Hi all

So I bought a new 1Gb WD drive for all of my Kontakt libraries and sample loops folders...
....and another...
....and another....

What have others found to be the best system? I now forget where everything is.

Make each drive themed, such as one for orchestral stuff etc?

Or one for favourites??

Libraries are fine since they show up in the kontakt window, but all of the other kontakt folders??
I'm running sone drives off a usb hub. It doesnt seem to like all of the drives though

1st world problem hey ;)

 

You probably mean 1Tb...

 

I bought a 750gb crucial SSD drive and stuck that bad boy in a USB 3.1 enclosure. Super quick, silent and durable. Now I run half my sample library from that drive.

 

Have four storages -
repo (stash) with all libs that aren't on main
main
secondary
backup

Main (called Sample 3.1 in my case) is where the most used content resides, and it should be kept as small as possible. Mine is currently 300GB.
Secondary is an extension to main, usually containing extra mics, holds project files, temps and freezes.
Repository contains all the libs that aren't used often, but are stored away in case of need (very rare cases)
Backup - self explanatory, though repo isn't there, it's just for main and secondary

 

Last edited: Mar 26, 2017

1) buy an SSD for Orchestral libraries
2) Batch Resave your libraries for faster load up
3) go in Kontakt Settings and KMS. (Kontakt Memorie Server ) on

 

we need a new profession, 'project finisher', they have basic knowledge of music and audio, DAW editing except composition/mixing/mastering technique. they have all soft synth/library in the world, let us uninstall everything, back to making music, and hire them

 

I have 28 tb storage on 6 hd in and out (on usb) pc...

 

I personally have 1 drive for system, 1 drive for samples, 1 drive for Kontakt Libabry, and another drive for my Spectrasonics libabry. Seems to be the best layout for my setup. Good thing I have 4 hot swapable drive bays to work with.

 

I have 2TB drive only for kontakt libs and another 1TB drive for other samples (spectrasonics, NI, wav sets, projects) and plugins. System is on 250Gb SSD.

 

tip about the last part of your question. Libraries and "the rest"

Look into using kontakts "quick-load" and create some categories that suits your workflow and start adding your libs and favorite sounds etc, into those categories.
a quick search on youtube should give you ammo for "quick-load"

 

Kontakt Libs I'm using a lot are on an internal SSD. The rest is on a NAS.

This setting should only be used on 32bit Systems.

 

I create ninct for all non-kontakt player libraries and they are scattered through 3 hdd's and I am feeling like getting a ssd soon enough cause it sure as hell is slow, but I'll try batch re-saves, which I never did, first, maybe it postpones the need for a sdd...

But on the topic, samples in one big folder, as they come from the download, a bit hard to manage sometimes but doable, and presets for synths in another big folder.

 

I have everything Kontakt on a 6TB Thunderbolt 2 drive and I've never thought to split instruments and samples. Does this speed up load times and do you need to create an alias to the newly located samples or do you define the new path when prompted?

 

4 6TB HDD in RAID 0

 

I have everything on my main system 1TB SSD drive (compared to you guys, my total sample collection, including Kontakt EZDrummer/Superior Drummer, SampleTank, MusicLab, whatever A.I.R. stuff I got off of Pro Tools and even EastWest MOR1, is a minuscule 400GB or so). I have a second 7200 rpm internal drive for projects. For the most part, I try to keep my sample library to the bare essentials, or older sampler libraries/formats that don't take up a lot of space. I also defrag often, batch reserve, etc. I would have loved to have put a 2 TB SSD in my optical drive bay and moved everything over to that, but my MBP happens to be one of the models that can't use SATA III drives.

 

Did you mean that you have 28 TB of sample libraries? If yes, how many libraries could this be?

 

What works for me, with what I have:

SSD drive internal for system & other partitions, including one for Apple (Logic & Garageband) samples & instruments symlinked from the system partition. On that partition are also symlinked IR files and other software-prorprietary sample libraries.
+
Firewire 800 (yeah, I'm "still" using it; still works fine for me) with Kontakt libraries which I'm currently using or "intending" to use, classified by instrument types, with sub-folders, such as:
Orchestral > Strings Solo
Percussion > Acoustic
+
Another FW 800 drive, with archived/backed-up libraries, partitioned for:
• Native Instruments-branded Kontakt libraries, with some in sub-folders under instrument types or series (such as Pianos and Studio Drummer).
• Non-NI Kontak libraries, sorted by Brand/Maker (such as SonicCouture, Best Service)
• Non-NI Kontakt libraries, sorted by type (being from makers for which I don't have another library), such as Orchstral, Pianos, Percussion > Acoustic

The main thing is to establish a system of taxonomy and classification, and stick to it, which helps as the Kontakt libraries accumulate. This also helps in sorting-out and deleting those which ain't never gonna be used.

 

1 SSD for Windows and Program Files (including DAWs, basic VSTs and games).
2 internal HDDs for libraries (Kontakt, Engine2, GrandOrgue) and all the other VSTs.
1 external HDD in USB connection for libraries.

I try not to install every library I see. BUT, as you all know, it is often difficult.

 

That's how I organize my samples Library :

All is backup/archived twice on a separate NAS (the NAS has several HDDs so each backup is on a separate HDD)

I have 2 seperate SSD : one for the "favorite" samples and for "Orchestral" libraries,

and I have another HDD for "testing" new releases, it then can go diffrent way from that :
either to trash, or the "favorite SSD" or the "orchestral SSD" or stay on the "testing HDD" for a while before I take a decision.

As the SSD are still a bit expensive, it's actually a good thing because you can't store all in there, so you have to take decision and make choices on which libraries to keep available on those fast SSD, and you still can keep other libraries for later on whatever archive / backup system you use.

And don't forget to keep enough free space on your SSD otherwise the performance can degrade a lot, I think keeping something like 20 or 25 % of the total space is ok.

 

I have to give some more details... actually each hd on my pc has a 'mirror' side. When I install a new library, at the same time I do it on the first hd and then on the mirror. Why? To always have an exact copy on hand in case of failure of the first hd. This allows me to not miss anything and can continue to work on a project without interruption in the event of a crash hd ... therefore the amount of total libraries is about 10 tb ... between this and a large library of Soundfont (which still use with Kontakt)