Advice on HD partitioning?

[Greg Wierzbicki]

I'm about to upgrade my internal HD (Mac Beige G3) to a 20 - 28 Gig ADA (barracuda, fireball or deskstar) and could use some advice on partitioning a drive this size. I know there are some concerns w/r to max file size, drive performance, and optimization/initialization, and would appreciate advice from those who have experience here.

It appears to makes sense to have at least 3 partitions -- one for system & apps, one for samples and finished sessions, and another for the audio/midi session in process on PTLE. Any thoughts about the wisdom (or lack) of such an approach? Also, what size might work best for the session in process partition?

Thanks. Greg

[Gary Stadler]

I would stick my system and apps on a small (1 gig) ENTIRELY SEPARATE drive, not just in a partition of the same "big" drive...and then get the big drive to hold all of your data. I purposely use a slow 1 gig for my system and apps so I'm never tempted to stick any data on it ever.
Keep them religiously separate- NO data on the system drive ever, and vs-versa.
In all my Mac years, every time I've had any sore of crash or corruption that necessitated reformatting or even reloading a drive, it's ALWAYS been the drive with the system, never the data drive. If all your stuff is on one drive, even with partitions, and you screw it up, you're dead...
There's another post about partition size floating around right now, but the bottom line is that technically sesions should be stuck in 2 gig partitions or less because of a recording/max file size problem that exists between Digi and Mac. There is an easy workaround (simply specify your recording time first) and then it's ok to use almost any partition size you want. I like 9 gig partitions or so, just to keep the desktop not so cluttered.

[editor]

Although, Apple claims to have made the two gig partition limit a thing of the past. I still stick to 2 gigs per partition max. Anything bigger is a crash waiting to happen, in my experience. Besides the disc is faster in all operations, with allocation blocks that go from point x to point x; and not from one end of the drives platters to the farthest end, slamming back and forth.

I like at least three partitions as said above....One for the system, one for the applications and one for the sessions, and one for the little pig that lives on the hill ...........A cop rents above my mountain house. http://www.digidesign.com/ubb/images/icons/wink.gif

[This message has been edited by editor (edited February 10, 2000).]

[Mike Thornton]

The Partition size went away around OS 7.6 or was it OS8 and Protools could handle partitions bigger than 2 gig from v4 Seperate partitions can help if a session stays withon a single partition but you will suffer a serious performance loss if a session spreads across more than one session.

So if session bigger than partition you run the risk of disk too slow errors etc.


Hope that helps,

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Mike Thornton
One Stop Digital (OSD) Ltd.
http://www.osd-uk.com

[DigiTechSupt]

Hey Guys,

Just a word of advice here...

You should always keep your system files on a separate drive from your data. As you know recording audio and editing the data creates fragmentation. This is not something you want to subject your OS and expensive software to. Also, to keep your drives tuned and working at their optimal level, you should periodicaly re-initialize your drives. (You will always risk data loss when you defrag a drive). This is very difficult if your OS and apps are on a partition of the same drive. This is just one reason to use separate drives for your OS/system files/apps and your audio.

As for partion size, we recommend partitions no larger that 4 gigs. When you run 9 gig and larger partitions, your seek times will suffer. Especially when playing over a lot of edits. Also, while you will gain higher track count by spreading files accross many drives, you will actually decrease your performance buy spreading them accross multiple partitions. For this reason, I would recommend two 9 gig drives over one 18. Also, if you have multiple drives and one goes down (this never happens at a good time), you can still work on the second drive.

Hope this helps.

Jake Schaefer
Digi Product Specialist

[aurelio funk dias]

Partition is a PAST THING, don't do that.The better way is a external SCSI ( UW, UW2) to record audio files.I think all that actual drives does not need a Partition.BE WARE ABOUT THAT, You will run slow and crash your system.I used im my Home studio a G3 300/AV beige w/ 8 GB internal drive, just for ToolBoxAM III & Protools 4.31 & Toast+Quicktime, no Text, no another software, and a IBM ULTRASTAR 4.5GB+Seagate CHETAH 9.GB, ADAPTEC 3940 just for AUDIO.I think HD is the best investiment.

