Western Digital 1TB Hard drives

[hugonaut]

I installed a 1TB Western Digital(WD) hard drive too my XP PCI computer. Protools 8.1CS2 doesnt seem to like it - comes up with error stating the drive is too slow to handle the throughput of data, and that it might be too fragmented, or an external firewire drive. I'm talking moderate track count, about 12 audio tracks, one or two instruments, and a couple of modest plugs. Its an internal WD Caviar Green, the mid-range model, 720000rpm,with 64 mb cache - it should easily be fast enough. I'm wondering if it might be a conflict going on, like some part of the system doesnt recognize a 64mb cache, or similar. The 8.1 software works with my older 200gb seagate with 8mb cache. Thanks.

[nst7]

Hate to say it, but the Caviar Greens are the worst choice for what you're trying to do. They're made for the typical consumer who doesn't do much, and they're not high performance drives at all (the price they pay for being "energy saving").

You would be much better off switching to the Caviar Black, which are made to be high performance.

[hugonaut]

Thanks
I'll post the outcome.

[Buccanears]

Or try the WD RE3, or RE4s - enterprise drives, 5 year warranty if something goes boom.

[hugonaut]

Appreciate your response nst7, but I think it was other system problems that were producing the very poor results of my initial trials. You may well be right though that the Caviar Blacks would be a better choice, but now with the Green partitioned 50/50 I can get about 42 audio tracks without any error messages (with a dozen plugs) at 256 buffer. I suppose thats not so great really, but I have an old P4 3ghz. I'm not sure what sort of track count to expect to be honest - I did think more, but not sure. Im still experimenting with tweaking things. Thanks. Oh, and thanks Buccanears (simultaneous postage!) -I guess the HDrive makes a big difference.

[Buccanears]

Indeedy, good hard drives makes a huge difference. I've had no problems with the WD RE3s and 4s and considering that your hard work is captured and stored on them, don't be cheap. Save your data in 2 or 3 different places.
Also format your drives for optimal disk performance: select 32K from the Allocation unit size pull-down. This increases how efficiently audio data is written to and read from the drive.
Make sure the Quick Format option is deselected, then click Start, and follow the on-screen instructions.

If an enterprise drive does go down and you've backed up your media elsewhere (2 different places!) then you can hit up WD for a new drive. 5 year warranty on the buggers.

[Buccanears]

and ditch the P4!

[BkkJohn]

Originally Posted by hugonaut

I installed a 1TB Western Digital(WD) hard drive too my XP PCI computer. Protools 8.1CS2 doesnt seem to like it - comes up with error stating the drive is too slow to handle the throughput of data. Its an internal WD Caviar Green, the mid-range model, 720000rpm,with 64 mb cache

I avoided that drive because of numerous complaints I read from non-Pro Tools users about the time it takes to spin up to speed. BUt that's proabably because it has to get to 720,000 rpm, breaking the sound barrier in the process.

[hugonaut]

'And ditch the P4' - indeed Bucaneers, that would be as it appears! I would like to hold off for about 6 months though. The thing is I had thought HD would enable me to handle many more tracks ON a slower computer - I can get more audio tracks out of Cubase 4 native than I can PT 8.1 HD, which baffles me. I have 4mb RAM (sorry, must get my specs up on my profile).As you allude, perhaps the software is requiring a lot more grunt? Anyway, I could not find the 32k unit size option in reformating on xp home - there were other options but not that . I did a drive partition in 32k on a 3rd party utility, but it was a quick format - it had no noticable effect on HD speed.
The guy who sold me the WD 1 TB Green daid he'd swap it out for a Seagate ST 31000 528AS 1tb HD - anyone have any opinions on this?
Recommendations of the RE3 and RE 4's - I've seen reservations posted about these being unsuitable in some ways, can't remember what exactly - thay are on the Avid forum somewhere. They would be nice perhaps but reluctant to invest in an aged system to much. Cheers.

[hugonaut]

I just want to conclude that the problems i was having with track counts I think were due to a driver conflict left over from a previously installed sound card. The WD Green SEEMS fine at present - the drive seems quite responsive and I can get enormous trackcounts on my HD2. I may still consider swapping out for a WD Black though - perhaps the system might quicken a bit. Would anyone have advice on how the WD Green 1 tb would go as a sytem drive? Thanks all, and those who contributed to the '6031 error' posts.