2TB-4TB eSata

[IIO]

lukpac: excuse me when i didnt read the whole thread, but weren´t you mentioning you use 970 gb partitions? this could be the second alternative why things dont work. would be interesting to see if the protools problem goes away when you partition 4x500 on that 4000 disk.

[lukpac]

lukpac: excuse me when i didnt read the whole thread, but weren´t you mentioning you use 970 gb partitions? this could be the second alternative why things dont work. would be interesting to see if the protools problem goes away when you partition 4x500 on that 4000 disk.

Correct. I'm definitely going to play around with the partition sizes, I just haven't gotten that far yet. I had to do some shuffling to get everything to the point where I could wipe the 4 TB drive. I haven't done that yet, but when I do I want to see if there's a particular point where Pro Tools stops working correctly. I figure I'll just partition, copy a session to the first and last partitions on the drive, rinse, and repeat. I'll definitely pass along what I find out.

[supernova777]

Thus far Pro Tools has been working fine both on the 100 GB partition of the 4 TB drive and another smaller (under 150 GB) SATA drive, so at this point I'm thinking the adapters aren't the issue. At the very least, the adapters are not an issue in all cases. I may yet see if a PCI SATA card would behave any differently, although depending on utilization of the PCI buss that may not be a good idea anyway.

yes but .. understand the reasoning of the logic that is being thrown out.
for example: it could be a combination of the factors

-physical drive size (exceeding 2tb, 1tb, 500gb etc)
-sata/pata adapter (brand name/mfg/chipset)
-partition size
-filesystem (As put forth by diehard)
-location of the partition on the drive (ie: 1st,2nd,3rd)

like mactron said this is unexplored territory
quite often problems can be a combination of factors
+ not just the result of 1 of the factors but rather the combination of 2..

many problems we have seen here on the forums cant be explained and result from wierd combinations
of hardware/software..

for example.. consider the possible scenarios:
-partition size (970gb) found to work fine without an adapter on the 4tb drive
-partition size (970gb) found to work fine without an adapter on the 2tb drive
-partition size (970gb) works fine with the adapter as the *1st* partition on the drive

etc etc there are many combinations + factors to be checked to fully diagnose this issue

i have tried to do searchs to find other people with this problem related to partition size + my searches came back empty.. my logic in thinking its a bit more complicated is based on that fact.. i would expect someone would have ran into this issue by now and documented it SOMEWHERE if there is indeed a hard limit of partition size.. if it was so simple a problem

[mrhappy]

As I suggested...

Use a good sized SSD for all current projects and Sample libraries, and thus NO defrag ever needed.  Of course, copy the finished project to your Huge OS9 volume and also no defrag needed since you will not be constantly recording new tracks and deleting files.  It would also be wise to copy all current projects as a backup to another volume that you defrag very rarely.... For Example...

256GB SSD -> (3) Volumes (Never defrag. access to all files is the same speed)
Mac OS, 40GB for Mac OS 9, DAW & Plugins
Samples, 60GB for Often used Sample libraries
Current, 150GB for Current Projects

1 to 2 TB Large Mechanical Drive/s (RAID/MIRROR if possible to prevent DATA loss)
Mac HD, 190GB Emergency Boot with entire DAW Clone and Sample libraries, this is to be used
if SSD fails during a session
Backups, 300GB for Current Backups, is case SSD Fails with multiple versions of current projects
Library, 500GB Library for All Software Archives, All Sample libraries, Commercial Music and Video Media, etc.
Archive 1...2...3...etc, 200 to 500GB x (as many as you need), for all Finished, Archived Projects, Another suggestion would be to go with an external Mirrored FireWire solution for all Archived Project Backups

I like this whole MO DieHard! I'm going to take that route in the near future!

