2TB-4TB eSata

[Protools5LEGuy]

Sure, I can upload the iDefrag DVD. It's only downloadable from the iDefrag application, so it's quite hard to come by.

Did you tried to use that iDefrag ISO restored to a drive? It would make loading in iDefrag quick enought to be 2015 acceptable, I guess.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1847415

No, you wouldn’t need to buy seven copies. One would suffice, though we do ask that you don’t run more copies simultaneously than you have licenses.
As for versions, we can’t guarantee that anything past version 2.0.5 will run on 10.5.8. Newer versions (including 2.2. might work, but also might very well not. It’s unlikely to be a case of disk corruption problems — it’s more likely that some features will simply fail to work (e.g. the reboot-and-defragment mode might not work, or the Create Boot Disk window might fail for some obscure reason).
Version 5 certainly isn’t going to work on PowerPC machines — it doesn’t have any PowerPC code in it any more.
As for getting back-versions, at the moment they’re available — once you’ve bought iDefrag — via the release notes link on the My Account page. I’m intending to maintain access to older versions for those who need it, but that might not be possible on day one of our new website when it finally arrives (in which case I could probably send copies by e-mail given the tiny number of people who want older versions).

[IIO]

The use of an SSD for current projects, makes defraging obsolete, since I copy the finished project to the non-SSD drive (and thus most files are written linear and not edited after they are finished)

i am not even sure how it would affect the reading speed of an SSD when the files are written consequently instead of spread around. it probably depends on how many reading heads the SSD has. no, wait ...

[DieHard]

Sorry Knez,

Just give the link if it is a public download

[Knezzen]

You have to buy a iDefrag license if you want to download the ISO. Their server checks for pirated serials when trying to download, so using warez won't work either, at least not when I tested the last time.

I have bought a legal copy of it, hence why I can get to the ISO

Try downloading it from the usual warez sources if you want. If that doesn't work, then I'll upload the DVD ISO

[Protools5LEGuy]

Try downloading it from the usual warez sources if you want. If that doesn't work, then I'll upload the DVD ISO

[suspicious]https://thepiratebay.se/search/iDefrag/0/99/0[/suspicious]
[suspicious]https://thepiratebay.se/torrent/3576451/iDefrag_1.5.8_%28Intel%29_with_license_file[/suspicious]

Pretty useless without CDmaker, can you please upload it. If you want to defrag your single hard drive you need to boot up OS X from a disc created by CDmaker.

Yep, I aggree with seattle29. The CDMaker is a must. However, that would require a username/password. :X

Apparently, having "a copy" of  iDefrag do not means having the iDefragger bootable DVD ISO needed.

[Knezzen]

I have iDefrag 2.2 on my MacBook Pro. I created the bootable DVD using the "Create a boot disk" option from the menu. It does not let me save the image file though, so I have to burn it from iDefrag and then make an image of that DVD and upload it here.

See the attached files as well.

[lukpac]

Ok, finally got around to revisiting this. Spent a few hours repartitioning and testing. First thing's first: all setup was as follows:

Drive Setup 2.1 under OS 9.2.2
HFS+ partitions

While the suggestion was made to use HFS partitions instead, I did try that at one point, but ran into a (repeated) freeze when copying files, so I didn't bother any more with it.

At any rate, to recap, I had the drive partitioned into 100 GB and 970 GB volumes. All volumes worked fine for most programs, but Pro Tools (LE 5.0.1 and 5.1.1) wasn't working correctly on the 970 GB volumes:

So, anyone still running ProTools 5? I ran into a bit of a snag.

Everything is now booting fine, and I'm not having any issues accessing or opening files on any partition. However, while PT 5 is opening up sessions on the 100 GB partition just fine, if you copy them to one of the 970 GB partitions it isn't properly reading the files. Sometimes playback results in noise, while other times it results in a different file being played.

I can open the files in other editors, and they are fine. But PT 5 is having problems accessing them.

My question is, before I go too far trying to troubleshoot this, are there any known partition and/or disk size limits for PT 5? I'm hoping I can just repartition and have more smaller partitions, but I'm wondering if anyone knows offhand.

And some previous comments/suggestions:

Do you know that a 2 TB drive will work with Pro Tools? How about a 1 TB drive? Do you have experience with this? How about partition size? How large of a partition can Pro Tools handle successfully?

From experience I can add that a 400gb drive partitioned with one partition that takes up the whole drive works just fine in Pro Tools 5.1.3cs11. No issues to report what so ever. The only problem was defragmentation, but that got solved anyway.

