setting external drive record

[czarthp]

I am trying to use my external drive to record to in tools, I have to tried to set this drive to record in pro tools HD and M-powered and it says that it can not be designated as an audio record volume because it is not a valid audio volume. How can I get pro tools to see this hard drive as a record volume. It is a Iomega portable 160gb usb/firewire harddrive.

[jre3132]

what is the drive speed? Is it bus powered?

[czarthp]

the speed is 5400 rpm and yes it is bus powered by firewire, I only use it with firewire

[jre3132]

thats your problem. The drive is too slow for Pro Tools. Pro Tools requires at least a 7200rpm drive.

And, bus powered drives aren't the greatest for recording. I've never had much luck with them for anything other than transfer/portable drives.

http://www.digidesign.com/index.cfm?...4&itemid=23126

[czarthp]

I can record to my macbook's internal hard drive and I"m sure its 5400, or does pro tools see the internal differently? So USB is better for recording than firewire?

[jre3132]

you can record to an internal drive, but it is not recommended and you wouldn't be able to get the track count and performance you could get out of an external firewire HD. It can also lead to errors and crashes.


Hard Drive requirements - all types.
http://www.digidesign.com/index.cfm?...4&itemid=23140

USB is not recommended at all.

USB 2.0 Hard Drives
USB hard drives are NOT recommended or supported for use as recording drives. Limited testing has shown that performance with USB drives is inferior to that of FireWire drives.

[czarthp]

thats what I thought, since you said firewire wasn't I thought you were suggesting to go with USB.

I figured out why I couldn't record to the drive, it was not formatted for mac. I thought I had done this before but I geuss I didn't, when I checked it was formatted to fat32

[Andy Thornton]

Originally Posted by jre3132

thats your problem. The drive is too slow for Pro Tools. Pro Tools requires at least a 7200rpm drive.

And, bus powered drives aren't the greatest for recording. I've never had much luck with them for anything other than transfer/portable drives.

http://www.digidesign.com/index.cfm?...4&itemid=23126

Wrong, and wrong. Protools will happily record and playback to/from a 5400rpm drive, even a 4200rpm drive, only with reduced track count. I do this regularly with my portable system. Digidesign specify 7200rpm as a minimum requirement to achieve specified track counts.

Secondly, bus powered drives are only a potential issue if your hardware has under-specified bus power capabilities. Some early Macbook Pro's had rather keen protection on their Firewire bus power which led to power being shut off as a protection before reaching the usual limits. None of this is a Protools issue.

If a drive is inaccessible for recording, go to Workspace and check that the drive(s) has an 'R' in it's 'A' column.