Will the external USB portable hard drives work with Ivory?
They don't give any "speeds" of these drives. They might not even be a disk drive? May not mattter?

Very unlikely any USB hard drive will work.You need firewire 800 or E-SATA for an external hard drive.

Or thunderbolt or USB 3.0. I tried a 10,000 rpm drive on usb 2.0 and it does not work.

I actually installed Ivory II onto a USB 2.0 hard drive (Western Digital My Essentials) and it worked fine. Sometimes you'll have a bit of a latency issue, but it's never really bothered me. If I'm using Ivory II, my basic setup is Kawai-MP10 USBed to Late 2008 Macbook Pro, and then Ivory II, on my external HD, connected via USB to the MBP and run through Garageband. I needed to get a USB hub because MBP only has 2 USB slots, and I needed a third slot for the iLok. I've played and recorded with this setup with no real issue.

USB is often pooh-pooh'ed for lack of speed, but is often quite adequate.

And even Ivory 1.5 has a buffer setting that can be set to use more RAM to compensate. I presume Ivory 2 has this, too?

To the OP: I presume you're using a laptop? If it's a desktop, and internal drive would be better (and cheaper) than an external.

You presume correctly.
The hard drive speed is the only thing that I lack to use Ivory.

Okay, I thought that the emphasis was on portability of the external drive, to be able to move it from one computer to another.

If that's not the case, then just replace your internal drive with a 7200 RPM drive. I'm running Windows XP plus Ivory 1.5 on in a 70 GB partition. It fits!

(I wouldn't recommend being quite so tight on storage. I'm tight only because I'm reusing a 5-year-old laptop with a small (but fast) drive. For well under $100 I/you could get a new drive with hundreds of GB.)

Would replacing the existing drive work that much better? I'm guessing a yes? Due to it connected straight to the buss (think that's the right term). I'd have to get somebody else to change it out. I'm saturated with old computer practices. Anymore, it turns to gobbilty goop. Too much new and mixes with old info that has stained my brain.
I can say though. That Western Digital Elements external hard drive. They say it's USB 2. And it's plug and play. No hassle. One I'm looking at is 500GB and is only $69.99... That's pretty affordable.

I can't say how well the external drive will work ... it probably will.

If it were me, I'd replace the internal drive with a big/fat 500 GB drive. That would require either:

. . a. First take an image of the old drive (to capture the OS and all of your "stuff"). Save the image to another computer, accessible on the network. Then put in the new drive and restore the saved image onto it.
. . OR
. . b. Just plug in the new drive and re-install Windows.

But if all of that techno-crud annoys you, it's probably easier to try the external USB drive. Plug, play, done.

I would go with MacMacMac's advice : there's no real point in getting an external drive if you don't plan to use it on another computer. Internal drive should be a bit cheaper, it will be faster, less things that hangs on your laptop. Reinstalling Windows XP or 7 is less painful / slow than installing Ivory 2's library anyway and will give you a "clean" install (else you can use programs like game prelauncher that will let you start Ivory with sort of a minimum configuration).

Yes, I too would recommend using a fast (7200rpm) internal drive, or better yet, an SSD.

Cheers,
James
x

I sure appreciate the advise. It is well taken.
I may still go with an external. Yes, I very well may use Ivory on another computer. Biggest reason is I have no faith in this ms based comfuser. I had to get Norton to load a backup online. This thing wouldn't even recognize the second, or third, or whatever disk when I tried to backup. Always stupid problems with an ms based system. Would be nice to have a backup handy on a separate drive. Also have some very important to me pictures would like to have on there.
I also looked into getting a mac mini. They even offer them in upgrade with an SSD! This is the next thing I am looking at buying. Maybe next year. I love my mac. I'm posting with it right now. It is, unfortunately, obsolete. I know Ivory will allow me to load my mac version onto a new mac when I get it. Clean up this area also with just one computer. Will be able to reformat the external drive for mac. Then an extra storage area for important things.
Am seriously considering all options.
Even considering slightly buying a used mac that has enough to run Ivory.

No matter what I do. To get lag time down to a minimum. I will need to get the presonus box? Yes? No? EDIT: I'm thinking no, if I get a computer that is fast enough?

I do want an extra thanks to macmacmac. Your thread on Ivory got me thinking alot. I think I went the killer way in buying a DP.

In another thread I mentioned that I bought the PreSonus box. It was only $76 used, on ebay. (New it's $150.)

The M-Audio box is another good choice, only slightly more expensive on ebay. (New it's $200.)

Both boxes do much more than what I need. But they'll both do what I DO need ... provide a simple add-on sound card that will eliminate latency. The PreSonus did that quite nicely, and it was not expensive. And it was easy to install and set-up.

Those drives that are USB powered will not work.
These are 5400rpm.
If a drive is 7200 or better then it will be written in the advertisement.
I would recommend to get a drive that has USB and eSata. Many Notebooks can use an adapter card for esata.
Also some Notebooks have a possibility to install a second harddrive. It is also sometimes possible to remove the internal CD-drive and replace it against an hardrive. Special adapters are available. Then you can use an external USB CD drive, if you need it.

I recommend to make a partition 64 GB or 128 GB at the outer tracks of the drive. This can hold the samples and because it is rarely written to it will not fragment and it is fast to defragment if necessary. I have best experiences with this method, it is reliable and affordable.
The outer rims on many drives are nearly as fast as a seagate raptor, but much cheaper.
Best,

Peter

Either way on the drive. Doesn't surprise me that one of the externals will work on a mac. Then expect problems on a ms based system.

Even then. I don't have enough USB ports to do this. The one time I tried one of those hubs. It didn't work out too good.

Looks like I'll probably be changing the internal hard drive. I really don't like ms based computers enough to upgrade. Doh!

I may just tolerate the sound on the CDP-100 for a few months until I can see squeezing a mini mac into my finances. The mac keyboard provides two USB ports. Otherwise I got everything purchased.

That sounds good. You will never achieve decent latency without clicking etc on a USB 2.0 drive, no matter how fast the drive. Your plan to wait will avoid headaches and disappointment.