are eSata audio drives supported?

[LSW]

Seagate 750 Pro, for some reason the FW connetions aren't working. Currently using USB, but I have the option for eSata. Will it work for audio drive and is it supported? I just got a new Dell XPS 420 and it does have an eSata port.

[sambeau]

I'm looking at drive options also. Take a look in the digidesign support page - choose the system & app you are running & they have all of the info you would need.

Here's what they had under - windows / ptle 7.4 / eSata:

eSATA Hard Drives
Although there have been no reported issues with eSATA drives, these have not been tested by Digidesign, and are therefore not supported.

So, it may work, but, you'd be on your own for any issues.

[sunburst79]

LSW, eSATA is not officially approved but shouln't be seen as anything other than a regular SATA drive to the system, A lot of TDM and POST guys use eSATA.

Two areas that might cause problems are if the actual bridge chip in the enclosure is not PT compatible and if the actual HDD itself has a power saving feature that lets the drive spin down if its not being acessesed.

Try it

[LSW]

Thanks for the replies - it does have the powersaving feature, but that would apply to FW as well and that wasn't an issue then. I'll have to order the cable.

[T.W. Davis]

This is weird. I have been running 2 500G Seagate Barracuda drives through the X33 port on my MacBook Pro. The interface is a SeriTek/2SM2. It was awesome, very fast. I use one drive for audio and the other for SFX and Video storage and playback. It worked great until I upgraded to 7.4. Now
Pro Tools will not allow me to change the the drive assignments from transfer to playback, or to record for that matter. Both drives are formatted correctly, i.e. OS Extended (journaled). My drive enclosure have the correct Oxford chipsets. I have trashed prefences and data bases but I still can't open any files in PT. Any Ideas?
Digi says to do all of the above and I've done it. Would it help to transfer all the files to another drive and then re-format? I really don't want to go back to 7.3.1, as I think the elastic audio function of 7.4 could be really useful in my work. (same problem when trying FW 800.)
Any help would be great. Thanks

[3JDamon]

Actually there is no bridge chip for eSATA. It's just SATA going outside the CPU - same cable, just different plugs on the ends, designed to survive more insertions. If you're using a PCMCIA card in a laptop, then the SATA chip may be a factor, but it's no different than SATA chips on laptop motherboards. I haven't seen any problems stemming from motherboard SATA chips.

[T.W. Davis]

Actually there is no bridge chip for eSATA. It's just SATA going outside the CPU - same cable, just different plugs on the ends, designed to survive more insertions. If you're using a PCMCIA card in a laptop, then the SATA chip may be a factor, but it's no different than SATA chips on laptop motherboards. I haven't seen any problems stemming from motherboard SATA chips.

It's very odd that it works with 7.3.1, and quite well. However it is totally useless with 7.4. I followed all instructions from Digi: trashed databases, reformatted my drives and still, 7.4 would not allow me to designate my drives as record volumes. I've gone back to 7.3.1 until I can figure this out. Thanks for your input, it is much appreciated.

[The Weed]

Did you format them NTFS? 7.4 will not play nice with FAT32 formatted drives.

Cheers,

[sunburst79]

Did you format them NTFS? 7.4 will not play nice with FAT32 formatted drives.

Cheers,

Excellent point as a lot of external drives come formatted with FAT32