Which external hardrive for our set-up?

[Jardin]

Greetings Everyone,
Been here searching around, reading and learning for a while now and wanted to see if anyone would be willing to help me set up my sons recording station.

We just set up his MacBook Pro with protools and have some questions

But first here are the details that will help you:
MacBook Pro (late 2013)
Intel Core i7
Processor: 2.8GHz
16 GB Ram
1T memory
2 Cores
1 Processor
2 Firewire 2 ports
2 USB 3 ports
Scarlett Focusrite 2i2 interface

OK hopefully this gives you enough info to start out but feel free to ask for more if need be.

So my first question is what external hard rive would folks recommend with this set up?
This comes as we realized that we need to get an external drive to be able to record and mix as we get what seems to be the common CPU overload error (6101) when trying to use the internal drive. We were thinking (based on reading other threads here) that a Samsung SSD would be a good bet but thought I would ask advice as we are way over my head on the details. By the way: We are hoping to stay under $200 on this expense.

My second question would be how much memory is enough? of course this is related to the budget but am I right in thinking it would be better in the long run to get a 500GB SSD over a 1T spinner? Or is 500GB too small?

In the end we are trying to get him up and running but it will be a piece by piece effort while he is woking on his internship.

Thank you!

[Sardi]

The internal SSD in that computer is not the reason you’re getting those errors. An ext. SSD won’t be quicker and I’m willing to bet won’t reduce those errors.

Something else is causing those errors.

Make sure your OS and PT version are compatible and then take all 3rd party plugins out of your plugin folder and start testing.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by Jardin

Greetings Everyone,
Been here searching around, reading and learning for a while now and wanted to see if anyone would be willing to help me set up my sons recording station.

We just set up his MacBook Pro with protools and have some questions

But first here are the details that will help you:
MacBook Pro (late 2013)
Intel Core i7
Processor: 2.8GHz
16 GB Ram
1T memory
2 Cores
1 Processor
2 Firewire 2 ports
2 USB 3 ports
Scarlett Focusrite 2i2 interface

OK hopefully this gives you enough info to start out but feel free to ask for more if need be.

So my first question is what external hard rive would folks recommend with this set up?
This comes as we realized that we need to get an external drive to be able to record and mix as we get what seems to be the common CPU overload error (6101) when trying to use the internal drive. We were thinking (based on reading other threads here) that a Samsung SSD would be a good bet but thought I would ask advice as we are way over my head on the details. By the way: We are hoping to stay under $200 on this expense.

My second question would be how much memory is enough? of course this is related to the budget but am I right in thinking it would be better in the long run to get a 500GB SSD over a 1T spinner? Or is 500GB too small?

In the end we are trying to get him up and running but it will be a piece by piece effort while he is working on his internship.

Thank you!

There are no Firewire ports on that MBP. There are however 2 Thunderbolt ports.

An external drive isn't going to help with those 6101 errors. What are you doing when you get those 6101 errors? Instantiating plugins on a track while the transport is running? I've had that happen from time to time with certain plugins. Are you running any 3rd party plugins?

What OSX is on that computer?
What exact version of PT2018 do you have?

And I have to ask this question:
Why isn't your son posting about this? Would be much better that way; there wouldn't be errors in getting info to and from us here. Otherwise it could end up like the old telephone game and passing the message down the line.

[Jardin]

Thanks for the info guys/gals....I truly do appreciate the help

There are no Firewire ports on that MBP. There are however 2 Thunderbolt ports.

Yeah my head was swimming with to much on a challenging day yesterday and I said firewire rather than thunderbolt 2 ports...My bad

What are you doing when you get those 6101 errors?

It has happened in the middle of a take as well as during playback. I just read (after wring this post) about looking at the plug-ins as the problem child. But all the plug ins we have on there are directly from the Avid download list that comes with PT. (no surprise here really)

So I wonder....do you have to be using a plug in for it to cause problems? Or do I have to go through all of them even though we have never used it?
From my memory.... the only plug ins we have used are the Click II, Dverb & multi chorus...I will have to check on that when I get a minute on the other computer.

What OSX is on that computer?
What exact version of PT2018 do you have?

We have PT 18.12.0.307 installed and yes we have Mojave....Unfortunately, we had Mojave before getting PT and then found out that this could cause issues. Now I know that Mojave is not fully supported but I have also seen that there are plenty of long-time pros on here that have it in there line up and when speaking to Avid directly they said it usually is not a problem if you mind your settings. Any advice here would be appreciated as I just do not understand the issues.

We were able to record, edit and playback for about 4 of my songs before the errors started and now they come too often. After searching here it seemed like a lot of folks pointed to the fact that the internal drive cannot handle both the system requirements and PT at the same time and said that the first thing to do is to get an external drive that spins at at least 7200rpm. I even read a quote saying something to the effect of: "If I had a dollar for every time we have to tell someone to get a second drive...." and "We can only help you figure out which drive by knowing what your particular set up is..."So that is why we are here asking about the external drive.....Is this not true?

Why isn't your son posting about this?

