Komplete 8 hd

The Komplete 8 that comes on a hard drive - can you copy that onto another hard drive for back up?

 

Based on my reading, it sounds to me like that hard drive is just the delivery/install media. It appears to be a laptop drive in an external enclosure, which I would think would likely be an inexpensive 5400 RPM drive. Plus it's USB. I think it's probably not intended for day-to-day use in a DAW.

 

BIF thanks

BTW -what happens if you have to do a reinstall and the hd doesn't work - they send you another one? OR do you download everything through the service center?

 

That's a good question. Other instruments do this too; deliver on a hard drive. Sample libraries can be HUGE. But I've never been comfortable with having my software delivered on a drive with moving parts and little pieces that can go "twang".

DVD's are much less error prone when it comes to static storage of data that you don't need to read very often. In over 30 years of using CDs and DVDs, I've never had a problem with one that is known to be good to suddenly "go bad" unless I did something stupid like leave it in the sun or let it go unprotected and end up in a clutter bin someplace.

The problem for Native Instruments is the sheer quantity of DVDs needed to deliver 240 GB of content. Even using aggressive compression it's likely that the package would require 50+ DVDs for the Ultimate version. So now they use a cheap USB drive for delivery; it's probably cheaper. Additionally, the retail boxes will possibly be smaller and maybe even lighter.

So what do you do? Make a backup of the delivery hard drive? Onto what...DVDs? Another hard drive? Or use a cloud-based backup program?

I can't advise you on that, because I haven't decided how I would handle it, and I am leaning toward purchasing K8U.

 

The shelf life of a hard drive is pretty long. If you can use the drive to store updates you still won't power it up many times per year. If it is some weird read-only drive the lifetime should be practically infinite (you'll have replaced the software before it breaks from wear and tear). Unless you drop it, a fire breaks out, neutron bombs go off nearby etc.

Our backup options are pretty crappy when you think about it. The only thing big enough is fragile, unless you're a rich git who can afford a 256GB SSD for the express purpose of backing up a copy of another drive. But that's nearly the price of a K8U upgrade for one you can rely on. The most reliable distribution media over time might be factory-stamped DVDs, while the least reliable is probably DVDs recorded with regular consumer equipment.

tl;dr version: No matter the media you're screwed. Take multiple backups if you don't trust a rarely used drive

 

This is a really good aspect of buying or not buying the ultimate version. I was thinking on doing 2 backups on normal harddiscs and put them in a safe place. Maybe even a safe. But if NI would replace a broken harddisk in exchange of the broken one, this would be soooo coooool and userfriendly! I'd also pay them for the harddisk.

 

I would install K8U on another internal drive, and keep the NI one as the backup.

 

I currently run my systems on a 1.5 TB drive. I'm quite sure that I don't have an available 500GB for extra storage to support K8U (one backup plus the active libraries).

I will probably have to transition to a 2.0 TB drive if I wish to keep my systems, apps, and data all on one physical drive (which reduces power consumption, noise, and heat; yes hard drives add to the heat in a studio). It's either that or split my 1.5 TB dual boot rig into two 1.5 TB drives. They're removable, so I could do that if necessary. That would free up about 500 - 600 GB from my DAW drive, but would be a hassle for me to swap drives every time I wanted to switch systems.

I could also just add a 500 GB to 1TB drive to my system and leave it as a dual-boot system. But then I'm running three hard drives (1.5, 1.0, and 2.0 (last one for backups).

Alternatively, I could clone my 1.5's to the 2.0's (currently used for backups) and althought that would crimp my backup strategy, that would buy me time and allow me to buy K8U right away.

Another possibility for me is to go completely external; set up an eSATA box with one or two drives plus my backup drive and just move them out of the tower entirely.

I still don't know for sure what to do. What I could really use is a high-speed 3.0 TB drive, and that would allow me to run two Windows 7 partitions plus a Linux partition and maybe even a Windows 8 partition if I get creative.

The biggest problem is not figuring out what to do, it's deciding how much money to spend (and then coming up with the cash). Any decent solution that involves a NAS and multiple hard drive purchases will approach $1,000.

 

NI Komplete 8 Hard Drive Inside......