The BEST Music Studio storage options! Synology NAS, External Drives, Backups and more

[@iambradarthur]

I made this video because I wish I had it a few years ago, I really hope it helps. I'm still learning more and more as I go but I found it's best to have your storage system develop as you do so it keeps up with all your progress 💻💾🎥🎹💙 Check out all the links in the description :) Timestamps if ya want them: Intro and Outline 0:00 Intro - time to talk storage 0:58 Why you need a better system 2:24 The very basics for producers 3:22 The NIGHTMARE setup Online/Cloud Storage 4:14 Cloud storage 4:48 Cloud PROS 5:13 Cloud CONS 6:02 Best cloud option!? Physical storage 6:27 Physical PROS 6:55 Physical CONS 7:27 Hard Disk Drives (HDD) 7:46 HDD PROS 8:01 HDD CONS 8:31 Solid State Drive (SSD) 8:42 SSD PROS 9:10 SSD CONS 9:40 Internal PROS 9:59 Internal CONS 10:20 External PROS 10:32 External CONS 11:00 A great option for making internal drives external 11:19 Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) 11:40 RAID PROS 11:48 RAID CONS 12:05 RAID options 13:02 Network Attached Storage (NAS) 13:17 NAS PROS 13:47 NAS CONS 14:01 NAS + RAID = Synology Diskstation 14:53 Synology PROS 16:44 One of my favourite Synology Features 17:31 Synology CONS 18:17 The ULTIMATE DREAM setup 18:48 Tape Drives 19:09 outro - wow it was a long vid but I hope it was valuable :) Kobi :)

[@AlbertoLogs]

Mentioning the rain several times made me noticing it more. I'm aware that you might be so caught up in the sound quality of your videos because you want to deliver the best possible, which is appreciated, although you can just ignore those external uncontrollable factors and just keep going. The insights were very useful, well done!

[@theeoarsman921]

You convinced me to move onto the next video!!!

[@obliviox]

The rain was quite relaxing to be honest nothing like a little bit of white noise ASMR 😂 if you ever have trouble again like this Waves have a plugin that removes background noise! Great video by the way, this was just what I was looking for, not many videos on this topic!

[@nkearney]

Thank you so much for the comprehensive roundup! Really helpful and exactly what I needed!

[@iambradarthur]

You are very welcome Nicholas :)

[@laurahughes5159]

So fast, interesting, easy to understand. Brilliant for beginners like me! Well done, thank you for the help!😊

[@iambradarthur]

Awesome Im really pleased to hear that. I hope your explorations and creations are going well 🎶👌

[@trv503]

I'm looking into this for my home studio. Redundancy and backups are critical. Thanks for these videos. Synology looks like the way to go.... I'm also going to create a portable DAS for my two music workstations.

[@Finnetmusic]

Woooow this video is amazing, so much information in it🤯

[@iambradarthur]

haha ayy thanks Dude :) my brain is almost all used up at this point since tryna understand the computer world🤣🤣

[@drkfsh3045]

Thank you so much for this!!!

[@FinnHPMusic]

Was literally researching new drives yesterday, perfect timing haha all three of mine are in the red already😨

[@iambradarthur]

hahah nice one :) let me know if you're needing any more advice and I can try help haha, hope the search is going well dude

[@FinnHPMusic]

@@iambradarthur thanks mayn, how many 6tb WD drives do you have btw?! 🤯 shits so expensive hahah I can never justify it

[@colethecollector6742]

thank you for getting stright to the point!

[@mosesrise2023]

Thank you Kobi McCoull II I wish you will Blow up soon

[@iambradarthur]

wow thanks very much :) its great of you to say :)

[@mosesrise2023]

@@iambradarthur Cant wait for more of your video and your music to release one day

[@ezekiellanser1782]

So much great info, thanks a ton!

[@Cyberjjc]

I feel you have the most comprehensive videos referencing NAS in a Music Production environment. My problem has been trying to free up hard drive space on my MacBook Pro (2016). I figure I can use my Synology as a main storage for content from all my DAWS and plugins.

[@iambradarthur]

that's great to hear. I'm really glad it helped and I hope that it will work as a great solution for you.

[@therealbdbeatz]

Thank you for the video and all of the information

[@EssZee323]

I want to do something like this at the moment using Ableton Live and Komplete 11 sound library. I am trying using a much cheaper option of DAS’s hooked up to a old cheap netbook. My hope is to save all projects and the sample library’s of both Ableton and Komplete on the network drives. All else fails I will get a Synology lol.

