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Tópico: Internal v's External HDD. - Page: 2

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royvanmeel external HDD are bad DJ practice.
You lead our people astray.
Make a proper argument.
Here is mine again...

I don't want to see newcomers adopt an inferior external solution when carrying, and playing their music.

External storage has a performance penalty if you are not using a fast connection like eSATA, USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt.
You can accidentally drop, and break it, or unplug it, and corrupt the data.
USB connections are subject to wear, and will fail long before the internal SATA connections.
An external HDD is extremely vulnerable to theft, and is also just another small item which can be mislaid.
USB HDD drives drain power from the USB bus making the connection to your controller less reliable.
Multiple USB controllers are often needed so it is not wise to add further unnecessary loads such as external USB HDD.
Internal HDD are cheaper.

To sum up external is inferior, it reduces reliability, and performance, whilst it increases cost.
Besides all else, why be dependent on two hdd, and a fragile connection when one installed safely in your laptop will suffice?
 
bigron1 I don't know what you are talking about? internal hdd was cheaper long time ago not now !
I Remember I used to buy internal hdd and be making them to be external but not any more, because the internal cost much more now ! about the external hard drive I think they are better because you can plug them to any pc let's say friends pc's and use cues,loops just same exactly you would do on yours that means a lot for me ,you can play on any pc with external . plus you can restore windows any time if something goes wrong and music it's safe and after fresh installation you are ready to rock ! disadvantage is really if you drop it on the floor,if you loose it etc ..
 
Life is to short to argue. You're right! :)
 
Although I don't use an external hard drive myself either, I don't think it's such a bad practice that it 'leads our people astray'

-Performance penalty is not an issue for DJ use. Even playback of full-hd video requires less than 1/10th the practical bandwidth that USB 2.0 can provide.
-You can accidentally drop a lot of things and break them, including your computer
-You use USB connections for your controller too I suppose. Maybe using a controller is bad practice too, and you should only rely on keyboard and touch pad of your laptop?
A backup cable is easy to carry with you.
-The USB specification is quite clear on power use, and power distribution in modern computers is quite good, with some even able to provide up to 1A on each port for charging purposes. The 500mA the USB 2.0 spec requires should not be a problem

Advantages of external:
-It still works when your laptop fails. With many clubs having cd players with usb ports, it means you could simply use these as a backup.
With an USB OTG cable you could even connect it to your phone and continue playing from it
-A secondary external is easy enough to carry with you as backup, should the first one fail.
If your internal drive fails, it will be a lot harder to replace on the spot, so that would require to bring an entire second pc to your gig.
 
You said it all there Adion
"I don't think it's such a bad practice that it 'leads our people astray'"

Maybe I took the extreme position, but you to adopt the internal solution.
Keywords "such a bad practice".
I agree, but it is not best practice.

I know what it's like out on a gig with wires everywhere, and very little time to set up. It's hard.
Don't say get there earlier, I've had to sit outside venues waiting for them to open.
Our people need the simplest, and best methods.
Extra complications such as messing around with an external USB HDD are not needed.
 
Bigron1 what you gonna do if your main drive fail right on the party ! let's say you got external hard drive you could borrow someone's ,friend's laptop and finish your job same as you would do with yours !
Plus you got in most flight cases a lot space to place external drives let's say i got mine build in the foam it's not moving nowhere ,just a small tip you can insert them in to the foam in flight case as well ,they gonna be very secure guys !
 
I have an identical laptop stored safely at home which can be brought to me within one hour. Cross DJ, and my phone can cover the down time.
This has never happened, though I have had speakers brought when a driver has failed on a couple of occasions.

I've got a third laptop as well which could cover an evening but it would be inferior.
 
Adion I agree with you ! I got 2 ssd drive one inside of the laptop and the other is preinstalled with same windows this could take to change 20 min on the gig just 2 screw's, any way you could use your external with the pc from the other dj you are playing a long .Without external hdd you would not be able to do all this .
 
 
I'm a graduate level trained engineer (plus a 5 year engineering apprenticeship), I have multiple speakers, amps, laptops, controllers, and backup wiring.
I never fail !
What are you?

You've just told me I'm better that Calvin Harris's support team.
They stink of incompetence.
 
Wow if I said what's on my mind I would surely be ban from here

Debate isn't about personal attacks.... no more of these threads for me.
 
bigron1 enough said, grove up man , Your language just told as who you are !
people use whatever you think is better ! I'm not pushing on external this is just an advice, does not to be accepted by others that the I'm right , I'm just telling people from my own experience why is good and why is bad ?bigron1 you just telling people one side why is bad ? it's not just disadvantage it's ( advantage and disadvantage )Internal/external hdd ...
 
USB is likely to be the least reliable system within a computer.
I do not like my controller being dependent on a USB cable, however I have no real choice.
 
I personally don't keep ANY music on my laptop. I use externals only (USB bus powered drives from Seagate), and I have never had a problem.

The laptop at this point comes a device (like a mixer or a microphone), which can be swapped out at any time. (I carry 2x MBP's with me to every event.)
 
dcomo this is exactly what I think ,good point !
only could be a bad point if the drive letter change + in case you don't know how to change the drive letter, if you know how to change that then you are ok it''s easy peasy !
 
SBDJ uses internal.
Adion uses internal.
Both are senior VDJ staff, and I believe Adion is the designer of VDJ 8.

If you already use external, carry on, as Adion said "its not such a bad system".
If you're new to digital dj'ing think carefully before adopting an external solution.
 
nicholas123 wrote :
dcomo this is exactly what I think ,good point !
only could be a bad point if the drive letter change + in case you don't know how to change the drive letter, if you know how to change that then you are ok it''s easy peasy !


If only the driveletter for an external changes, but the folder structure is the same, VDJ 8 can handle that.
So, no need to change the letter.
At least, that is for your database (and virutal folder?).
If you have some playlists, thats a different topic. AFAIK, VDJ isn't (yet) able to ignore the drive letter in playlists.
 
PachN that's even better !
 
Okay, lets settle this.

If created a small voting with internal vs. external.

I purposly only took the two options given for the voting.
I now, that many will use a mix of both. For backup reasons or what ever.

But the question is, where is the main part of your music collection stored and what are you using on a gig the most time?

Let's go....

http://www.poll-maker.com/poll347649x422b48C3-13

Note: Voting is free, no account needed.
 
I'm not against externals, they are fine for most people. The biggest problem from my perspective is that I seem to be clumsy with handling them; I've killed more than I care to admit by knocking them over/off a table/booth whilst in use!

As for internal drive failure being an issue, it's not really, since like I said I have a mirrored backup external bus powered USB3 which I can just play and play. It's not more inconvenient than unplugging the existing failed external and plugging in another external - and if you don't have a backup drive then sorry but you're playing a game of chance that you will lose one day.

So yes, my personal preference is internal. If I had a laptop that couldn't take the amount of storage that mine could though, I would (and have in the past) use an external with no issues whatsoever (except they don't bounce well!).
 
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