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A few months ago I shifted my "Audio' folder to my external hard drive (WD 2TB Studio Edition 2). It has FW400, 800 and eSATA connections. Im currently using FW800 soon to be using eSATA (once I get the driver info from the supplied mini CD that wont fit into my MacbookPro laptop). I use the external drive for all (not just audio) my storage and record/playback too. It is currently approx half full. I often have playback issues when playing a ProTools session. ProTools suggests changing my buffer settings etc yet this doesn't really solve the issue. I've recently partitioned the External Drive to 4 sections. One partition is now dedicated to Audio (for recording, playingback and storage/management). Yet, ProTools is still often freezing when playingback but with a differnt message. Now saying my connection to the hd is either not fast enough or the drive is partitioned..I (maybe wrongfully) assumed that a partitioned drive would make it quicker to search the audio folder for the data needed. So, my questions: Does partitioning help speed the process up of searching for the info or should i go back to no partitions? Will the eSata connection solve the issue by increasing the transfer rate? or should I be using the internal drive for recording and playback and the external for storage/editing? ps: reminding you I have a Macbook Pro laptop which only has 1 internal drive (if this is relevant?) Any help is greatly appreciated:)

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@SoundsGood - When you say "I use the external drive for all (not just audio) my storage"- what else are you reading off the drive? Partitioning should increase performance if anything.. – James Bryant Aug 16 2010 at 3:53
@James. I have a Film, TV and Other partitions. So four in total. films and tv episodes and all my personal things. – mrchegibson Aug 16 2010 at 22:30

5 Answers

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Dedicate a single drive for audio only, partitioning is not the answer. Use as small a drive as possible so that the access times are really fast and remember to wipe free space periodically. Use your large hard drive for back ups.

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The transfer speed (FW400, 800, USB, etc.) is very important, but the speed (7200rpm vs 5400rpm) of your hard drive plays a huge role in the performance. I'm not sure about the partitioning but it may be a good idea to use your internal drive for current projects and transferring what doesn't need constant access to your external drive.

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Partitioning will not speed up your read or access speed at all. The drive still turns at the same speed (7200rpm in the case of this particular drive), and it still has the same number of heads to read data. All the partition is going to do is help keep your data better organized. If you're not using the "audio" partition when performing other tasks, then data won't be written to that area of your disc. Less data=less clutter (aka fragmentation)...which is not a bad thing at all, but I don't think it will help your buffer idea.

Try limiting the record time available for your sessions in Pro Tools. The software actually operates better if you tell it to reserve a certain amount of space on your hard drive and work within that, than it does if you give it free reign over all of the free data sectors. You can set this by going to the "Operation" tab of the preferences menu. In the there's an option in the "Record" section of that page.

That's all I can think of right now without being in front of your system to see how it's actually behaving. I hope it helps.

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@Shaun: Ok thanks for the tips man. Shortening the Record Allocation time makes sense for increasing performance when recording to the drive. but is this just for increasing performance when writing data? I would have thought that playing back the data is different. Because this is where I have the issue. My thinking was that partitioning the drive was my way of getting the head to only read a certain amount of the drive? the opposite to your record theory.hhmmmmm. what do you think? or am I just getting confused.. – mrchegibson Aug 16 2010 at 22:59
@SoundsGood - I'm not sure. It was the only thing I could think of without being in front of your system. I know Pro Tools very well, but I'm in no way a support professional...haha. Either way, coudn't hurt. – Shaun Farley Aug 17 2010 at 0:03
@Shaun: haha, yea cool. fair enough. So what do you do? where do you run your pro tools session from? internal vs. external? etc.. – mrchegibson Aug 17 2010 at 0:29
@SoundsGood - at home (LE system) or at work (HD system) all my session and audio files are internal (multiple hard drives) and backed up external. i also play back video files from a separate hard drive. so, i have my os drive, my audio drive, and my video drive all internal, and back up my current projects to firewire and servers as available. – Shaun Farley Aug 17 2010 at 0:44
@Shaun: hmmmm, ok cool cool. Yeah makes sense. Thanks for the tips man. I've shortened the record time allocation and have now made a Current Audio folder on my internal drive. I'll shift them external once I've finished working on them. Running the session and audio files from here has so far had less glitches so until my Mac Pro tower purchase I'm better off:) – mrchegibson Aug 19 2010 at 0:45
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@SoundsGood: The buffer size is VERY important, but most good drives, even the clunky LaCie orange bricks come with 8MB buffers, which should be ok....

When you do go to eSATA, make sure your card is eSATA II, as it offers significantly higher throughput than garden-variety eSATA.

@Andrew, @SoundsGood

I can't seem to get good information on partitioning anywhere...at least, concerning audio related articles. I have a 2007 MBP with a 320GB internal drive. I'd like to be able to buy a 2TB HDD and partition it in 4: a Time Machine, a recovery/bootable disk, an 'Audio' disk and general dusty attic type of disk...

What do you guys think....

Kurt

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@Kurt - As long as you don't have multiple utilities/applications trying to access it simultaneously, you should be good. In particular watch out for Time Machine while you're in the middle of working on any audio projects. – Shaun Farley Aug 16 2010 at 12:30
@Shaun Thanks for the tip. I will look out for that. I am currently backing up and I will set my Time Machine to 'Manual'. – Kurt Human Aug 16 2010 at 18:05
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Hey @mrchegibson, do you also have your pro tools session files in this external drive? words says it could get messy if you have the session files in one drive and the samples or other media in another one.

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