File Management for Music Production (with External Hard Drives)

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If you still need to format your hard drive for MacOS - • How to Format a New Ex...
This video walks through a file management system optimized for music production. It walks through where to store sample libraries, VST, plugins, project files, DAWs, and if they should go on your laptop/pc or on an external hard drive with the goal of getting the best performance out of your setup for music production.
As a music producer, it can be a bit overwhelming to research the best organization for where to install applications, VSTs, etc. I've tried to distill everything I've come across here into an explanation and walkthrough that I definitely wish I had found earlier in my music production journey.
We'll talk through a setup using your main laptop/pc and 2 external SSD drives (solid state hard drives), a couple options for how to backup your project files or sample libraries (physical drive and/or cloud storage), and some general tips on the hardware to connect everything.
Affiliate Product Links (from this Video):
SSD (new M.2 NVMe format) - amzn.to/4ahxAKa
Enclosure for M.2 NVMe SSD - amzn.to/47ZQZOp
SSD (older internal format) - amzn.to/3GLnIuz
Enclosure for internal SSD - amzn.to/482blGL
Native Instruments Komplete 13 Ultimate - amzn.to/3GTfFMh
Free Templates & Presets:
• Free Templates & Presets
"Ear Drops" Sample Pack:
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Support My Content / Buy Me a Coffee:
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My Setup:
www.cradlecat.com/my-setup
00:00 - Intro
00:16 - A typical starter setup for music production (we'll switch away from this)
01:08 - Why should you use multiple hard drives for music production
03:12 - Where should projects, DAWs, and sample libraries be installed/saved for music production
04:10 - Why use SSDs instead of HDD for music production hard drives
04:37 - Cables and docks for connecting hard drives to laptop for music production
05:28 - How to backup project files, samples, and more for music production
09:24 - Summary of best file management setup for music production using 2 external SSD hard drives and cloud storage backups
10:23 - How to format external SSD hard drive for MacOS
I hope this helps you with your own setup for music production!
- Cradle Cat

Пікірлер: 45

  • @victormendoza8809
    @victormendoza8809 Жыл бұрын

    I've been trying to organize many years of work (charts/audio/business, etc) and you're a TECHNO-BLESSING! Thank you!

  • @CradleCat

    @CradleCat

    Жыл бұрын

    Thanks for commenting! Glad to hear it helped you out 🙌

  • @zacharymenard2073
    @zacharymenard20737 ай бұрын

    Such great info, getting a new Mac and finally getting my organization in place, very quick and easy answers to age old questions, keep it up!!!

  • @CradleCat

    @CradleCat

    7 ай бұрын

    Oooh which Mac did you get? I’ve been hearing more and more good things about the new models. And thank you! A lot of research and trial and error went into finding this setup 🙌

  • @GeraldLawMusic
    @GeraldLawMusic6 ай бұрын

    Very helpful. I'll be organizing my files this weekend. Thank you!

  • @CradleCat

    @CradleCat

    6 ай бұрын

    Glad you found it helpful! Let us know how it works for you and what cloud backup you end up using! 👍

  • @hmcvm
    @hmcvm6 ай бұрын

    This is amazingly helpful - thanks so much for sharing!

  • @CradleCat

    @CradleCat

    6 ай бұрын

    Hey glad you found it helpful! Thanks for watching 🙌

  • @ozzgold8
    @ozzgold8 Жыл бұрын

    This helps a lot! Thank you!

  • @CradleCat

    @CradleCat

    Жыл бұрын

    Hey thanks for letting me know! Did you end up using the same setup?

  • @andrewlittlewood4850
    @andrewlittlewood48503 ай бұрын

    Going to do this now following your video!

  • @CradleCat

    @CradleCat

    2 ай бұрын

    Thanks for checking out the video! Hope it helps your setup! 🙌

  • @Sxndshrxw
    @Sxndshrxw Жыл бұрын

    Amazing vid thanks man

  • @CradleCat

    @CradleCat

    Жыл бұрын

    Thanks for watching! Glad you found it helpful 🙌 What kind of music are you making?

  • @KyleValet
    @KyleValet4 ай бұрын

    Thank YOu...really well explained!!

