Big FW HD

[stevegalante]

I'm going to buy a large ext firewire drive (probably Lacie BigDisk Extreme 500gb), not directly for PT audio but for large samples' libraries (orchestras and so). Any known issues with ProTools (I'm currently still with 6.1 under Mac OS 10.2.8, G4 867 and I have SCSI drives for audio) ? Thanks

[stevegalante]

I'm gonna buy it in two days..............

[Aquarius]

Hello,

I've been using it for SFX librairies, no problem at all !
PT 6.4 / 10.3.4 on HD Accel rock solid, even after a power disfunction !
It's faster than the old models, good if you plan to digitize video too

peace

[schiffdigital]

One of our fx editors got a LaCie 500gb and is not getting very good track counts on it (PT6.4 cs3, OSX 10.3.4, G5 dual 1.8 ghz). It's fine to store stuff on.
We just got a bunch of LaCie 250gb triple-interface drives and they work fine. I was told to stay away from the LaCie drives with multiple 250gb drives in one enclosure because they share a common bridge and if one drive goes, you lose the data on all of them because of drive striping.

[Ploch Klaus]

Also my point - my 250 GB drives (several) work just fine with PT and also with Logic (EXS-samples). I also would not use these 500 GB or 1 TB drives - they are not one drive - but two - and you do not know exactly how LaCie handles the two drives really. So i would think about buying several "smaller" drives (which i did)...

[Rezman]

The only word I would add is to keep partition sizes below 80Gb. In my experience, this signigicantly reduces any "Disk to slow or to Fragmented" messages. Due to block sizes I think.

[stevegalante]

Well, it seems (most important thing) there are no particular issues with these drives and my system. The advice to partition them in 80G (max) section is still valid considering I'm not going to use them for audio in/out but just for samples' libraries ? Also would it be better (since the 'double disk' structure of these drives) to buy 2x 250Gb instead of 1x 500 and, in this case, does it change much to have a 2Mb buffer instead of 8Mb ? Thanks a lot

[Ploch Klaus]

I would not buy two drives in one case - just for savety and for probable future changes - you just dont know right now how they do it - (will it be two drives under OSX - if not - they do a trick that may be a problem for you in the future...)?
About partitioning: see the new topic about a spinning beach-ball (some answers there regarding partitioning...) - some people report problems with partitioned drives - and for sample-libs and disk-streaming even more important - it will slow down your disk - except you work only on one partition - which is unlikely for disk-streaming! Probably you should visit the VSL-forum - lots of infos about disk-speed and partitioning to find there... (www.vsl.co.at)
Just my advice - nothing serious...

[feakerboo]

GET THE 8 MB BUFFER!

THere is no reason not to and it makes a BIG difference

-b