How do I move existing Logic projects to an external hard drive?

Question

My internal hdd is getting close to capacity on my iMac so i've purchased an external 500GB USB hdd.
I have about 10 existing projects that i'd like to move to my new drive.
These projects consist of WAV files imported from a portable digital recorder, fresh recorded tracks using my audio interface, and midi tracks. Most of my tracks are at the 'final mix' stage and are sounding pretty sweet
Would it benefit me to move my Logic projects to my external drive, or should I scrap the idea and move my huge itunes library instead? If it is worth moving my Logic projects - what is the best way to do it? I really don't want to have to remix, re-record anything. I also don't want to get lost in Finder.
I'm quite new to Logic but I intend to 'use best practice' if possible. I get the impression that using an external hard drive with Logic may offer performance gains. My audio interface is firewire (M-Audio FW 410). The USB external hdd was brought to avoid firewire conflicts.
Any tips would be most welcome.
Thanks in advance. Rich

Answer 1

In theory, you should be able to copy all of your projects to the external and open and use them exactly as before with no problems and no need to re-mix anything...
BUT, and its a big BUT...
Are you sure all of your projects were started AS projects with all the audio files, instrument samples etc. stored in the relevant folders in the project's folder?
Before doing anything, go through all of your "projects", make sure they ARE projects (there should be a project folder, the song file stored in the project folder, with audio, undo etc. folders within the main project folder for each one) - if they are not, do a "save as project" - it should give you a number of options to copy any external audio files etc. to the project folder. If for any reason it doesn't I would then choose "project - consolidate" from the main file menu, which will give you the same options. Even if you are SURE that all your projects ARE projects, I would choose "consolidate project" just to be sure...
You should then be able to proceed... but don't delete the originals until you are sure everything is working fine. I would even suggest backing up the originals in another location (it could even be a back-up folder on the same external), so you can just move them straight back to the original location if there are any problems.
When I first started using Logic many years ago there was no option to save projects, and I learnt the hard way to create the folder structure that logic now does for you. But even so, unless you started out knowing how to use this function, its possible some of your audio files are still stored in the wrong location. "Consolidate project" should solve this.
As for the USB HD - I would avoid using a USB drive for audio. It is said that USB 2 is faster than firewire 400, but I don't know any musician or film maker that would use one.
You can daisy chain firewire devices with no problems in my experience. If you do experience problems I might suggest you search up on any posts to do with M-Audio interfaces and Macs...
Good Luck!