[@iambradarthur]

Go for it! I hope it all goes well :) good luck

[@Ni234]

Was exactly wht i needed gona buy a laptop soon

[@iambradarthur]

Awesome, that's great to hear. I hope the laptop buying goes well and if you have any questions just let me know and I'll help if I can :)

[@Ni234]

@@iambradarthur actually I do have some questions regarding the laptop... See my budget is around 850dollars right I wonder which one I should get at tht range I won't be streaming and stuff only make beats with some heavy plugins like some synths n do design or maybe edit vids on the side can u help me in here 😄

[@iambradarthur]

@@Ni234 Hmm kzbin.info/www/bejne/lamlepimhbGFadk check out Sanjays video here. He has done an in depth review of some good options. Hope that helps

[@bnybeatz8318]

the picture whitch showen in 2:48 you saing to save projects and raw files in extra drive sutch as libares and so on, but in laptops like in my case i only have the opporunity to have 1 intern c drive ,so where should i put my raw files and project , in c drive and back it up or directly in backup system (whitch in the picture is a black NSA system box) thx for helping :)

[@nzreggae2534]

I am currently researching how to set up my new MacBook M2 Pro for music making (MOTU usb Audio interface and USB MIDI keyboard), backups, internet via ethernet, displaying on a flat screen on the wall for KZbin. My current understandings are much like your hand drawn diagram. I will have (3) working drives. The internal system drive with OS and applications, an Audio/MIDI projects drive for recording to and a sample library drive for Toontrack, Komplete and my sounds etc. I was thinking of getting a Caldigit TS3 dock and connecting (2) SSD drives for the Audio/MIDI and sample library to it. It would also connect my USB audio I/O, USB MIDI keyboard, ethernet internet, flat screen smart tv. I have been scared off buying cheaper powered USB hubs because apparently they can damage your laptop with the power charging via thunderbolt/USB C ports. And how do you power bus powered hard drives connected to a USB Hub and turn off the power going to the laptop for safety? Instead using the MacBooks MagSafe connection for power. With the internal system drive and (2) external drives I have my (3) working drives. Then I just need an onsite backup of these (3) drives and an offsite backup and I will have satisfied the 3-2-1 backup rule that data only exists with 3 copies. I now discover that RAID multi bay boxes have ethernet ports and other ports so I might not really need the expensive Caldigit dock. I think I will get it for my portable setup though. So my current thinking is to find the most secure data redundancy backup strategy and have an onsite and offsite backup. Once an Audio/MIDI drive is full it then could be archived and made way for a new empty drive just like replacing the tape on a reel to reel recorder. The Sweetwater.com article on file management for music studios, made a recommendation of having an 'active' music projects folder and an 'archived' music projects folder for finished songs. That might be a good organising protocol. Or the full projects drive could stay connected as well as a new empty working drive for access to archived projects. Why would you buy a second Synology box? Once those drives are full you could archive the drives with redundancy copies and put new drives in the Synology 6 bay enclosure. With 6 drives you could have mirrored copies of 3 drives for redundancy RAID 1 method. People comment on RAID reading and writing speeds but I suspect I would never get near any speed limits with my music recording. But more to the point if I have my internal system SSD and (2) external SSD's as my working drives then the RAID is just for backing up and another copy for offsite storage. I will keep researching until I feel confident enough to commit/spend money on a file management/backup strategy for my seemingly typical music production scenario. Cheers Kobi.

[@thetimestampguy6111]

Hey kobi! Great video as always🙌 I'm planning to buy id4, how's the hp output in it (I'm using m50x too btw) Thanks ❤️

[@iambradarthur]

Hey Harish thank you :) Ahh cool well i love it. one of my favourite pieces of kit and the sound and build quality is really great at a good price too

[@thetimestampguy6111]

@@iambradarthur Thanks a ton bro appreciate your support 🤜🤛

[@andrewmesh]

Am I tripping or are you the former Singer from Miavono? 😮

[@iambradarthur]

That’s me 🎶

[@andrewmesh]

@@iambradarthur Such a small world 🥹 Good to see you mate

[@hefastusentertide4834]

Kobi🆒️...

[@iambradarthur]

hahahha lol thank you 😊🎹💙

[@CYBERNETIC-MUSIC]

stop waving at me

[@ejmrid]

Try to keep your hands still for a minuten or so. Very annoying.

[@iambradarthur]

ahhaa noted, thanks. they tend to have a mind of their own :)

[@darkuncle77]

dude quit whining, mommy didn't feed you? he's giving away all this information for free