Please note: There is no single drive format that can be used for a STEAM external drive that works on both platforms. What this means, is that your Spectrasonics sounds will load very slowly.
These formats are never acceptable on any platform as they limit the amount of data that can be written or transfered. If you are using this drive for Time Machine backups, you will need to use a different drive, or partition your Time Machine drive and install on the partition that is not being used for backups.įor all users - please avoid exFAT or MS-DOS (FAT32). If you are are using Mac OS High Sierra or later, APFS will also work. format) NTFS.įor Mac computers, you'll want to use format MacOS Extended (Journaled) (also called HFS+). USB2 is not adequate in some cases.įor Windows computers, you'll want to use file system (a.k.a. The connection to external drives should be as fast as possible: Thunderbolt, USB3, or Firewire 800 are recommended. 7200rpm HDD (Hard Disk Drives) will generally perform adequately, although there may be some slow models or configurations that should be avoided. SSD (Solid State Drives) are the recommended drive to use for any sample-based instruments. The following are guidelines for what external drive formats to use and avoid with Spectrasonics Instruments.