Q: I know that “traditionally” we’ve been told to record to a separate hard drive from the computer’s system hard drive. Is this still necessary? My laptop’s solid-state hard drive is smokin’ fast, it seems like I could just record to it?
A: Our own Mitch Gallagher replies, “Today’s solid-state, fusion, and mechanical hard drives are all amazing fast. I have to admit that I often record a few tracks to the internal drive in my Macbook Pro and I never have any problems. I’ve even done larger sessions at high sample rates without any issues.
“However, when I asked IT professionals about this question, I was told that today’s operating systems access the internal ‘system’ drive pretty much constantly, which leaves less bandwidth available for recording and streaming samples, etc. For this reason, and for ease of transport and backing up, I still recommend using an external drive to record tracks and to play large streaming sample libraries.
“You can probably get by just fine using the internal drive in your laptop. But for best performance and to reduce the worry of potential problems, use an external drive.”