I wouldn't RUN them from CD, to archive them there for back up is ok. That depends on how many samples you have and how much recording you are doing. Keeping them on the scsi drive would be cool.
Actually, I have audio and video files all over my box, except on my boot drive. I try to record only to the UW-scsi drives, since its faster than superman in front of a kryptonite bullet!! :D

ljp

I struggled with that same question Jofus, since I use a lot of drum loops. I have recently (like 2-3 days ago!) decided to put the loops on my App drive, not my music file drive. The app drive is also my boot drive for W2K, and has Cubase, Cakewalk, Sound Forge,plug-ins etc. Then when I create a song that uses one of the loops, I copy *that* small file over to the specific song directory on my music file HDD. (You do keep each song in a unique directory on your drive, right?) I just make sure that I access the file directly through the Audio Pool in Cubase.

DH

It's always better to keep any data off of the OS and App drive...like Ljp says, SCSI is fast so it would be highly reccomended to keep all data on that drive. Putting the loops on your OS drive and then putting the song data on the data drive is redundant..it has to copy the data to the song information anyways so at that point you are effectively doubling the data amount! Keep the samples and loops all on one drive...faster that way...this way it doesnt have to use the OS drive as much. The less strain you put on your primary drive the better.
Opus

While we're on the subject of harddrives...HOW DID I AQUIRE SO MANY MEGABYTES IN A COUPLE DAYS???

Yesterday drive C had about 270 MB on it, today it's grown to about 480...What causes this? And my System restore has not set any backups in the past couple of days...so I know it can't be that.

PS. How does someone know if they have bad RAM..what are the signs?

I think WinXP has a feature that empties certain files after a certain amount of time..also maybe your Temporary internet files cache was cleared..I'm not positive what could have cause more hard drive space to accumulate...I aint there!! I'm on WinXp right now so I'll look into what could possibly give you more space.
Bad Ram....no boot...thats usually the first sign..wrong bank configuration could possibly be the issue...the new RAM..is it larger size amounts than the old? If so you need to put the larger chips first then the smaller ones..are they all the same Bus speed? all matching at 100Mhz or 133Mhz?
Opus

The reason I keep data files in 2 locations Opus, is because my drum and percussion loop collection is quite large (like 6 CDs worth!) with literally *hundreds* of loops. I also have some cool bass grooves that I use sometimes which represent hundreds more loops. It is a real pain to audition them from the CDs (which is what I did with the laptop), since CDs are slow, and you have to keep swapping CDs to access the whole library. I just figured that rather than taking up 4-6 GB of data space on my data drive, I would store them on the App drive (lots, and *lots* of room there...its a 40GB drive that is for all intents and purposes...empty). After auditioning and deciding on a loop, I copy it to the data drive. Each loop is only about 400K, so when I use maybe 5-6 loops per song, it represents very little data duplication, and helps me to keep the data drives clean. After I am finished with a project and back it up to CD, it makes it pretty easy to defrag an empty HDD!

I am sure there are many different approaches to "skinning this cat", and they will all work fine.

I think the take-home lesson here is that *ultimately*, you want to have the loops that are used in your song on your data drive with the fastest access time...whether you store them there permanently, is up to your personal preference.

DH