Powerbook G4/pro Tools/external Hard Drives, Newbie help Options

[jawnzap7]

First I just wanna say thanks to everybody on this site. I just joined but, have already learned a ton just from poking around. It seems as if everybody here is very patient, and informative...now that the requisite ass-kissing is over , lets get down to business...
So I just recieved my 15 inch Powerbook G4. It's a 1.67 Ghz model, with 2 Gb of Ram, and a 100 Gb 7200 rpm Hard Drive. I am currently awaiting my M Box2 (factory bundle) with Pro Tools, via UPS.
I have read the documentation on the digidesign website, and have read that it is strongly suggested to get an external/additional hard drive, instead of using the internal boot drive. But is it necessary? I got the larger internal drive hoping that it might be sufficient. If not I can live with that. I'll spend the money if I must.
So my next question is this...is pro tools compatible with usb 2.0 external Hard drives? Or can you ONLY use firewire/sata/whatever else they list drives. The usb 2.o's are cheaper for more storage than the firewire models. But I definently believe you get what you pay for.
And what about internal drives placed in shells? That seems to be the cheapest/most economical option, but I don't know nothing about that stuff. Is it hard to do?...what is my best strategy here?

[lepetitmartien]

Once you jump to more than a few tracks, the external drive will be the evidence You can't ask one drive to assume both: system accesses, virtual memory, apps accesses, and tracks.

USB is faster on the paper but way less efficient for real time jobs, Firewire or eSata will give you the best performance without glitches. Now if it's a budget decision and you don't need a huge number of tracks, USB2 should do it. Personally, I mount drives I want into enclosures I've chosen myself. this way I know what i've got, and I can change the drive easily if need be.

Remember a 100-200GB drive is already a lot of storage save if you're into motion picture original soundtracks.

For compatibility, check the compato pages on Digidesign site, other set-ups can work (nobody can test everything), but these are working without fuss.

What are you talking about drives in "shells"? Can you explain?

(thanks for the ass-kissing, it's always cool to have some thanks by members for all the work done here and our wonderful members too

[jawnzap7]

By "shells" I meant enclosures...you said you prefer that method? Is it hard, are there any risks, as far as messing up the installation?, and if not, why would I buy an external hard drive when I can convert an internal into an external?...

I'll give you some background, and maybe that will help. I'm a hip-hop artist. So the majority of the work I'll be doing will be vocal recording. But I also do production in reason, and would like to do the whole rewire thing into pro tools, so the track counts can get somewhat high. This is my first venture into Mac, so any advice at all is greatly appreciated.

[lepetitmartien]

To "build" yourself (in fact, assembling) your external hard drive, you can choose the good drive and a good enclosure, because save a few shopping places, you don't usually know what's inside, be it the drive or the firewire bridge.

Now, at macsales for example you know what's inside most their gear. It's a serious place too as far as I know. Check other places, there may be cheaper shops for hard drives, but check the warranty policy as you're in the USA.

You can choose the interface type, be sure of the bridge (oxford chips are good) and the drive. Be aware that most single drive enclosure don't need a fan, but double RAID ones do have one (so background noise is at stake). Choose in the 3.5" drives, it'll be cheaper, 2.5" are expensive (but less bulky, sure).

In your place (where I'm not) I'd go for a FW400+usb2 or FW400+800 enclosure with an oxford chipset, and if possible, a Seagate drive (silent and reliable, others will do too).

eSATA is blazing fast, but still expensive, especially the drives. So I'll left it out for the moment being.

One side note on drives, don't care about the cache they have. They have usually 8 or 16 MB of cache, it is only of interest to have a large one when you have lot's of little files, in our situation, it's more a seeks/access/write time the important thing and they are very close on these.

And last, be careful with your drive, especially if you move it around, it's fragile.

[jawnzap7]

Thanks for the link. I'm definently now leaning towards building my own. It just seems alot more cost effective. Like I said previously, I don't know anything about how to go about doing so, but I assume the enclosure, and/or the hard drive will have the necessary info. I've read alot about unreliable models of hard drives(maxtor,lacie, etc.), but not alot about one's that people really trust. You mentioned seagate, what are some of the other brands I should look into. Is thier a website that has comparison reviews or anything like that. Even just brands would be helpful, and I could do the legwork myself.

