defrag

[Veal]

I have about 20 songs on a 60gig hardrive (spilt) 20/20/20. everything is going fine and I really don't know much about computers. I plan on backing up the 20 sessions with cdr/toast. Do I need to defrag my computer? After backing up the sessions and checking they restore correctly I plan on deleting the sessions and emptying the trash.

mac g4 733

[where02190]

Man, that's a lot of CD's. If you split the files right, close to 30 for each 20gb. why not get a FW dock? save to an ATA drive in the dock instead.
http://www.npstudios.com/fwdock.html
considering the time to burn all those CD's, it's much more cost effective, and adds flexability to your Mac.

Another option is a DVD burner. The Pioneer Superdrive is under $400, and you can burn 4.5gb to each disc in about 30 minutes, over 6x the capacity of a CD-R. we have one in our G-4 and it's killer.

Once you have the drive backed up, the fastest most effective and time efficient way to defrag is to use the Apple Drive Set-up Utility. reinitialize the drive and reset the partitions. Takes only a few minutes, as opposed to a few hours with Norton or Disk Warrior and Plus Optimizer, and does a much better job.

Hope this is helpful.

[Hiltronex Sound]

Veal:
First make sure you backup at least
1 copy of your sessions and VERIFY CD-Hard Drive to make sure you have a good copy of the file - - you'll need a LOT of CD's for 60 Gigs, but I've used CD's for years with no problems.
If it's really critical material, you may also want to make additional backups (or burn CD-CD copies separately) - - the phrase, "if it's digital, you don't have it saved unless you have 2 copies" applies most of the time!
My experience has been that once you clear your disc of material (trash it) that you don't need to defragment anything (because nothing is left to defragment), and you can continue recording fresh material again. Many Pro-Tools users suggest also re-formatting or re-initializing the disc, or at the very least, rebuilding the desktop. Opinion vary widely and you may get many more responses.
J. Hilton

[where02190]

Deleting files is how a disc gets fragmented. when files are deleted, overwritten or otherwise modified, small bits of the disc area get fragmented, and are too small to be used by any files. the moeyour write and delete from a disc, the mroe fragmented it becomes. deleting everything from a drive does not defragment it. It actually creates more fragmentation. sincefragmentation is a slow cumlative process, It is not immediately eveident, and on larger drives may take months and sometimes years to be a problem on a mac.

Today I did maintainence on a clients Mac that had never even as much had the desktop rebuilt in 3 years!!!!!! After running disk first aid(which fixed a few minor problems) DiskWarrior and Plus Optimizer(for optimizing file space and defraging) zapping the PRAM and rebuilding the desktop, all of which too me aobut an hour, the computer had an additional 20% of it's total drive space available, and the client was amazed at the increase in perfromance and speed.

while Macs do not require the defrag attention that a PC does, it is for us PT users, and anyone else that deal with large folders of files, an essential part of regular maintainence for our beloved Macs. How regular is dependant on your usage. If your drive is fairly full, or you have written and eleted more than 3-4x the drive size in files to it, I'd recommend running a defrag, eithe by the previously described copy and reinitialze or via DiskWarrior and PlusOptimizer.

Hope this is helpful.

[Veal]

what brand of cd's do you use to make backups??

[Veal]

I plan on backing up a song (session at a time)
and then deleting the session....

[Hiltronex Sound]

Veal:
[QB]what brand of cd's do you use to make backups
Everyone has their favorites, but I've settled
on Taiyo-Yudens as my most constantly reliable
CD stock.
Both for audio and data.

I have two large Media Form systems for bulk
duplication and TY stock is the only stock that
works and verifies nearly 100% (several 10's of thousands copies for the past 3 years).

As I said above: Opinions will vary widely on
this topic though - - expect a lot of them.

[where02190]

We've had nothing but excellent results with Sony Supremas for data.

Man, you're gonna be spending days backing up all that data.....I don't envy you.

Hope this is helpful.

[The Mighty Burner]

Hi Where -

can you please help me? I'm afraid I still don't have my fragmented drive problem worked out. The problem is, Apple Drive Setup doesn't see my firewire Glyph drive, so how do I re-initialize it? I have all my sessions backed up already...

Also...what utilities package should I have? Are the Apple OS utilities adequate? Will confilct catcher interfere with PT? If so, how do I remove it?

I'm sorry to seem like a dunce but I still only have about a year under my belt with the Mac...I need idiot-proof guidance here! LOL

I really appreciate your help!

Thanks!

[where02190]

ConflictCatcher will no way interfere with PT, in fact it can be a great help in understanding Control Panels and Extensions, and what you need (or don't) to run a PT specific set.

Check with Glyph abut defrag apps. You might try DiskWarior and PlusOptimizer(which are excellent Mac utilities), but there has to be some wa to reformat the drive, perhaps they (Glyph) has their own utility for it, check their website.

Hope this is helpful.