Interesting Discovery on moving PT Sessions

[TULL]

I had posted a message last week about a new Lacie F.W. 160g drive I just got and some issues when I copy/paste to the new drive.

I found out from a few people that open and save session as was the way to move the sessions to a new drive.


last night I compleated the partitioning of my new lacie drive into two 80 gig partitions, and so I decided to try some tests for backup purposes.

I decided to backup my PT Sessions to one of the new drive partitions using Windows Backup,it only took 23-25 minutes to backup 19 gig,I was using a HP SCSI DAT24 Tape Drive, which took hours.

Just for fun I decided to restore a session back to the other new drive partition, and lo and behold no errors and the session was fine and it was using the audio data from the restored partition, not the orginal location.

So this might be a better, faster way to move your sessions to a new drive as opposed to opening each one and doing a save as.

anyone out there using this method already?

[Bermaster]

I would like to know about this also... anyone?

[K.B.]

I'm not sure I follow this, but is it anything to do with the fact that copying files onto the same hard drive - even if in another partititon - can take forever, whereas copying onto another physical hard drive is considerably quicker?

[Chris Cavell]

The reason it worked is because you partitioned the drives. The original locations (drives that is) no longer existed...forcing the sessions to redefine their default paths upon opening.

[TULL]

The original location drive (E:) is still intact with all the session data.

here is the config I have


E drive (Original Session location) 60 gig Maxtor DVM3000 drive

F:, G: New Lacie Drive partitioned into two 80 (73.xx)gig drives

using windows backup I backed up all session data from E: to G:
then using windows backup, I restored one session from G: to F:

I did not remove the orginal sessions on E:, they are still there
opened up the restored session on F: and it played fine accessing only audio data from F:

I watched activity on E: during the playback of the restored session on F: and E: had no activity.

all activity was on the F: drive

[Chris Cavell]

Well, that isn't how I would expect it to work. Are you sure that you did not perform a "save session copy in" at any point? Once you do this, you can move the session anywhere you want prior to opening it and saving the new paths. The only other way I can see this working is if the original locations were not present (the full path). PT will then look in the most logical location when it doesn't see the original path...which is often the case. However, PT will recreate the entire original path when you track anything additional unless you've changed the track allocation manually.

[TULL]

Absolutly Sure, I would not have expected it to work either, I was expecting to see activity back on the E: drive when I opened and played the restored session from F:

I think the fact that this is working this way will be a great time saver on how we Backup/Restore and move sessions.

[bertog]

I've get few days ago a Maxtor OneTouch 200GB USB/Firewire.

I've copy all my PT work on this new HD, and for test I've opened my last work ...

PT had opened the session without asking for the files'location and everything work pretty well ...

For me also the activity during playback was only on the external drive ...

I've compacted the audio file and the folder size decrease on the external drive and not in the original folder ...

IMHO I think that PT6.4 think about the file location in "Relative-way" and not in "Absolute-Way" ...

[Chris Cavell]

Have you tried dubbing anything new in the sessions instead of just playing back audio?

[TULL]

But a session is somewhat a database with pointers to where the audio relating to that data is located.

so when I backed up that session and restored it, inside that session file it still should have been pointing to the orginal E: drive location for the audio files or at least I would have thought that.

I am also still using 6.1 not 6.4

However, I guess we could analize this to death, but my altimate point was to inform everyone this works, so this could be a real time saver for some, I know it will be for me.

I am planing on using one of the new partitions for backing up the sessions to, then if I so choose just backing up that windows backup file to tape

it's funny, I used to rag the windows backup utility, and now it is one that will save me some time