using firewire drive as your "audio record" drive

[supernova777]

most of us lately here have been talking of SSD + knez has maintained his studio has stable results recording to 7200 drive over basic ata-66

i just came across this document which talks about some standardized 'requirements'
to ensure proper firewire performance so thought id just post because tbh i havent paid attention to these driver version?
 
wondering if it was an additional download or if the standard protools installations installed these

http://archive.digidesign.com/compato/os9/stg/firewire.cfm

Mac OS 9 System Software

    Mac OS 9.1 or higher, 9.2.2 recommended
    Firewire Enabler (version 2.7 or higher)
    Firewire Support (version 2.7 or higher)
    FireWire Enabler v2.7 and FireWire Support v2.7 are Mac OS Extensions included with OS 9.1. run the Software Update Control Panel to update to the latest version of these extensions in OS 9.1 or higher. Both of these extensions must be enabled in your System Folder/Extensions folder in order to mount and use firewire drives.
    If you are running a non-English version of the Mac OS, you may need to download the version 2.5 FireWire extensions
    Supported formatting utility: Mac OS "Erase Disk" command
        Select firewire drive (highlight drive icon on desktop)
        Go to the "Special" menu in the Apple OS menu bar
        Choose "Erase Disk" command
        Choose Mac OS Extended (HFS+)
        Note: partitioning is not an option using the Erase Disk command in Mac OS 9. To increase performance and improve seek time, Digidesign recommends that you allocate a portion of your hard drive for recording. In Pro Tools, Choose Setups/Preferences and click Operation. Under the Open Ended Record Allocation option, select Limit To and enter a number of minutes to be allocated.

it says non english users have to download addtional driver . jsut thought id point this out!

not sure i understand what it means to alocatie a portion of a drive??
but its not a partition? huh?

[supernova777]

another question i cant immediately answer

is there anyway to get pro tools on mac os 9 to support fat32? (for mac/pc compatibility)
so that i could say. share a recording firewire drive / sessions one just one drive
between a windows98se version (or XP version) of pro tools (or ptfree) ?

i think mac os 9 supports fat32?
its funny that win98se would support firewire for recording to hard disk but not for audio interfaces
ive read so much lately these facts are eluding me at the moment (3;30am give me a break;D)

[Protools5LEGuy]

is there anyway to get pro tools on mac os 9 to support fat32?

OS9 is compatible with FAT, but Protools won't record to a drive in FAT.
You have to use FAT drives for exchange files, not to record to.

[Protools5LEGuy]

... to support fat32? (for mac/pc compatibility)

Just check the box "Ensure PC/Mac compatibility" when making a new session

[supernova777]

my idea is that i have many different os/hardware combinations for testing
to equip each of them with both a boot drive + a record drive internally would be excessive
as i cant use all 4 (or however many) stations at once..

it makes sense more to take my firewire drive for audio record between each system as i switch
i could have one for mac one for pc i suppose but it woudl be much simpler to have just one
are u sure that its not possible to record to fat32  on mac os 9?
the info i was reffering to earlier was this statement :

FAT32 Volumes Not Supported for Recording with Pro Tools 7.4

i dont know the paritculars of the lower versions i only know i have read this
numerous times while viewing other documentation .. that this was the version that they stopped allowing
fat32.. perhaps this is relevant only to the windows version of pt le..

ok i see now that these few statements re: fat32 are regarding using "MacOpener" on the pc
to give the pc compatibility to an HFS+ disk

http://akarchive.digidesign.com/support/docs/PT_51_ReadMe.pdf

-To open a session from an HFS/HFS+ drive, the session must be created with Pro Tools 5.1 or later. In addition, the session must not be of mixed file formats. To use mixed-format sessions in Pro Tools LE, first save a session copy in the desired file format (make sure to select the option for “All Audio Files” under What To Copy
-When using the Bounce To Disk command, the bounce destination must be a FAT/FAT32 drive. Bouncing to HFS/HFS+ drives is not supported
-Operations such as opening sessions, initiating playback, drawing waveforms when zoomed, and allocating record files are slower on HFS/HFS+ drives than on FAT/FAT32 drives
-Because MacOpener must clear the disk cache after copying between HFS/HFS+ and FAT/FAT32 drives, Pro Tools LE will launch very slowly after performing these disk copies
-For SDII files to appear in the Import Audio dialog, you must set the File Of Type pop-up menu to “All Files.”
-On Windows Me, when selecting all files in the Import Audio dialog, and some of these files have names with 13 or more characters, none will be added to the import list when clicking Convert All. The files can be added to the list if they are selected individually by Shift-clicking

maybe this is too much headache to be bothered to try for mac/pc compatibility
or maybe it isnt so bad.
i had hoped there was a more seamless 100% support somehow by using fat32 on both
but if there was a better way im sure they would be suggesting this in this readme rather then suggesting the use
of a 3rd party app like macopener

[Protools5LEGuy]

I would just have 3 partitions on the firewire drive. One HFS, other HFS+ and other FAT just to exchange files to Win/OSX. 

I thought you were a "File transfers over the net" evangelist.   

For me a Firewire Drive is a must for exchanging files with other PowerMacs/Windows with MacDrive.

For me it is the fastest solution.

[supernova777]

I would just have 3 partitions on the firewire drive. One HFS, other HFS+ and other FAT just to exchange files to Win/OSX. 

I thought you were a "File transfers over the net" evangelist.   

For me a Firewire Drive is a must for exchanging files with other PowerMacs/Windows with MacDrive.

For me it is the fastest solution.

  duhhh why didnt i think of that 
maybe just 2 partitions, 1 HFS+, and one FAT32,
macos9 can read FAT32 just fine right? like u said, but protools doesnt record to it (? have u ever tried?)
but the macos9 os can write to fat32 just fine too right? is it slower? i havent tried since many years

i still cant believe that windows + mac couldnt both read/write each others filesystems
this was always an unbelievable fact to me even back in the late 90s.. i couldnt believe that these companies wouldnt sit down and communicate a workable standard between the two.. the same for the networking
aspect.. it was always such a huge pain to get things networked properly and i always thought."this is wrong this should be easy" like how there was always this error in password communication to access network share

re: transfer over net, yes that works but i was thinking for simplicity, to not even have to worry about transfering..
to have it on the same drive , one less thing to worry about on an ongoing basis