Roland VS-2480 Backup Song Vault - VS-1680, VS-1880, VS-2000, VS-2400, DVD, CDR 2 CDR II, CDR2

Roland VS 2480 Removable Hard Drive Back-Up System and Storage Song Vault. Also compatible with VS-1680, VS-1880, VS-2000, VS-2480, DVD, CDR 2, CDR II .

Condition is excellent. Backup all your VS projects and songs to a separate, independent hard drive with this device. Or use it to off-load and store projects and songs if your hard drive is almost full. Rare - Very hard to find this OE device from Roland.
Also useful to supplement data storage from your VS workstation. This is nice to have considering the notoriously small hard drives that seemed "huge" in the 1990's and early 2000's when VS units were being made by Roland. Most VS units have 6GB to 10GB hard drives. As these drives become full, performance is slowed. With the separate 160GB hard drive in this song vault, you can easily transfer your song data and projects off of the hard drive, freeing up space and making it run faster. Never worry about maxing out your VS hard drive again!   Better than on-board DVD multi-drive which is limited to 4.7GB of data. This drive with enclosure has 160GB's of storage, or 34 times more data storage than DVD.

Hard drive is completely removable. Robust aluminum enclosure protects HD from impact. HD is SATA so it is easy to replace if you need to. Interface is SCSI so it is smokin' fast.

Never worry again about losing song data from your Roland VS Workstation. Just configure it in settings and tell it when and how often to backup your song data, and it does the rest! Or backup your songs manually whenever you feel the need.

Also great for file transfer from DAW to VS Workstations, or storing songs and projects if your primary drive gets maxed. Functions like having two hard drives in your system.

Includes Seagate 160GB HD, power cable, VS device cable. Includes key. Ready to use, needs nothing.

Here is an FAQ from Roland on the VS Song Vault

VS Song-Vault FAQ's

Q: What is a VS Song-Vault?

A: A VS Song-Vault, is an external SCSI enclosure which allows you to backup projects to SATA Hard Drives. 

Q: What is an VS Song-Vault used for?

A: The VS Song-Vault is used as an alternate/external storage unit for the Roland VS-2480 digital audio workstation.

Q: How is the VS Song-Vault connected to the VS Units?

A: The VS units have a DB25 SCSI connection on the back of the unit. If you own a VS unit with a built in CDR, you simply connect the VS Song-Vault to the back of your unit via a SCSI cable. If you own a VS unit with an external CD-R, you can connect the VS Song-Vault directly to the extra SCSI connection on the back of your external CD-R, forming what is know as a SCSI chain.

Q: Why would I want a VS Song-Vault?

A: Having an VS Song-Vault connected to your VS unit gives to a quick way to save a copy of your work on a second hard drive. The latest VS operating systems are extremely reliable, however, hard disk problems can, and do crop up. You can back up your work to CD-R’s, but this is a time consuming process, thus, you are not likely to do it all that frequently. With a VS Song-Vault hooked up, backing up your project is as easy as copying your project on the second hard drive.

(Want to see how easy it is? Go to your VS unit and copy a song from one partition on your hard drive to a different partition. That is the exact same process you would use to backup a song to the VS Song-Vault... Quick and Easy!) 

Q: How much data can the VS Song-Vault hold?

A: The capacity of the VS Song-Vault system is determined by the size of the hard drive installed in the enclosure and the capabilities of your VS unit. Currently, the VS-2480 can only format and access a maximum of 120GB. If you installed a 160GB or 200GB drive in your VS Song-Vault, only 120GB would be seen by the VS-2480. The VS Song-Vault for the VS-2480 contains a 120GB drive.

Q: Can you record directly to the VS Song-Vault drive?

A: The answer is yes, but it is not something we recommend. The most efficient/reliable/fastest recording is directly to the internal drive. The VS-2480 was not designed for recording directly to the external drive. For data to get to the VS Song-Vault drive, it must go out through the SCSI port, through a SCSI to IDE bridge card, then to the drive. The VS-2480 was designed for direct to (internal) disk recording… which is faster than accessing through the SCSI port. Remember, the number one reason people add a VS Song-Vault to their setup is to improve reliability.

We have successfully recorded 9 minutes of 16 tracks directly to the Song-Vault, then added 8 more while playing back the first 16... all without problems. However, we have not tested this through multiple retakes, punch-ins, with automix data, etc... in other words, since we cannot say for sure that direct recording would be glitch free, we cannot recommended it.

Q: How does the VS Song-Vault improve the VS unit's reliability?

A: Anytime you have a project saved in more than one place, you have a backup in case of a drive failure, system lockup, etc… which improves reliability.

Another excellent use for the VS Song-Vault is to hold all of your projects, so that you can do regular maintenance of your internal drive. With regular use, your internal drive becomes fragmented, which degrades performance of your VS unit and can also cause system lock-ups. It is recommended that you do a complete format of your internal hard drive on at least a monthly or bi-monthly basis. With a VS Song-Vault, you simply copy your projects to the external hard drive… format the internal drive… then copy the projects back onto the freshly formatted internal drive.

Q: What are the advantages to having an VS Song-Vault Pro with a removable HD system?

A: There are several advantages:

1. You have easy access to multiple back-up hard drives and it allows you to quickly change from drive to drive.
    
2. It is more economical than purchasing multiple external hard drive enclosures.
    
3. It allows you to easily store the hard drive in a separate location for better protection (i.e. fireproof safe, etc…)

Q: Why would I need more than one backup drive?

A: For many people, one external HD is more than enough backup storage.

Some people are heavy users of their VS machine and require a large amount of back-up storage space.

Other people use their VS unit to professionally to record music for clients. It is really handy to have a separate HD for each of your clients to use during their recording sessions… especially if you are doing multiple recording sessions on different days. You can start by recording the songs on the internal drive of your VS unit, then save backup copies on the drive tray in your VS Song-Vault. This accomplishes several things:

1. Keeps your paying clients work on two different drives during your recording sessions. (Internal and External drives… as long as you save copies to the VS Song-Vault periodically during your recording sessions.)
    
2. Keeps "Client A’s" music separate from "Client B’s" music.
    
3. Won’t tie up your internal drive with projects… especially if recording a band’s album will occur over several weekends/recording sessions/etc.
    
4. It allows you to maintain your internal drive (i.e. format) anytime you want, since all the projects are backed up on the external drives.

So, if you are a heavy personal VS user, or a studio with multiple clients, the VS Song-Vault Pro is a better choice, giving you unlimited external storage with only one external unit.

These are available for 1680/1880/1824 users too...

Email for more info.

Thanks for looking!