WD 1 TB hard drive partitioning for optimal protools sessions

[Jared Brennan]

Greetings DUC folk,

I've been rifling around many forums, manuals, and various search engine's for a 'hold my hand through the partitioning for PT' to no avail...

Some background:

What I have is a WD 1 TB Mybook Essential Edition (7200 RPM); USB only, no firewire... When I first plugged it in Time Machine app took over. I've recently erased it and it only has 913GBs on it, which I am slightly curious if this would be the "empty state" size or if there is something else I don't know about this process as I am a fairly new Mac owner (and will never own another PC ever)- I wonder as such because my 2GB flash drive for school projects doesn't always replenish in empty space (as evident in its freespace size) when I trash & delete files. You cant see files on the flash drive anymore, but the freespace size does not return to its "empty" capacity... (I would also mention that I did not "trash" the 1TB drive but used the disc utilities area for erasing...)

Where I would Reeeeeealy appreciate some guidance:

Disclaimer: Since discovering DUC I have sort of pieced together answers, but have not found a thread with my exact question, and I want to make sure I am doing things right and not all halfassed...

1) Given my computer (iMac 24" 2.66 intel 2 duo with 640 GB hard drive) and the External HD I have at hand (though having read various threads I will expand upon storage goods when I have the $), should I partition this drive for PT?

2) I've read that partitions for this drive when being used for PT cant be larger than 150 GBs per partition- is this true?

3) Would it reduce effectiveness to have more than 2 partitions (like if I wanted to backup iTunes music onto external drive too, etc...)?

4) An explanation of/link to an explanation of partitioning for dummies and (more importantly) setting it up with PT and my iMac for optimal performance would be amazing and appreciated forever.

If anyone has read this far, this leads to

5) so I have my ex. HD partitioned, iMac/PT settings in order, so what do I do with PT session folders from before this new configuration? move them to HD obviously, but my main Q is whether or not there will be issues in opening these previous sessions once moved to ex HD or any obvious steps to consider that a slightly above novice like myself would overlook...

thank you thank you thank you. Im excited about finding this forum, and have picked up quite a bit looking through older threads

[DigiTechSupt]

1. Maybe.
2. No, it's not true (and where did you hear this?).
3. Maybe, but not enough to be a concern.
4.http://macs.about.com/od/application...tilitypart.htm
5. Open each session and use 'Save Copy In' and check the option to copy all media, then select the external drive as the save location.

In your case, 2 500GB partitions should be fine, but if you need 3 go for it.

[M-ManLA]

Originally Posted by Jared Brennan

Greetings DUC folk,

I've been rifling around many forums, manuals, and various search engine's for a 'hold my hand through the partitioning for PT' to no avail...

Some background:

What I have is a WD 1 TB Mybook Essential Edition (7200 RPM); USB only, no firewire... When I first plugged it in Time Machine app took over. I've recently erased it and it only has 913GBs on it, which I am slightly curious if this would be the "empty state" size or if there is something else I don't know about this process as I am a fairly new Mac owner (and will never own another PC ever)- I wonder as such because my 2GB flash drive for school projects doesn't always replenish in empty space (as evident in its freespace size) when I trash & delete files. You cant see files on the flash drive anymore, but the freespace size does not return to its "empty" capacity... (I would also mention that I did not "trash" the 1TB drive but used the disc utilities area for erasing...)

Where I would Reeeeeealy appreciate some guidance:

Disclaimer: Since discovering DUC I have sort of pieced together answers, but have not found a thread with my exact question, and I want to make sure I am doing things right and not all halfassed...

1) Given my computer (iMac 24" 2.66 intel 2 duo with 640 GB hard drive) and the External HD I have at hand (though having read various threads I will expand upon storage goods when I have the $), should I partition this drive for PT?

2) I've read that partitions for this drive when being used for PT cant be larger than 150 GBs per partition- is this true?

3) Would it reduce effectiveness to have more than 2 partitions (like if I wanted to backup iTunes music onto external drive too, etc...)?

4) An explanation of/link to an explanation of partitioning for dummies and (more importantly) setting it up with PT and my iMac for optimal performance would be amazing and appreciated forever.

If anyone has read this far, this leads to

5) so I have my ex. HD partitioned, iMac/PT settings in order, so what do I do with PT session folders from before this new configuration? move them to HD obviously, but my main Q is whether or not there will be issues in opening these previous sessions once moved to ex HD or any obvious steps to consider that a slightly above novice like myself would overlook...

thank you thank you thank you. Im excited about finding this forum, and have picked up quite a bit looking through older threads

Welcome to the forum! I see that you said your drive is not firewire if I am correct. You would want to try and buy one since the USB have to have a direct connection to the Buses and CPU while Firewire doesn't have to do that. Firewire is better at sustained data than USB is. USB 3.0 might be a different story when it becomes mainstream.

As for your Hard drive reading 912GB, it is because the way that the manufactures and OSes define a Gigabyte. You hard drive manufactures will read that a Gig=1000MB, while your OS says that a Gig=1024MB. Dumb I know, but I wish someone would fix this (Which is most likely the hardware company to make this step). That is why, your OS is reporting each gig in the hard drive world as 976MB.

I would also have your iTunes files separate from your Audio drive. Just a little better for separation and managing your data, leaving your PT HDD for work and another HDD for Play.

Hope that clears up some info for you.

[Bob Olhsson]

I have one of those I use for backup. Beware that those drives automagically spin down to save power.

[Jared Brennan]

Thanks to all above responses! I wish I had known about the USB not recommended before picking up the WD drive.

I'm thinking I'm gonna pickup a Glyph drive for PT alone, and use the WD for Time Machine/back up of itunes/back up PT session folders.

This leads to an addendum to my initial Q-

How would I arrange Glyph drive and Mbox2Pro with my iMac (which only has a single firewire 800 port): would I get something like a "splitter" to create multiple firewire 800 ports, to which I would then connect my Mbox and Glyph drive respectively, OR

simply "slave" the glyph drive to the Mbox's extra firewire 400 port? Does the order of these peripheral devices matter, and should I try to get a Glyph drive with firewire 800 or does it not matter since the Mbox only has 2 firewire 400 ports?

Thanks- J

[M-ManLA]

Originally Posted by Jared Brennan

Thanks to all above responses! I wish I had known about the USB not recommended before picking up the WD drive.

I'm thinking I'm gonna pickup a Glyph drive for PT alone, and use the WD for Time Machine/back up of itunes/back up PT session folders.

This leads to an addendum to my initial Q-

How would I arrange Glyph drive and Mbox2Pro with my iMac (which only has a single firewire 800 port): would I get something like a "splitter" to create multiple firewire 800 ports, to which I would then connect my Mbox and Glyph drive respectively, OR

simply "slave" the glyph drive to the Mbox's extra firewire 400 port? Does the order of these peripheral devices matter, and should I try to get a Glyph drive with firewire 800 or does it not matter since the Mbox only has 2 firewire 400 ports?

Thanks- J

I thought iMac had 2 firewire ports? Anyway, connect the HD to the Mac, then the MBox to the HD. That is the best way to do it. Also a suggestion, I would make sure the Drive is formatted in HFS+. You might not be able to read it on Windows (Unless you use the freeware on the Mbox disc, it will read it perfectly), but the drive will not hiccup as much and run a lot smoother.