Hard Drive size for Pro Tools 10.3 (1 partition)

[rballister]

I'm currently running Pro Tools 10.3 on a Mac Pro (1 1/2 year old, 8 core) running OS 10.7.5 (works great!). The main drive is the original 1 TB hard drive that came in the machine. I'm thinking of installing a larger drive (3 TB Hitachi 7200 rpm) and cloning the original drive to it using superdupe. (I have many other applications on the drive and I want to open up some space). Is there any downside to running Pro Tools 10 on a large (3 TB) drive? Will it slow processing down? There are a lot of conflicting opinions out there (the web!) about using a large drive with just one partition---some say it will slow things down. Just had a long chat with an Apple tech (my Mac Pro is still under Apple care) who swears it won't (of course I got the usual warning about Apple not being responsible for problems with the new drive--which I intend to keep intact anyway just in case there are problems). I would prefer to keep the new 3 TB drive with just one partition---any problems with doing that?
Thanks for any and all help!

[Craig F]

the Pro Tools app should be on the same drive as the OS
the Pro Tools project sessions should be on a drive other than the System drive

there will be no problem using a 3TB for a system drive

[rballister]

Thanks Craig, good to know. Thats how I currently have things set up. I'm using a 3 TB storage drive in one of the Mac Pro's other bays for my Pro Tools sessions with the Pro Tools app on the main system drive. (I was just worried about any problems with the app on a much larger system drive)

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by Craig F

the Pro Tools app should be on the same drive as the OS
the Pro Tools project sessions should be on a drive other than the System drive

there will be no problem using a 3TB for a system drive

I know Craig meant this but to be clear the Pro Tools app needs to be installed on the same partition (not just drive) as the Windows OS.

---

You may want to consider a solid state disk drive. Like a Samsung 840 Pro. The general performance as a boot drive or as an audio/session drive is way better than any old style spinning disk.

Decision on whether you partition things often come down to maintain multiple boot images, and ease of performing whole partition (often image) backups vs. the hassle of managing disk space in smaller chucks. If you don't need to boot multiple different OSes, are not already aware of issues with backups etc. I would leave each drive a single large partition. If it becomes a problem later you can change it. You should never partition a single drive and say put boot/system, audio sessions, and VI samples on separate partitions on the same drive.

Darryl

[rballister]

Thanks Darryl (not Windows, so not sure what you meant by that). The Pro Tools 10 app will end up on the new 3 TB drive that is running the Mac System OS 10.7.5. The sessions will be on a second internal drive. The consensus seems to be that there really isn't a good reason to additionally partition the new drive so it will be just one big partition (my preference). My initial concern was that perhaps seek times might be affected in a noticeably adverse way by the larger drive. I looked at the solid state drives---despite their amazing performance they are unfortunately still quite small in terms of capacity and very, very expensive. (Don't think I've even seen a 1 TB solid state for a Mac, the largest I've encountered was around 500 GB.)

[Eric Seaberg]

Why do you need such a large drive for your OS and apps? You should easily be able to get by with 256GB or less. I think I've got all of our systems running on 150GB for OS and apps and have partitioned the rest of the 1TB drive for 'local storage', i.e. projects that may be completed but I want to keep them close, etc. We just copy them between our session drive and local store.

[TOM@METRO]

We use 128GB Samsung 830 drives here for the system, and they are only about half full.

[rballister]

The Music/Pro Tools is just for the hobby stuff. I'm an Advertising AD (lotta apps--the 1 TB drive is about 2/3 full!). When I'm working on those kinds of projects I keep the files on the system drive until the work is finished and then archive. I use the other bays for large storage. (I also keep instrument libraries on a separate drive). Definitely need the space.

[EGS]

Originally Posted by rballister

... I would prefer to keep the new 3 TB drive with just one partition ...

Originally Posted by rballister

... When I'm working on those kinds of projects I keep the files on the system drive ...

Why? I have partitioned my boot drive, and it works great. I have a relatively small partition for OS & program installs only (no data files ever on this partition). It's backed-up every time I make changes, like install something new. On the second partition of this drive, I store misc data (iTunes library, photos, Word docs etc). Second int drive for PTools session data, 3rd int drive for VI samples (and also video edit sessions). Boot drive images (Acronis in my case since I'm on Windows) and all session data bkups on ext drives. My 2 cents !!!

[rballister]

Well EGS there's a bit of a discussion about the NEED for partitioning (even in this thread). The senior Apple tech I spoke to last night said NOT partitioning would cause me absolutely no problems. Before I called Apple I nosed around on the web---there are some opinions out there that say even though the Apple OS automatically defragments there is still some mixing of system files with your other stuff---which made me believe things might run more efficiently if, for instance, I created a partition with a system JUST for Pro Tools on the new larger drive, sorta like what you are doing. Don't know if Avid has an official position on this. (currently drive 3 is just PT sessions and music related stuff, 4 is for heavy storage and drive 2 is much smaller with an older OS that permits older apps to run well. I have a large external for Time Machine backup). I also thought that a large drive might negatively affect seek time. Apple is basically telling me none of this stuff will make a difference unless you want to run a different OS on the partition. I'm from the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" school. (there may have been advantages to partitioning older versions of Mac OS system drives in the past when drives were much slower) Also, years ago I was required (inside an adv. agency) to keep my working files on a server with the apps (Adobe Creative Suite, etc.) on my desktop computer. I had more problems with access to those files then when they were directly on my desktop OS drive (not sure if there is any equivalent to using a partition but some of this stuff is above my pay grade!) I intend to keep the original drive intact in case things don't work out and spend some quality time comparing the two drives to check for problems.