Partition size for new drive and other disk defrag options
 

So I'm getting ready to setup a new 1tb recording drive (7200, 32mb cache) and I've been dealing with a fair amount of issues with the dreaded "drive not fast enough" error. Now the issue to me with this error is that most of the time a reboot of PT would solve it. Soooo. . .

Is the just another stupid V8 problem? OR I've also read that windows defrag does not organize your data as per folder location, so you end up with your audio files scattered all over the drive. I'm coming from 500GB (16mb) drives and I'm wondering If I should do 300GB partitions, turn defrag off, or is there a 3rd party defrag option that will keep the files organized on the drive relative to the folders they belong to?

I hate to go under 300GB partitions, a 96k album project can run upwards of 100GB. I don't mind just buying more drives and leaving them 1/2 full, but I don't like having to move/copy whole projects or having 4 versions of a file (active drives and backups) to have to figure out which one is newest, and it seems as though I get more PT errors the more drives that are attached to the system.

Any thoughts or advice? Raid? SAN? Thanks guys-

Re: Partition size for new drive and other disk defrag options
 

Regarding the 1 gb drive, I would partition in half. I also don't use defrag as a general rule. A better option for "house keeping" drives (for me anyway) is to copy the sessions to another drive or partition and wipe(reformat) the first drive/partition and then copy the files back onto it. AFAIK, RAID is not supported but SAN may be an option(but I will defer to the HD experts on that one).

Re: Partition size for new drive and other disk defrag options
 

+1 I only use Windows Defrag for Non Audio drives. Just a note, the Defrag is much better in Windows 7, and I believe Microsoft has endorsed PerfectDisk for Windows 7 as well, so that another option if you dont like the included option.

I would partition the drive in half or 300, 300, 400 or what ever combination you need.

I personally say turn off defrag for all drives and run it manually when needed.

Also a good Registry Cleaner can work wonders especially if you are getting on the net with your PT rig. Keep all AntiVirus software OFF, make sure you disable it in the Startup menu, and only turn it on to run scans or when getting on the net.

Always launch PT8 with Run As Administrator, this cleared up most (your drive is too slow) errors for me.

Re: Partition size for new drive and other disk defrag options
 

I actually would not put multiple partition on my audio drive. I would make folders specific for the session. De-fragmentation pretty much put the data that relates to each other close to each other because the hard drive will "spit" out the data which can be spreaded on different part of the disk or different platters. Defragging the drive will reorganize all the data to be next to each other for better performance. I will usually defrag my drive once a week if I am using it heavy. Honestly, make sure you have a good hard drive as well. Check out the Western Digital Caviar Black. Those have very good performance for the price. I would not use RAID for my audio drive, unless it was maybe RAID 0 (which isn't really RAID, but uses two or more disk for better performance).

Re: Partition size for new drive and other disk defrag options
 

Cool thanks. . .

I know people claim to have raid 1 or 10 working, but that sounds like an experiment to me. Ultimately I would go with a SAN if it didn't seem like a bunch of $$ that I don't really need to dedicate to that. Plus when healthy a single modern drive has plenty of bandwidth.

What's a good registry cleaner program?

I was so glad to get rid of all the kvm switches etc, but clearly while it may work fine for a while it's obviously better to have a dedicated machine. What about having your internet setup on a separate partition?

I think probably I'll just go back to two machines. So if each machine has 2 NIC's then am I safe to use a crossover cable between them, and not bridge the NICs on the one that is connected to the internet?

Thanks again-

Re: Partition size for new drive and other disk defrag options
 

Ccleaner is a good and free Registry Cleaner.

For Antivirus i use SuperAntiSpyware. I use to use AVG, but its too much of a hassel anymore because it has Resident Shield which is always running and even it you turn it off, when you turn it, its on, you cant totally shut down AVG without rebooting.

Here is Ccleaner

Ccleaner from FileHippo.com

Re: Partition size for new drive and other disk defrag options
 

@M-ManLA-

From what I understand this isn't the case. When you defrag, it only does it per file. So if say vocal take 17 is scattered in 14 places it puts it together. Now the problem comes when you have 200 files in your session, and because of defrag, they are all over the place on your drive. Now because of your fangled 1TB drive there is simply too much hay and not enough time to find all the needles.

The drive fills up sequentially, unless it has holes that are places where deleted files once were. And the files become fragmented when a single file is to big to fit the holes, right?

So if you are like me, I never delete anything on an active recording drive/partition, there should be very little reason for the drive to ever become fragmented right? My understanding is that the smaller partitions are good because the drive is split into multiple sequential sections, so now even that session that lasts two years and is segmented (per session) is only looking at the part of the hay that the needle has to be in.

I also notice a lot more "missing xyz file" when de-frag is turned on. Usually they are fade files that are really short, but reguardless it's annoying and doesn't inspire confidence in your clients.

Re: Partition size for new drive and other disk defrag options
 

Thanks, and I've been looking to get rid of AVG also. I've actually been looking at trying to get all the software version before they got all smart and constantly checked for updates. Why do I care if there is some minuscule update to acrobat reader, you know?

So does anyone know will a separate boot disk or even user account prevent internet madness from creping into your recording machine? It's probably still better to have the separate machine, but I'm going to be going to all HDMI and would love to avoid the KVM that costs more than the second machine will. . .

Thanks again

Re: Partition size for new drive and other disk defrag options
 

Ah right and raid 0 not 1 (duh), never really messed with raids so I mix up the numbers. . .

Re: Partition size for new drive and other disk defrag options
 

Norton Sys utilities has a thing called speed disk, which isn't a defragger, but a disk file organiser, that puts all the files in a sensible order. Unfortunately you can't have speed disk on its own, you have to have the whole sys utilities