Problems relating to external hard drive

[Random3]

Hi guys, haven't had to post here for a while but I am getting some recurring problems relating to my external hard drive and the way Pro Tools interacts with it.

The drive I have is one of these: http://www.wexphotographic.com/buy-g...frrmgwoddxseia

I have had it for about 4 years and it hasn't given me any problems until recently. I store my Pro Tools sessions on there and read/write audio to/from there.

The computer I am running is a late 2012 iMac 27, OS Yosemite. Pro Tools is version 11 and is fully up to date.

So fairly frequently, like 75% of the time, when I open any session after waking my iMac up from sleep I will be unable to record any audio. I get an error message indicating this after I hit record. I am also unable to save the session. As both of these things involve writing data to the drive, I am assuming this is where the issue is.

So what I then do is close Pro Tools and try to eject the drive. My iMac tells me that the drive is in use, which it isn't, so I force eject it and reboot the drive. After doing this, it will work with absolutely no problems, until I turn off my iMac, come back the next day and then open a session, where I have to then do all of this again.

The only advice I have managed to find was trashing my preferences in Pro Tools, after which I rebooted the iMac multiple times and it seemed to have cleared the problem. Then it started happening again, so I have no idea what else to try.

It is odd because it works absolutely fine during actual use but 75% of the time in order to start working on a session I currently have to open Pro Tools, load up the session, close Pro Tools, force eject the hard drive, reboot the hard drive and then reopen the session which is a pain in the ass to be doing daily.

So I don't know if this is a problem with the drive itself, with some preferences somewhere or just a bug in Pro Tools. Any help would be very much appreciated.

[Southsidemusic]

First issue I see is Sleep Mode! A NO NO for real. Messes with the internals and PT and will more than likely be a source of errors for you. Also check to see spotlight indexing for the hard drives are OFF.

And check under power saving settings that the drives are NOT set to save power anytime ever. Same with the screen and absolutely No sleep mode again on music making machines

So whats your OS drive? Make, model and speed!?

I see your external drive is 7200 rpm so thats ok but the internal drive is maybe a fusion drive? Or a 5400rpm spinner? Check to see what it is and post back.

What PT11 version are you running?

It's not a bug atleast as this is due to one or more of the above factors here.

[Random3]

Thanks for the reply.

Originally Posted by Southsidemusic

First issue I see is Sleep Mode! A NO NO for real. Messes with the internals and PT and will more than likely be a source of errors for you.

So I should always shut down completely and then boot from scratch every day?

Originally Posted by Southsidemusic

Also check to see spotlight indexing for the hard drives are OFF.

Someone suggested this to me before but I couldn't figure out how to do it. Any ideas?

Originally Posted by Southsidemusic

And check under power saving settings that the drives are NOT set to save power anytime ever.

99% sure that they aren't but I will double check when I get home.

Originally Posted by Southsidemusic

So whats your OS drive? Make, model and speed!?

I'll check these when I get home as well. Presumably they are under the "About my Mac" option?

Originally Posted by Southsidemusic

I see your external drive is 7200 rpm so thats ok but the internal drive is maybe a fusion drive? Or a 5400rpm spinner? Check to see what it is and post back.

I don't think it's a fusion because I seem to remember they were introduced in the gen following mine, but I will check.

Originally Posted by Southsidemusic

What PT11 version are you running?

Off the top of my head I would guess 11.3.1 but I know it's the most up to date version of PT11 that was released.

So yeah thanks for the reply I will check this info and report back.

[Southsidemusic]

Great

A few answers right back:

Always ALWAYS turn off the Computer after you are done and never use sleepmode again

Spotlight indexing is under the settings and says spotlight i believe, other wise post back and i will check where it is when i am back in the studio. We only did this once. You can just drag the hard drives into a square and they will not be indexed.

And the latest released version of PT11 is 11.3.2

Regarding the Fusion Drive I believe you are correct there, just see what model it is when you have time and we can google it if we can't say if it is 7200rpm from model number. You can check under the about this Mac as you said.

[Random3]

Thanks very much for the help, I will check all of this tonight and post back

[Rich Breen]

A few other thoughts;

While those G-Tech drives are generally quite good, I bought a few last year which acted up (going to sleep after a while even with sleep off, etc), and upon opening them up I was surprised to see they were green drives inside (drives with power saving features) - they're not supposed to be. I returned them. I would consider trying a different drive; a WD Black is what you want. I have never had issues with drives from OWC or Glyph and would recommend those if you can't specify the make/model of internal drive from your vendor.

While I agree that for best performance, Spotlight *may* be an issue, I have only ever seen it cause momentary issues on large multitrack recording. Personally I keep Spotlight on all of my drives and never have problems, but I would disable it on a system dedicated to large multitrack recording (i.e. in a large tracking studio). You can drag the drive to the "Privacy" pane in the Spotlight prefs pane and it will no longer be indexed. Be aware that this may cause performance issues in the workspace browser.

Seems this is clearly drive-related, so I'd change out the drive to something reliable and see how things progress.

best,
rich

[Random3]

Ok so

PT version is 11.3.1

Under energy saver options on settings I found that I actually had the "put hard disks to sleep when possible" option ticked, so I will un-tick and monitor it.

I have added the entire G-Drive to the Spotlight privacy setting so that it isn't in use.

The info I found on the built in HD is as follows:

Media Name: Hitachi HUA722010CLA330 Media
Medium Type: Rotational
Protocol: SATA
Internal: Yes
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
S.M.A.R.T. Status: Verified

No idea if that helps.

Either way with the sleep mode, Spotlight and power save I have 3 things on trial that I hadn't tested yet so hopefully I don't get this again. Will post back again if I do.

Thanks again.

[Southsidemusic]

Thanks for the info. I would say that if these actions helps then you don't have a drive going bad. According to NewEgg its not a Green drive so i would say you are good with that G-Drive.

Let us know how you get on.

Best Wishes

[Darryl Ramm]

I suspect you have solved any problems, but if you are still having problems...

What exact connection do you have this external drive connected to on your Mac? Firewire 800? USB3?

What internal drive do you have in the iMac? Firewire 800? USB3? USB2? eSATA? (via a dock etc?). Describe enverthing else connected to the Mac/the exact connection chaining to the iMac.

Especially test with that disk drive not connected to the same Thunderbolt chain as the interface. USB3 should be fast enough, and likely a much better choice than FireWire for this disk. remove as many other USB peripherals as you can while testing.

Try creating a session on that internal drive and see if there are problems.