External drive and hub question

Hi to the Forum
I have my Kontakt libraries on a 2 tb external drive (win 8.1) but I am running out of space. I see from forum posts that adding another drive for additional libraries seems to be an option. Here is my question: if I choose to add a usb 3.0 hub, and I attach the "old" external and the "new" external to the hub, does this change the drive letter and, thus, will there be authorization issues for my existing drive and libraries? Also, any recommendations for external drives >= 2 TB and hubs would be helpful. I don't think SSDs of that size are an option. Also, if I am really on the wrong track here, I welcome any alternate solutions.
Thanks!

 

Hello KontaktStudent and welcome to the forum.

I am not sure about using a hub - those disk drives will need their own power supplies I guess. As for the disk drive letters they may well change. In the olden days you could 'fix' a drive letter to a disk so it always had the same letter. I don't know about Windows 8.

Also, check the speed of the external drives. Several are intended for back-up and run at 5,400 rpm. Disks at 7,200 rpm or more are recommended for libraries.

 

Yes, the drive letters can change and/or a new drive letter will be added. Personally I would purchase a good 7200 3TB or 4TB drive to replace the one that you have. Just make sure that your motherboard can take larger HDs.

As for running it of off a hub I would never buy an external HD that didn't have its own power supply for this scenario. You can use a hub, just don't purchase an external HD that doesn't have its own power supply.

Lastly check if you have an external SATA port on your computer. If so you might consider using it as it is faster than USB. Just be warned that some software may consider this a new computer and reauthorization may be needed.

 

Once a letter was assigned to a drive, Windows should usually keep the letter assignment for this drive regardless of which USB port you use.

New drives usually get the next unused letter assigned automatically. But in case drive letters might be changed after you plug in the new drive the first time, you can simply change the drive letters (back) this way.: http://www.intowindows.com/how-to-change-drive-letter-in-windows-8-1/