[supernova777]

I may yet see if a PCI SATA card would behave any differently, although depending on utilization of the PCI buss that may not be a good idea anyway.

its no different then a scsi card..which was used on the 'pci bus' since back in the early 90s..
i really dont understand this logic.. it was a rumor made up back in the days of bad hard drives to explain their bad performance... as we have documented here the true bandwidth of the pci bus far exceeds teh actual thruput.. by the devices.. the pci bus is not the limiting factor

[lukpac]

I may yet see if a PCI SATA card would behave any differently, although depending on utilization of the PCI buss that may not be a good idea anyway.

its no different then a scsi card..which was used on the 'pci bus' since back in the early 90s..
i really dont understand this logic.. it was a rumor made up back in the days of bad hard drives to explain their bad performance... as we have documented here the true bandwidth of the pci bus far exceeds teh actual thruput.. by the devices.. the pci bus is not the limiting factor

Considering someone in this thread contacted me personally (they can post more here if they wish) and told me they specifically had issues with throughput with a PCI SATA card when used in conjunction with their interface used for Pro Tools, I would say it isn't just a rumor. If the SATA card is the only device on the buss, throughput should be great, but if other devices are using bandwidth, that may not be the case.

[DieHard]

its no different then a scsi card..which was used on the 'pci bus' since back in the early 90s..
i really dont understand this logic.. it was a rumor made up back in the days of bad hard drives to explain their bad performance... as we have documented here the true bandwidth of the pci bus far exceeds teh actual thruput.. by the devices.. the pci bus is not the limiting factor

Yes, this is definitely NOT a rumor, as I discussed in many threads, the issue is NOT having a single SATA card in a G4 with nothing else, but having a SATA card combined with other PCI bus mastering Cards; when you start adding PCI audio interfaces or PT cards, UAD-1 cards, and powercore cards, you are pretty much PCI bus maxed out, adding a SATA card or PCI Bus mastering SCSI card will lead to audio drop outs and artifacts as explained many times before... when the company I worked for was building DAWs back in the day, there were many combinations we avoided, when SCSI cards (SATA the same thing) were used.

[Knezzen]

Looking at the PCI activity bar in the "System Usage" panel in Pro Tools is a good indication on how much overhead you have left on the PCI bus. My bar is pretty maxed out on a relativly standard Pro Tools session of mine.

I have tried adding a PCI SATA card to my system, and it doesn't work. I get dropouts etc.
The standard ATA100 controller of the MDD can take alot of activity as it is (recording 40 tracks at once is no problem on my system for instance).

I have 7 MIX cards in a Magma chassis though, and I don't know what the limit is for using DSP cards and SATA controllers at the same time is.

[supernova777]

yawn.. rumour.. ok a better word would be "misnomer" or "not entirely accurate hypothesis"
i understand that people have experienced problems *in the past* and put the blame on the pci bus
i personally think that this was not 100% accurate as the root of the problem.. my opinion is that was much more likely a limitation of the CPU's ability to handle and process what was being done on pci bus then the actual pci bus itself.. i mean the very fact that you can use a magma PCI bus expansion chassis should be proof enough that the pci bus is capable of much more then it is used for..  the pci bus architecture in computers (both mac & pc) have remained relatively the same for years and years... if it was indeed such a huge "limiting factor" then it would have been replaced long before the advent of pci-express

i think if u were to examine closely the device tree in openfirmware you would see that the built in ATA controller most likely interfaces/connects with the exact same pci bus anyway.. so there REALLY is no difference except the fact that you are losing an expansion slot

but lets not let this turn into a discussion about the limitations of the pci bus PLEASE

remember ALL of the things u just mentioned die hard are OBSOLETE + abandoned products.. because of what? advances in CPU technology... Powercore/UAD all are discontinued and deleted products.. and PCI audio interfaces.. do they really utilize that much bandwidth? look at the motu 424 card.. the thing can be expanded to 24 x 4 (96) channels..(on one freaking card) they wouldnt even have tried to design that if the pci bus couldnt handle it...