[This message has been edited by aurelio funk dias (edited February 17, 2000).]

[editor]

Hey Jake,

I keep a group of discs that are re-initialized after every use (or a pject is complete on them)....no better way to keep a drive healthy and lasting longer, without crashes. I have found that when you do this PT stuff at the industrial strength level, defrag is not the way to go, re-initialize is by far the best disc house keeping option....if you have the space.

e

[aurelio funk dias]

Yes editor, you are right, the best way to keep Audio HD perfectily is reformated, HFS is better, HFS+ think is not good.

[MacDaddy WGAR]

Hmmmm.

So I guess after 4 1/2 years on my PTIII/4.11 system it is time to reformat my old Conner & Seagate drives? They have also been optimized religiously once or twice a week during this time frame with no major problems.

The last year I noticed the audio was not as crisp or something, just couldn't quite put my finger on it. I did refresh the driver though. Now that i'm soon to have a new G4 PT system and this old one will go in backup studio it is long overdue.

I'm looking forward to fast speeds. These 45mb/sec transfers of large sessions has sucked.

And Aurelio I have been doing Powermix sessions at home for a year on an HFS+ partition with no problems. Didn't set out to do that way it just worked out because my OS is on other partition and it is HFS+. I know there is no benefit with file size but using 4k blocks has worked out ok.

My 2¢

[Will Russell]

Jake,

i have to say i'm baffled by Digi's reccomendation of no partitions larger that 4 gig. What a nusance! So you get 2-3 song on a partition. Then define a different partition. backup would be a nightmare, 2 songs at a time. I run 18 gig and 34 gig cheetahs with a single partition 14 hrs a day 7 days a week with no problems with seek time or track count. Am I missing something?

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Will Russell
Electric Wilburland Studio
http://www.wilburland.com

[D Pinder]

QUOTED FROM ANOTHER FORUM: http://www.digidesign.com/ubb/Forum2/HTML/002948.html

generator
posted March 03, 2000 05:46 PM ÊÊÊ ÊÊÊÊ ÊÊ
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I was told that you shouldn't keep using the same drive for more than 16 tracks, whether it's partitioned or not! I found out the hard way, and had to replace 2 drives, which were constantly strained to play back/record 24-32 tracks. (These were 9 and 18GB Cheetah drives, both partitioned). Now we raid between 2 separate drives, w/ no problems.
Ê ÊÊÊÊ ÊÊ
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Is it possible, as Generator suggests, that he WORE OUT his drives due to high track counts?

Oddly enough, another Digi tech support person somewhere else, recommended 9 GB partitions, so there seems to be a little disparity here on the official party line statement...

[This message has been edited by D Pinder (edited March 08, 2000).]

[Steve Rosenthal]

There isn't any offical Digi party line on partitioning.

It all depends on your own personal needs. Partitioning can improve seek times by limiting the distance the heads have to travel to complete a particular command.

Most of today's drives (especially the 10k RPM models) don't require partitioning, and will perform very well as whole volumes. However, if you do multitrack work, say with drums for example, where you're editing every hit and crossfading in and out of each hit, you're putting a huge seek load on a drive. So, given a 9GB drive that's unpartitioned, and a 9GB drive that's partitioned into two 4GB volumes, a 4GB partition give better seek performance on the mondo drum edits than the unpartitioned 9GB drive. Why? Because the heads don't have to travel as far to read the data.

If you do long duration passes where you need maximum contiguous drive space, then partitioning will obviously limit you.

You don't need to partition your drives, but depending on your performance requirements, it can be helpful.

The one major caveat about the performance gains of partitioning is this: Only record or play back from one partition at a time. If you record to or play back from two (or more) partitions on the same drive, you're making the heads travel a greater distance, thus negating any gains.

The bottom line is: Think about what your workflow requires. If you need to maximize your seek performance and you can live within the space constraints of a partition that's smaller than your total drive capacity, then consider partitioning. If not, don't.

I hope this sheds a little light on the matter.



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--Steve Rosenthal, Digidesign ETS

[Will Russell]

Thanks for the clarification!

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Will Russell
Electric Wilburland Studio
http://www.wilburland.com