The reason I am posting is that we are in this together and I drew the short straw. He is a home-school kid (16) who has always been into music in general & has a great ear. He also has crazy parents who will encourage his artistic side (as we are both artists as well). I grew up playing music of all types and have been writing songs for decades. When I was recording (20+ years ago) it was all analog, sometimes in a studio with an engineer and sometimes playing around at home on a tascam 8 track. Then I started playing with garageband for a bit several years back (hence the focusrite 2i2 and condenser mics etc). When he mentioned he was interested in sound engineering we spoke to a friend who is a sound engineer & producer about a part-time internship to get him up and running and since he uses PT, that is where we went. So all of this is to say that he works with the professional in the studio for periods of time and then when he is off, we work together 2 days a week here at the house recording some of my material. Its been great until these errors started popping up. I also have to say WOW he picked up quickly and is doing a great job already.

Now I knew in the end he was eventually going to want/need an external hardrive to record to, so after a few days of searching here it looked like it could be the problem & he has cash he has saved up, so that is where we were headed. But it is funny how on these forums you get folks who insist that you cannot run PT from a laptop with out an external hardrive and insist that you are essentially a fool unless you have one. Then when you go to do the right thing (because some folks were straight up chastised for not knowing) others tell you that's not what causes the very same error. (Which I appreciate by the way)
I have never understood why an error code pops up for a range of problems. Shouldn't it be one code per problem so it is actually useful? (sorry venting I guess)

So...my thoughts are this:
Tomorrow is our next day to work together on this and I will start by hitting the shift key while loading up PT as I understand from my searches that this will disable all plug-ins. Then we will see if we still pull the error.
I guess from there it would be to figure out how to move them out of the folder and put them back one at a time until we find the offending culprit????

But if they have to be in use to be an issue things get a whole lot easier as we are not using many and could just begin there......


Anyway, I appreciate the help and hopefully this will fix the error issue. I am sorry I vented a couple times there but we have had problems with the folks at Avid from day one, so some of that may be coming through.

You guys/gals are great!

[K Roche]

People may "insist" but that does not make it correct .

The notion that you can't or shouldn't run the session on the boot drive is a notion from 10-20 years ago when internal hard drives used and bus speeds were slow.
With todays memory, bus speed, and internal SSD drive... that is simply not the case There are literally thousands of people recording on to modern laptops and desktops internal boot drive, with no issues (related to that)
As you have noted at some point with enough sessions recorded you may want to consider an external drive .
But the odds are that is not what is casing the current errors

[musicman691]

Jardin:
If you really want your son to learn he's going to have to get on here and help himself. If he has you to do forum work for him he'll never learn the right way. Sure help him but only so much. Spoonfeeding isn't good for learning. The best thing I ever learned in high school is how to learn (aka do research on my own).


All that being said make Google your friend. Google aae6101 and you'll probably come up with a bunch of entries. No you don't have to use a plugin in a session for it to cause problems. Just being in the plugins folder can cause issues. However I don't think that's the cause of the 6101's.


Once again what EXACTLY are you doing when the errors pop up (don't just say 'doing a take')? Inserting plugins on an insert? Frequent starts and stops of the transport? For a 6101 to happen all on it's own (unless the computer is severely underpowered) is not that easy. Are you using vi's (virtual instruments)? If so which ones?


Once again an external drive to record to will NOT help with 6101's.


What else is going on when working in PT? What other programs are running? Any wireless internet?

[Emi]

Once again an external drive to record to will NOT help with 6101's.


I’m not sure about this, once I used an external drive (even a 5400 spinner) the errors went down to almost none, and also the system is much more stable.

Also try by turning off hyperthreading.

[musicman691]

Nice thing with a separate drive to record to is say the system drive gets hosed somehow; if you recorded to that drive then you lose all your sessions. Unless you backup your sessions to an external drive.

Backups is something you really need to think about. Backup/clone the system drive - it'll save you should you need to restore to a working system. A lot of us on Macs use Carbon Copy Cloner. You could also use CCC to clone/backup the folders PT records to should you record to the system drive. Being you're on a learning curve mistakes will be made and having a way to get back to working will be like having car insurance.

Eventually you could end up with a setup like a number of us have where it's a system drive, separate drive for sessions and another drive for samples.

Speaking of insurance I suggest get ZDT coverage on your iLok. $30 per year and worth it. Also get what's called a 'dongle buddy' which is a short extension cable that goes between the iLok and USB port on the computer. Reason for that is if someone bumps into the iLok or computer the USB port doesn't get wrecked; the cable takes the hit.

Almost forgot - don't forget to enable Trim support for your system drive (I'm assuming you have an ssd). Simple procedure:
Open Terminal (it's in the Utilities folder)
Type in this command (without the quote marks you may also be asked to enter your password) 'sudo trimforce enable'
Reboot the computer
Verify that Trim is enabled by clicking on the 'About This Mac' in the Apple icon in the upper left of the screen. Click on 'system report'. Then check if Trim support is enabled in the Sata section/line