use "dedicated" hard drive for both audio & video?

[alexbutterfield]

I'm getting a 160G Lacie Firewire hard drive to use primarily for recording projects. But I also hope to do some video editing too. Must it be strictly "dedicated" to one or the other or can I use it for both purposes without causing problems? I can imagine that dedicating it to one or the other is preferable. But is it--for someone on a rapidly bursting budget--necessary?

The recording system I have purchased (but not yet installed): Mbox 2 with Pro Tools LE. My computer set-up: iMac G5 1.8 gHz with a Super Drive running Mac OS X 10.4.3 Tiger. (My internal hard drive is 80G. I have 512 MB of RAM--I know, I know, I need to get more!)

Thanks for any assistance.

[fredstarr]

you should be OK - you may want to seriously consider partitioning the drive when you set it up for the first time (via the Mac Disk Utility) - this allows you to basically 'split' the drive up into sections that have their own name and mounting (like creating several virtual drives from one) - this way the audio and video can have their own sections (partitions) that don't overlap.

-fg

[alexbutterfield]

Thanks for your response. That is very useful information. I've never had occasion to partition one of my hard drives before so this will be a good, hopefully not painful, learning experience.

Thanks also for your response to my inquiry on condenser vs. dynamic mics. The Rode is a shade out of my price range in the immediate future but seems like a good consideration once I've paid down my recent computer/audio-related purchases!

[MissHiss]

I have never had any hard drive problems from having multiple kinds of data on the same drive other than fragmentation, and that would happen even if the drive was dedicated to one or the other. It's worth your while, however, to make sure the LaCie is a 7200 RPM drive. You can work with a 5400 RPM drive, but you could definitely run into some issues editing video, especially high definition video. Oh, and for the record, yes, I have had Pro Tools sessions and Premiere and FCP projects -- plus word documents, GIFs, JPEGs, MP3s, etc. all on the same drive with no problems at all -- at least from the hard drives.

Most of the LaCies are 7200, but some of the "Porsche" drives they put out are 5400.

[alexbutterfield]

Hi. Thanks for that. I have been assuming the drive I am getting is 7200 RPM but it is a good idea to be certain. And I appreciate the other reassurances regarding using it for mixed types of files. Do you partition your drives for the different file types (audio, word processing, video, etc.)?