Diehard.. i would bet u cash doing tests with different levels of macs would reveal the cpu to be the mitigating factor..  comparing a 450mhz sawtooth to a 933 qs to a 1.42mdd and finally a 2.0ghz upgraded cpu.. when teh higher models have no issue at all would u say that its because their pci bus is "better"? seriously think back to which macs were actually in use back in the day when u recall these problems... guaranteed it was back around 1998-2001 when they had a dog of a cpu

another point is..
FIREWIRE vs USB
the reason why steve jobs limited his macs to not having USB 2.0 is that USB 2.0 is a cpu dependant technology ..
and firewire doesnt require any CPU handling.. thats the real reason why usb 2.0 is disabled and was never "allowed" in mac os 9... it was a tactical decision.. to not make the machines look bad.

final point is..
i have a sata card + a digi 001 and i know damn well they work 100% fine together and theres absolutely no issues with using an mdd with this combination.. so what the hell?

i dont even know why im bothering to respond... u guys are just arguing for the sake of trying to prove me wrong or something.. like what is your goal here? lol .. you and me after school.. lets fight.. kid gloves.. lol

[Knezzen]

We are talking about when you hammer the PCI bus, like I do for instance. 7 MIX cords with pretty much all the DSP's used up with TDM plugins. The CPU activity of the machine stays at a modest 1-5% all the time, so that's not the limiting factor.

If I used the SATA card I couldn't get over 30 tracks or so with TDM plugins without getting dropouts, drive too slow errors etc. Now with a harddrive on the internal ATA100 controller I can easily do 60 tracks without any problems at all.

You won't get the problem with your Digi 001 and SATA card. Not enough stuff going on.
The bus is not ONE PCI port, it's the sum of all the data traffic of all the ports, and the bus is the bottleneck going to the CPU.

Read up on basic computer architecture if you don't belive me. This is basic shit.

[supernova777]

and how do u think the ata controller interfaces with the computer? by magic?



mactron stated previously that MDD's contain *2* pci bus
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=1964.0

lets not go on and on on this pci bus debate .. or we will be here for years...

[Knezzen]

The PCI bus of the MDD for example is connected to the same controller as the ATA100 controller, but they do not share bandwidth in any other way. Tons of activity on the ATA100 controller does NOT slow down the PCI stuff. Adding a controller to the PCI bus makes it use up bandwith there insted of where it's "supposed to be", and thus leaves less bandwidth to the other stuff on therse.

In my case 7 MIX Core & Farm cards.

Basic architecture diagram taken from the MDD developer docs:

[supernova777]

Knez..
the secondary bus is attached to the primary bus aswell.
thats why its called a secondary bus.. because its second to the primary.

[Knezzen]

Yes. So the same fenomenon happens when I for instance run my projects from my SSD boot drive, connected to the ATA66 bus. Im clogging the PCI bus with too much data, so audio drops out, I can't bounce stuff etc.

It's real Chris. Get over it. Im not debating this any more. I know what I have experienced and I know that im right. If you can't take that in, it's your problem.

All the best

[supernova777]

lol "get over it"  "all the best" 

I know what I have experienced and I know that im right.

yes u know what u have experienced.. but i dont believe u are right that it is a *limitation of the pci bus*.

im pretty sure the definition of the term "PCI Bus Mastering" means that this "bus mastering" card *TAKES OVER* control of a portion of the pci bus...
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/mbsys/buses/types/pciMastering-c.html
so it cuts off the data pipeline from being available to the other device..
the same way note polyphony of 1 would cut off any other notes in a sampler.. because its only letting one note thru at a time...

perhaps there is some type of jumper or software setting to disable "bus mastering" from occuring and therefore stopping the problem.. and stopping the device from hogging full control of the bus.

i understand the problem. but thanks for your explicit description. like i said.. i hold to my opinion that the problem is not a result of a *limitation of the pci bus*. If you can't take that in, it's your problem. "All the best "

blaming the pci bus is like blaming the highway for a car crash...
the highway is not to blame.. the cars + intelligence behind driving those cars is to blame... improper timing + handling of events.. you cant blame the highway..

