Upgrading my Macbook
 

Hi, I currently own a macbook pro running OS X 10.4.11 with a 2GHz intel core processor with protools LE 7.1.1 that came with my digi002 console. My protools is backed up on my avid media drive RS80. My macbook and harddrive are about to die and I plan on buying upgrades and need to know a few things. If I transfer my avid hard drive to a new hard drive and install an upgraded version of protools on the new computer, will the current format be affected? Will I still be able to access my music if i upgrade my computer and protools version? I have bought a new hard drive already which is not Avid- does this matter? I think however the new harddrive is not compatable with the old OS i am currently running and am having trouble swapping over information between the harddrives. My biggest concern is transferring information from my avid harddrive to the new one before the Avid dies. Any help is welcome!! Thanks

Re: Upgrading my Macbook
 

Are you staying within the Mac world? If so things should be relatively easy. Here we go:

I had never heard of an Avid hard drive so I Googled it; apparently it has a Firewire connection to the computer. New Macs have pretty much dropped the Firewire connection but there is a way to make it work. If your new Mac has a Thunderbolt connection you can get a Thunderbolt to Firewire800 adapter; if the Avid drive is FW400 you'll need an adapter cable to go from FW800 to FW400. You say you have a new hard drive to transfer the stuff on the Avid drive to it and are having issues transferring the data. Is the new drive correctly formatted for use on a Mac? Most new drives aren't and need to be formatted via OSX disk utility. Once that's done you should be able to move the data no problem.

You can use any hard drive from any manufacturer whether it's Avid branded or not (none such exist today) doesn't matter. Now there are certain vendors that tout certain of their drives will work well with PT but there's no official Avid stamp of approval. Avid gives some guidelines on drives - no 'green' drives that vary speed or power down on their own (you never want a drive or the computer to sleep), minimum of 7200 rpm for a spinning drive or a ssd. Also Avid does not recommend recording to the system drive.

If you're moving to a new computer there's no need to install your old version of PT and then go from there, even if you could install it. Always install from scratch and ignore Migration Assassin. You just have to move your old data over. Note that there's a new session format starting with PT10 - .ptx versus .ptf; you should be able to open your old sessions in PT11. BTW you get a combo license asset for PT10 and PT11. New Macs come with Mavericks and PT10 is not supported on that due to the uninstaller not working. That's not to say PT10 won't work on Mavericks but just that if you want support you won't get it from Avid.

You'll find PT11 a whole new world and with 64 bit computing power you can use a lot more vi's like samplers as the old 4 gig memory address limitation is broken. That brings up another thing - whatever Mac you get (unless you're getting the 21.5 inch iMac or a MacBook Pro) do NOT buy any extra ram from Apple. Go third party (OWC is good) and add your own. It won't affect AppleCare warranty work. Much cheaper.