Question on compatible secondary hard drives for PT

[DonaldM]

The general troubleshooting doc says:

IMPORTANT! You MUST use a secondary hard drive (not your main OS drive) for recording and playback of audio in Pro Tools. Recording or playback from the OS drive is known to be problematic and the cause of many different error types. If you are using your system drive and encountering errors, the first thing you should do is get a compatible drive.

I just want to be clear: this drive is ONLY where you set-up and save your Pro Tool sessions right? You don't install PT on this drive or any of the plug-ins being used and those should remain installed on the main OS drive....am I understanding that correctly?

Secondly, I'm not sure what size to buy. The compability list on the website says:

Hard Drive Requirements & Formatting

• NTFS file system for Windows XP and Vista with Pro Tools 7.4 and higher
  • Windows XP is unable to create a FAT32 partition on a drive that is larger than 32 GB. If your drive is larger than 32 GB, either use a partitioning application such as PartitionMagic or use the NTFS file system.
• Please Note: FAT32 Volumes Not Supported for Recording with Pro Tools 7.4 and Higher for Windows
  • Pro Tools 7.4 and higher for Windows XP and Windows Vista do not support FAT32 for recording, but will continue to support FAT32 formatted volumes for Playback and Transfer.
    

Does this mean I'd be better off not getting a drive larger than 32 gig? I really don't understand partioning and Fat32 and all that very well.

[albee1952]

Correct. your system drive (drive C:) is where install all of your software including Pro Tools and plugins. You audio drive is where you create/save your session files. If you are running Windows, there is no reason (I can think of) to format in any other than NTFS. The audio drive must be 7200 rpm(nearly all 3.5" drives are these days). A large buffer on the drive probably helps performance a little but I would not wory too much about that. Size-wise; get the biggest capacity you can afford. With 300 gig drives available for $49, that would be the smallest I would consider. You may want to format your new drive in 2 partitions to make "housecleaning" easier. Adding an internal drive is the cheapest route(usually). If you want to go external, keep in mind that Pro Tools does not support or recommend USB drives for recording(but you can use one for backups or transfers). Also, external firewire drives must use the Oxford chipset(LaCie, Glyph and OWC drives are solid choices). eSATA seems to work fine as well. When you format your new drive, make certain that you format as BASIC and not Dynamic as Pro Tools will not record to a Dynamic drive.

[DonaldM]

Thanks, Albee. I'm open to suggestions as to which one...make/model? I'm not all that up to speed on what's what in this market. I understand USB drives are not compatible, but doesn't any external hard drive connect to the PC via a USB connection, or is it something else?

[DonaldM]

One additional question. Which is better for an external drive: One powered through the USB cable or one with its own power cord? Or does it matter? I've been told the USB powered ones are more stable...whatever that means.

[Greg M]

DonaldM,

For use with Pro Tools, do not get an external USB drive. The other ways you can hook up to a computer with an external drive is via Firewire or eSATA if you have an adapter for it. Digi says to use Firewire with an Oxford 911 chipset in the external drive enclosure. That's important.

Hope this helps,
Greg

[Numi]

I have a notebook computer that does not support firewire, I know protools does not "support" usb hard drives but will it still let you record on it? Has anyone had any success with any usb drives at all? ONLY, because I already have a usb/fw Maxtor 7200rpm drive that I used for cubase 4..and it worked just fine. I am not to worried about though, becuase I plan to purchase a regular macbook after they receive their overhaul(hopefully this month).

[DonaldM]

Originally Posted by Greg M

DonaldM,

For use with Pro Tools, do not get an external USB drive. The other ways you can hook up to a computer with an external drive is via Firewire or eSATA if you have an adapter for it. Digi says to use Firewire with an Oxford 911 chipset in the external drive enclosure. That's important.

Hope this helps,
Greg

I guess I'm not up on all the defintions. I thought a USB drive was similar to a flash drive. If I'm understanding you correctly, if a drive connects via the USB cable, it is a USB drive. that's not how I understood it. I didn't realize that was the case. I thought the cable was merely a means of connection and the type of drive was determined by how it stored the data.

I don't have eSATA on my PC.

[AlexLakis]

Originally Posted by Numi

I have a notebook computer that does not support firewire, I know protools does not "support" usb hard drives but will it still let you record on it? Has anyone had any success with any usb drives at all?

Yes, I use/have used many USB drives over the years, zero problems for me. I'd recommend using the fastest drive possible, however. USB < Firewire < 7200 IDE < 10k Sata < etc.. Especially if you're going to be reading samples off of the same drive, or if you plan on doing a lot of work with Elastic Audio. Whatever you do, don't use the 5400RPM system drive that's probably in your notebook.

[albee1952]

Many drives have both USB and firewire connections and firewire is the only sensible way to go. The Oxford chipset pertains to the 911, 924 and 944 chips and all are protools compatible. As I said before, do not use USB for recording, period. While a few people are having some success, it is not supported or recommended, AND a good (and compatible) firwire drive does not cost any more money so why waste your time and/or risk a huge headache? A laptop can almost certainly take an approved PCM-CIA firewire adapter to give you firewire connections. The only bus powered external drive I would consider would be an OWC with firewire AND a 7200 rpm drive. But remember that it will drag your battery down faster if you are running your laptop on battery power. The only brand of drive that I usually tell people to stay away from are the Hitachi DeskStar drives. Hitachi OEM'd those to IMB a few years ago and they had mega failures(mine just died this year and a friend lost 4 or 5). I also had troubles with some WD USB/firewire drives and now stick to OWC or LaCie.

[Numi]

On the same subject of sorts...I have a newly purchased portable usb flash drive(patriot xt 4g) pretty fast write/read speeds that I formatted ntfs, has anyone had any luck using something like this to record a small project on the go or just use it as a samples hard drive?