Korg Forums

[darrylh]

I picked up a Kronos 88 key unit last week, it is amazing.

There is a great post on another thread detailing how to replace the fan, with great pics of the insides of the Kronos. One of the pics showing the SSD drive location details a "2nd bay mount". I would love to install a secondary backup SSD drive, either for storage or emergency boot.

I had an SSD as my OS drive in my home office machine, it lasted 2 months. Bottom line is that hard drives, whether SSD or regular type, are alot more problematic than keyboard logic boards. You don't want to find out at a gig that your keyboard is not going to boot. It is just unrealistic for regular musicians to bring backup keyboards.

I had a problem with my K2600X hard drive once (held my custom patch samples), but always carried an external SCSI hard drive box just in case. Worse come to worse, I would have played without some of patch sound effects. The Kronos not booting at all would be disaster.

Anybody tried cloning the Kronos drive?

I would love to be able to boot the keyboard off a USB key or put a 2nd hard drive in. Not sure if either are possible.

Thoughts?

[darrylh]

I guess one idea would be to open up the Kronos, disconnect the current drive, hook up a new one, and do a full system restore to the new hard drive. According the restore guide, you can use the accessory disks to restore the system with option "1. format and full install."

Leave the new drive hooked up (if possible) in the Kronos as a spare, in that "2nd bay mount"

If there was a severe hard drive problem you could open up the machine (I always carry a multipurpose screwdriver in my gig bag just in case), switch the connection from the native drive to the new spare. Backup any gig settings to a USB key and always have that with you.

It would be so much easier with the ability to emergency system boot from the USB key. Wouldn't be great to use live with a large sample sound (like the German grand sample), but would get you through a night.

[MBengel]

I'm sure there is probably a better way than I'm thinking. If you wanted to have 2 HD in keyboard without removing them for backup you'd need a 3 way switch with power and sata connectors on the back of keyboard. You wouldn't want the switch to be easily selectable when kronos was on. Setting 1 connects original drive to kronos. Setting 2 (on switch) connects 2nd drive to kronos. 3rd setting will route both drives power and esata connectors to there own connectors in the back of keyboard where you could hook them up to a computer's usb ports to do a clone. http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2329300&CatId=3770 -- The thing is you'd need 2 of these and hard drive cloning software. Just copying files does not always work because there are possibly hidden files and MBR(MasterBootRecord) info that a normal copy command in windows wouldn't see.
I would test it all out before actually installing any plugs in the back.
If you wanted to just make a clone. http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5352947&CatId=2785 You would have to open up the keyboard and remove the drive. Could then install the 2nd drive in kronos and a 2 way switch between them. Only to be switched between them with power off. That's why the switch needs to be discrete.