home server. and while i could play the contents of the library. the art-work and so-forth did not appear in the itune client.
please advise.

Yes, it's most certainly possible. The easiest way is to just drag the entire iTunes folder (the entire folder, not just the iTunes Music folder) to your desired location. Then hold down the Shift key while launching iTunes. You'll be given a dialog box where you can select the iTunes library you want to use. Navigate to and select the iTunes folder in it's new location. Note that this procedure assumes that all of your content is contained in the iTunes Media/Music folder. If things are scattered around your drive, moving them becomes much more complex.
Once you get things moved successfully, be sure not to launch iTunes with the external drive not mounted or iTunes will default back to the internal drive. If it does, though, just mount the external drive and launch iTunes with the Shift key again.
Regards.

How do I link an iTunes Library (on an external disk) ?

Hi all,
I'd like to keep my huge collection on external drives.
I was able to link the correct playlist (on external disk which was cloned from my previous Mac).
What exactly should I link?
For example: in Aperture, I just select the Aperture Library on my external drive and all my pics are available (obviously if the drive is plugged in).
In iTunes I don't see this option... The only thing I see is the iTunes Media Folder Location option... which I don't really understand why is not there on my external hard drive.
Any idea?
Thanks

If you have the whole iTunes library (media files, library files, genius, artwork, etc.) on an external drive hold down the option key while starting iTunes, navigate to the external, and it will use the iTunes folder on the external. This is all too often confused with just keeping media (but not the library files or artwork) on an external which is the setting you see in Preferences.

Just installed 10.6.3 on MacBook Pro and external disks cannot be seen by OS. Help

i installed 10.6.3 on my 17" MacBook Pro (updating from 10.5.8). All my external disk drives which had all been visible to the system and accessible before the update no longer were visible to the OS. Not in the sidebar and not in the disk utility. After checking all connections etc. many reboots, resetting the pram i still am unable to see or access these disks.
From there i updated to 10.6.8 but exactly the same results. i'm not sure where to go from here. i have 4 externals on 2 different usb routers and 1 external on a firewire router.
I'm considering removing the routers and trying each drive separately and directly connected to the laptop.
And of course, i'm short of time.
Anyone with similar problems and/or solutions?

You mean USB HUBs, correct? Not routers.
Yes remove the HUBs and try the drives connected directly to the computer.

Recording to external disk?

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