  • @CradleCat

    @CradleCat

    2 ай бұрын

    glad you found it helpful! Thanks for checking out my channel and hope it helped your setup!

  • @whatever77999
    @whatever779993 ай бұрын

    Thank you so much man.

  • @CradleCat

    @CradleCat

    2 ай бұрын

    Thanks for checking out the video, happy to help! Took me awhile to figure out the ideal setup and I wanted to share 🙌

  • @TheAllang123
    @TheAllang1238 ай бұрын

    Excellent logic to maximize bandwidth and safety

  • @CradleCat

    @CradleCat

    8 ай бұрын

    thank you! I have a background as a software consultant 🤓 funny how it actually translates to music a decent amount

  • @marcell7406
    @marcell74065 ай бұрын

    backblaze for project file is goated btw

  • @CradleCat

    @CradleCat

    5 ай бұрын

    Thanks for the tip! I haven't checked that one out - what's makes it so good?

  • @cedricledore8806
    @cedricledore88065 күн бұрын

    So which usb dock do you have ? Which trademarks are the quality ones ?

  • @EBCArts
    @EBCArts Жыл бұрын

    Hey man this is an amazingly helpful video. Thank you so much! One question - say you are producing music on a MacBook Pro, and you’re starting a new song. Would you plug in the SSD for sample/content libraries, make the song, and then switch to the other SSD to save the file? Or do you have both SSDs plugged in at the same time with a docking station (I heard you mention that in the video). I guess my main question is how to avoid the DAW saying something like “media files are missing” when I open a project because the samples are on another drive. So I’m wondering how you avoid that. Hopefully the question makes some bit of sense… let me know if I can clarify. Thank you very much for the valuable content!!

  • @CradleCat

    @CradleCat

    Жыл бұрын

    Hey good question! Yes you'll want to have both SSDs plugged in at the same time. I use a docking station. In addition to just storage space (and the backup strategy i mentioned in the video), there's SUPPOSEDLY a slight performance benefit to do this, as you're splitting the data flow between 2 cables/drives (since each cable has a max bandwidth of how much data it can transfer in a second) instead of trying to read/write it all to one drive/cable. Hope that helps!

  • @MrJonsong
    @MrJonsong4 күн бұрын

    Great I just bought a M2 Studio with the base storage. Was trying to figure out what the best way to configure Cubase and SD3 as the libraries are quite large

  • @CradleCat

    @CradleCat

    9 сағат бұрын

    Oh nice, let us know what you think of the Studio! I've heard great things - I'm curious how quiet the fans are. My M1 Max Macbook Pro is virtually silent, and the fans almost never turn on. Hope this video helped with your Cubase / SD3 setup! Thanks for checking out the channel

  • @NATmusic27
    @NATmusic272 ай бұрын

    Ok but didn't you have any problems setting up an external ssd with you projects in it for cloud backup? I tried using google drive and it made couple of files in the projects corrupetd

  • @CradleCat

    @CradleCat

    6 күн бұрын

    Great question - I will do some more testing on this and confirm!

  • @vidark.6301
    @vidark.6301 Жыл бұрын

    I have a 2tb macbook pro 2019 with a lot of trouble. Will start using your system soon - but I wonder; since 2tb harddrive is excessive for your system - would partitioning this drive and use it for lets say works in progress, and some favorite samples, do me any good? Also. - did you have a recommendation for a dock..?

  • @CradleCat

    @CradleCat

    Жыл бұрын

    Hey thank for checking out the video! Hmm, that question is maybe a bit too technical for me to know the right answer. However, I'd personally not partition and instead use external drives, because 1) it makes it easier to upgrade laptops/computers in the future, and 2) you *might* have a slightly lower performance since more data is going in/out of the same physical disk instead of splitting it up across multiple drives. Again, maybe there's another hardware expert that can help on that question?

  • @vidark.6301

    @vidark.6301

    Жыл бұрын

    @@CradleCat That makes sense! Thanks for answering..!