[jawnzap7]

So I bought a Seagate Barracudda 25o gig drive, and a Metal Gear Box enclosure with usb 2.0,fw400. The install of the enclosure was simple. Plug in a couple wires, nothing much to it. I plugged it into the fw400 port, and my computer recognized it when I went to the "profiler"... this is what I see...
b-units:
SBP-LUN:
Capacity: 232.89 GB
Removable Media: Yes
BSD Name: disk2
OS9 Drivers: No
S.M.A.R.T. status: Not Supported


....I installed the driver cd for the enclosure, but it said to go to a download page...

1. Windows 98 driver install

Step 1: Double click on the "My computer" icon on your PC.
Step 2: Double click the CD-ROM driver icon (D:\ or E:\ etc)
where you inserted the installation CD.
Step 3: Double click on the "INSTALL" icon and follow
the instruction to complete the installation.

* Please note that the installation instruction is for WINDOWS 98 & SE
only, not for WINDOWS 2000 or XP.


2.About 1394 in Windows98

Below is the Windows 98 Second Edition 1394 Storage Supplement
Site for 1394 storage peripherals running Windows 98 Second Edition.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows98/downloa...394/Default.asp


3.About MAC driver in MAC OS 8.6..8.9

Below is the APPLE SUPPORT Site for USB installation under MAC OS8.6 :

http://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Suppo..../USB_Updates/...

...so I went to the link at the bottom, and it told me to download a usb storage application. When I attempted to do this, it told me I don't have os9 installed, and asked if I wanted to do this. I'm a mac newbie, so I don't have acumen when it comes to this stuff, but I did read some documentation. It seemed to indicate that I can't use os9 apps with OSx. and vice versa. I'm horriblly confused, and feeling quite like an idiot. My pro tools is on OSx. Do I have to put my new hard drive in os9?....thanks for your patience...seven

This post has been edited by jawnzap7: Mon 30 Jan 2006, 22:27

[lepetitmartien]

Does it show in the Apple Drive Utility? If so (as it should), format it from here using HFS+.

Don't bother about the garbage about USB, it's no more actual, it's "Old Story".

Have you checked the jumper on the drive before fitting it in the enclosure? It should be set for a normal usage and "as master", Macs don't support most of the bells and whistles other positions bring than master/slave and some size limiting possibilities.

The normal but to be checked position of the jumpers is "master", but it should always be checked back as errors do happen…

This post has been edited by lepetitmartien: Mon 30 Jan 2006, 22:44

[jawnzap7]

It does show up in "disk utility.
I'm not sure about the jumper. That is the section in between the main cables (there are only 2 cables in my enclosure, a r,b,b,y,one, and a ribbon...should there be an adiitional one?) ? I believe it is set to "cable select"...master. There is a black connector over the second pairing of pins. That is the way it came out of the box. The diagram on the HD says that if I put it over the first pairing of pins it will be MASTER=on Slave= off...is that the way it should be configured? If so what is the best way to change that connector? Also what is HFS+?

[lepetitmartien]

There should be only two connection right, one is the IDE ribbon, the other is the powering.

Jumpers are tiny bits at the back near the other connectors, they enable options on the drive. They usually come by one or two on a few pins. From what you wrote, you found them. Cable select is not supported on macs, now enclosures are a little bt different, now… to be sure, set it as master on (an IDE/ATA drive can only be master or slave, one of both at most per chain, and cable select is a PC automatic sensing based on the position of the drive by the connector when there two connectors).

As a side note, the normal position of a master in a 2 drives chain is at the end of the ribbon, slave is at the middle connector.

So put the little jumper at its master on position. Otherwise it can work without fuss, but we are on the virgin territories of the unknown so better avoid it.

HFS+ is the type of formating, on Mac OS it's been HFS and HFS+, use HFS+. Other formats types are UNIX or windows only and will bring you issues as they are aimed at special uses on the mac not of interest here.

You'll have to choose if you want to partition the drive too.

[jawnzap7]

I believe I'm up, and running. I haven't saved anything there. But I formatted it. And it shows up everywhere it should(including my system stat widget). Are there any benefits to partitioning? Thanks you so much for all the help...seven