What's the best way to have 2 versions?

[Tintin]

I have PT question that I wanted to run by you before I go ahead, if it's okay? So I have PT 9.0.6, hadn't used it in a bit, and mistakenly upgraded from Snow Leopard 10.6.8 to Yosemite. I realized this when scrolling in PT 9, the drop down menus were blank until you scroll over list, then it appears and becomes selectable--I'm not sure what other issues there are as well. Anyhow, my options so that I can run 9 and (soon PT 10) successfully that I see are:

1. Make another bootable drive on an external hard drive dedicated to recording and install Lion (?) 10.7 or Mountain Lion that will work with 9.0.6 and PT 10. Is there any downside to recording from an external drive speed wise?
2. Make a partition on my computer's drive and load Moutain Lion and PT 9/10 on there...are there any issues having two operating systems on the same computer in separate partitions? So I'd have Lion or Mountain installed in the partition with PT 9 or 10 and then on the main portion of my drive Yosemite with PT 11 or 12
3. There's a way to trick your mac to think it's using an early operating software, by using terminal and changing the number (i.e. 10.10 can be changed to 10.9)...does this work and would it work to go from 10.10 to 10.8 and make me be able to run 9 without problems?
Thank you soooo much for any advice...

[John_Toolbox]

I would not recommend #1 unless the external drive is a fast drive connected via thunderbolt. The OS will be sluggish if you run it from an external USB or firewire drive.

#2 is the best way to go, I always keep the last iteration of my OS and programs on a separate partition when I upgrade so I can quickly go back to a known working configuration if I have a problem.

#3 may or may not work, it's not supported by AVID so I would not recommend it.

Just to be clear, 9.0.6 is not officially supported on Mountain Lion 10.8. Some people have reported that it works fine, but some people have had problems with it. I did run this configuration for a short time, if I remember correctly you needed to start with a 9.0.5 install, then update to 9.0.6. Earlier PT9 installers will not work at all with this OS. Be aware that while this configuration may work, it's not the OS that PT9 was designed for. I personally had the best luck with PT9 on snow leopard.

One other thing, with the exception of PT10/PT11 coinstall on Mountain Lion OS, there are no other Pro Tools versions that will work with more than one version of PT installed on the same OS. This means if you want all of these versions working on the same computer, you really need at least 3 partitions. One for PT9, one with 10.8 for PT10/11, and one with 10.10 for PT12.

[Tintin]

John, thank you!!! Yes, I'm going to do the 2nd option and eventually, I'll swap out PT9 for 10. It looks like I should get Lion and not Mountain Lion...Lion is compatible with PT9 and 10 correct? And then on my main drive I'll have Yosemite with 11 or 12. How much room should I partition my drive for if I'm just gonna have Lion, PT, and some UAD Apollo software/plugins? Thanks again!

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by Tintin

John, thank you!!! Yes, I'm going to do the 2nd option and eventually, I'll swap out PT9 for 10. It looks like I should get Lion and not Mountain Lion...Lion is compatible with PT9 and 10 correct? And then on my main drive I'll have Yosemite with 11 or 12. How much room should I partition my drive for if I'm just gonna have Lion, PT, and some UAD Apollo software/plugins? Thanks again!

What's the size of your current system drive? I have a 2 terabyte system drive I split in half - one for OSX 10.8.5 and one for OSX 10.9.5.

You do have a separate drive for PT to record to right?

[Tintin]

On my computer's 500gb drive, 160gb is free and available. Yes, I will record onto a separate external hard drive. In the partition all I'll have is Lion, PT, and some plugins...if I devote 60gb to the partition do you think that should be adequate? I'm not going to save or store anything else in the partition...just using it to run PT from.

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by Tintin

On my computer's 500gb drive, 160gb is free and available. Yes, I will record onto a separate external hard drive. In the partition all I'll have is Lion, PT, and some plugins...if I devote 60gb to the partition do you think that should be adequate? I'm not going to save or store anything else in the partition...just using it to run PT from.

60 gig is a bit on the small side; I'd go for a 100 gig minimum. You can't get any more room on that drive? Something to keep in mind is you never really want to get close to filling a hard drive to capacity. You always want to leave space and seeing that you only have a 500 gig drive I can see you running into issues.

Can you put a bigger system drive in the computer? If you can't then I'd do this - and it depends on you having installers for the programs you currently have on the computer now (never use Migration Assistant aka Migration Assassin to move things over). Partition the drive and install whatever OSX version you want to use. Save off any data on the existing Yosemite partition. Delete the Yosemite partition so you have full access to the whole system drive. Then re-install everything.

But you'd be better off putting in a bigger system drive in the long run.

[Tintin]

Okay, thank you so much for all the info. I really appreciate it!

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by Tintin

Okay, thank you so much for all the info. I really appreciate it!

Not a problem. For the record - what exact Mac do you have? That would help with possible further options advice.