  • @VEXUS920
    @VEXUS9207 ай бұрын

    Great video! I would not recommend Google Drive for this process, however. Google Drive only saves backups as "Computers". So if you change computers or upgrade or switch operating systems you have to kinda start over with backing up. These files are not deleted but they are only related to the computer they originated from not the drives in which they are housed. When you start re-inserting this drive on a new computer it starts everything over and there is no way to combine the files. The way around this is to be very selective with your choices in backing up, but if you're backing up a whole drive you'll spend hours or more just re-backing up your previous sessions and loops. It becomes a bit of a mess. I would recommend Backblaze it also has unlimited storage.

  • @CradleCat

    @CradleCat

    7 ай бұрын

    Thanks! I’ll have to check it out 👍 however just to clarify the purpose here for anyone watching or reading: There are definitely multiple solutions for the cloud storage option, but even less optimized ones are fine with me because the main goal of the suggested setup is to cover this scenario: 1) Physical drive dies / lost stolen 2) I buy a new drive 3 I download everything from the cloud backup and put it on the new hard drive Quickly switching the backup logistics when I buy a new computer isn’t the highest priority for me. I have done it once already with Google Drive, and I just leave it on to do it's thing as it takes its time to re-back up the drive in Google Drive > Computers (and yes it did back it up to a new instance of the drive since it was a connected to a new computer). However, that’s fine with me as it was a one time ordeal, and my main priority is avoiding catastrophic loss of data (client work, my own projects, etc). tldr; just make sure you're backing your stuff up to the cloud somewhere somehow, because you might eventually have a super sad day if you don't 😂

  • @VEXUS920

    @VEXUS920

    7 ай бұрын

    I agree overall! @@CradleCat

  • @ryanlesser
    @ryanlesser5 ай бұрын

    I could be wrong, but I think that you cannot sync multiple drives to Google Drive. I am having the issue currently where my internal MacBook pro drive is full and I would like to keep artwork on my internal drive and music production on and external SSD... but have all of it syncing with Google Drive (which is similar to the diagram at the end of your video). According to my research, this is not possible. If you know of a way to do this, please let me know. Thanks.

  • @CradleCat

    @CradleCat

    5 ай бұрын

    Hey! That should be possible (at least it is for me!) On your Macbook, go to Google Drive (app) > Preferences > Add Folder. Then just add whichever folders/drives you want to sync. Hope that helps!! 🙌 And thanks for checking out the channel!

  • @zakaroonetwork777
    @zakaroonetwork7776 ай бұрын

    Please, What App are you using to Illustrate this presentation? Thank you.

  • @CradleCat

    @CradleCat

    5 ай бұрын

    I'm using draw.io in this video! 🙌 Thanks for watching!

  • @vidark.6301
    @vidark.6301 Жыл бұрын

    Oh one more thing - could you do a video on organising samples and vst's as well? Like I think it's not really necessary with anything else than vst3's but i still have three folders of vst's many with the same plugins. Also not sure what I like best when it comes to naming/folders. WOuld like to hear your thoughts!

  • @CradleCat

    @CradleCat

    Жыл бұрын

    Good idea! What do you mean for the VST organization though?

  • @vidark.6301

    @vidark.6301

    Жыл бұрын

    @@CradleCat I mean in ableton, and probably in Logic too, there are separate folders for VST, VST3, audiounits etc. Some plugins don't have all options, but many of us install them all out of habit - maybe even RXX or whatever extra can be installed. We basically only need VST3 - also for mac VST usually works better than audio units is what I've heard. This is one part of the equation (so to get less options to choose from when picking VST's). The other is whether to put VST's in folders for for instance BASS, Synth, or EFX, or SoundToys, Eventide, Fabfilter, Arturia etc. Just some thoughts on naming of folders etc to keep organised, would be nice :) thanks!

  • @Outlabyrinth
    @Outlabyrinth4 ай бұрын

    Super Nice Could you do the same with VST ? Installed on external drive ?

  • @CradleCat

    @CradleCat

    2 ай бұрын

    I wouldn't recommend it. From what I understand, the VST themselves will perform best when installed directly on your computer/laptop. However, the sound libraries for those VSTs can be installed on external drives (that's what I do). Hope that helps and thanks for watching!

  • @Outlabyrinth

    @Outlabyrinth

    2 ай бұрын

    @@CradleCat thx for the answer ;)

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