re: your ssd on the ata-66 bus..
IIO recently brought up the need to jumper SATA devices to adhere to sata150 spec..
http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/193991en

a similar problem happens when using a sata2 device on a sata1 connection. maybe its possible your problem isnt related to the pci bus at all but rather is a mismatch or lack of downward compatibility between the drive + the capability of the connection...

but yea in your case.. with 7 cards via expansion chassis. this is a hugely different configuration then a digi 001 + mdd + sata card, trying to have all those cards + an ssd flooding the ata-66 = traffic jam on the highway.. but yet if u replace the ssd with a normal ata-66 hard drive.. teh problem probably goes away right??? because the ata-66 connection can handle this device... a sata150 card is able to handle.. a sata150 device.



look at the difference of sata150 to ata66...
of course its going to fuck up trying to stuff the data thruput of an ssd that can do more than sata150.. into an ata-66 controller..

how can u say you are clogging the pci bus.. when mactron has reported speeds of 190MB/s using 2 SSD in raid.. the difference? his controller could properly regulate the data in + out from this drive... the pci bus isnt being clogged. 190MB/s is pretty fuckin fast for a g4 with a "limited pci bus" lol

out of curiousity im wondering which sata card do u have knez..
i dont remember you ever saying that u had tried one.

disk controllers behave very differently + of different quality + performance
based on how their chips handle + regulate the flow of data.
and in mactrons case, difference of connection (64bit vs 32bit, 33Mhz vs 66 Mhz)

i read about an issue recently to do with pci graphics cards causing audio dropouts on the pc platform.. and u know what the cause was? 100% because of the GRAPHICS DRIVER of the pci graphics device - to speed up "video performance" the manufacturers had "Cheated" and the driver had been written in a way that caused it to forgo some type of fail-safe check before starting a data transfer.. to make the graphics quicker.. so u see there is often more than meets the eye....
this issue i actually found in a README file from cubase 4 or 5 on pc.. where they had included someones testimonial explanation of the real cause of the audiodropouts.
i can find it and post it if u like. the problem was 100% caused by the logic of the driver
and NOT the pci bus but yet in the same regard.. it was common belief that the pci bus was to blame. in this readme file the guy quoted by steinberg explicitly says that its not the pci bus... and that this popular belief is not accurate.

[Protools5LEGuy]

blaming the pci bus is like blaming the highway for a car crash...
the highway is not to blame.. the cars + intelligence behind driving those cars is to blame... improper timing + handling of events.. you cant blame the highway..

[youtube]mkBS4zUjJZo[/youtube]

[Protools5LEGuy]

PCI bus is a cake.    Let's say a 8 piece cake.

A Protools HD rig takes 6-7 pieces

A Protools TDM rig easily takes 5-6 pieces.

A Protools LE rig takes 3-4 pieces

Any IDE-SATA PCI card takes 1-2 pieces

Any SCSI card takes 1 piece

All graphics card takes 1-2 pieces

If your OS9 install has a bad choice of extensions/control panels it can take a piece of cake.

There isn't cake for everyone... So choose wisely who are you going to give the cake. 

[supernova777]

yes protools guy u are right.. easy fix is to take out the graphics card

[Knezzen]

but yet if u replace the ssd with a normal ata-66 hard drive.. teh problem probably goes away right??? because the ata-66 connection can handle this device... a sata150 card is able to handle.. a sata150 device.

Nope. Does not matter. You are clogging the bus with too much traffic. Adding a SATA150 card clogs it as well. "Highway jam" describes it very well. It just does not work. Get over it, there's nothing you can say to talk me out of it, since I have tried on a first hand basis and know how computers work

I can make a quick video tonight that demonstrates what happens so you can see with your own eyes.

[Knezzen]

From the Avid Knowledge Base, for Windows, but concerns all systems: http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/en_US/Error_Message/en326991

This error has many potential causes, all of which relate to overtaxation of your computer's PCI buss.