The only reason I put in the 200gb drive when the 400gb failed was because it was what I had laying around.

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.

What I ended up doing was partitioning the drive, copying a session to a volume, and testing. With 5 volumes (419,430 MB volume size), Pro Tools wasn't working correctly, but with 6 (349,525 MB volume size), Pro Tools worked fine. From there I kept playing around with the size of the last partition (which, due to a bug in Drive Setup, would resize partitions 1-5 to 32 MB) until I found where the cutoff point was. And that point seems to be 418,815 MB. With a volume that size, Pro Tools seemed to run without problems. However, with a volume size of 418,816 MB, Pro Tools was playing back noise/incorrect audio/etc.

I also played around a little bit with volumes of different sizes. While there was some variability, it would appear that any partitions *after* a volume larger than 418,815 MB are likely to not work correctly. That said, I didn't play around with this too much; it seems much more prudent to make sure all of your volumes are below that size anyway.

At any rate, right now I've got the disk setup with 1 150 GB partition, 2 341 GB partitions, and 3 405 GB partitions. The reason the last 5 partitions aren't all the same size is Drive Setup has a bug where trying to make partitions 1-3 larger causes the UI to blow up, but doing the same for 4-6 is fine. So I made 1 smaller, left 2 and 3 at their default size, and expanded 4-6. I'm going to run a few things through the paces before I consider this 100% resolved, but so far so good: both 9.2.2 and 10.3.9 are booting from the 150 GB partition, and Pro Tools has been working fine with everything I've thrown at it from any partition.

Also worth noting that the maximum size you can allocate across all partitions is 2,097,152 MB.

Right now I don't have another large free drive to experiment with, but it would be interesting to see if anyone else could see if they are seeing the same thing with the 418,815 MB limit. My guess is that would see be an issue even with an old IDE drive, but again, I haven't been able to test that, yet anyway. It's at least something to work from though.

[IIO]

And that point seems to be 418,815 MB. With a volume that size, Pro Tools seemed to run without problems. However, with a volume size of 418,816 MB, Pro Tools was playing back noise/incorrect audio/etc.

now that is what i call a proper report. always nice to know that the OP is actually interested in the philosophical truth.

Also worth noting that the maximum size you can allocate across all partitions is 2,097,152 MB.

yes, 2 tera is the maximum file length limit for HFS+

My guess is that would see be an issue even with an old IDE drive, but again

that would be interesting indeed. otoh, IDE drives larger than 400gb are rare.

[lukpac]

that would be interesting indeed. otoh, IDE drives larger than 400gb are rare.

My previous "data" drive is a 500 GB IDE drive. Once I have everything copied back off and I'm comfortable with the new setup, I may try wiping that and playing around with the partitioning to see if I can replicate the issue. Not quite ready to do that yet, however. If/when I do, though, I'll report the results here.

[MacTron]

Thank You for your detailed report.

Just to note a very important point:

Also worth noting that
the maximum size you can allocate across all partitions is 2,097,152 MB.

[DieHard]

Thanks lukpac

For the detailed info

[supernova777]

i love how u take it asw absolute truth.... lol

it could still be 100% because of the drive hes using + sata/pata adapter
like i said in my previous post.. if there was a specific hard limit it would be documented by now..

IIO said 400gb+ ide drives are rare.. lol they made tons of 500gb ide drives.. from 2005 onward
u would think someone else on the internet would have documented a specific size limitation by now

[DieHard]

Well, the detailed reports are very valuable, I highly doubt that many PT users under OS 9 have used partitions that large; yes 500 GB drives have been used for quite some time, but many partition these drives into several volumes under OS 9, so the idea of having single partitions of even 400GB is an extremely rare scenario under OS 9 IMO.

After testing many configurations, back in the day, the recommendation was to keep the volumes below the 200GB threshold for the reasons previously mentioned (disk repair utilities, OS 9 defrag utilities, and the ability to make the volume bootable) all go south when using partitions that are too large.  Yes there are work arounds (like iDefrag), yes some may not care if they can boot in an emergency to an audio volume, and yes, the file system may never need repairing… but I have grown conservative with age

Still, the documentation will help others that are pushing the OS 9 limits under PT.  And yes, there may be conflicting info. when tests are done on another system with PT under OS 9, but this is an interesting starting point.   We can only hope other PT users will setup some late volumes and run a few tests to either support the current data, or post different findings.

[supernova777]

Still, the documentation will help others that are pushing the OS 9 limits under PT.  And yes, there may be conflicting info. when tests are done on another system with PT under OS 9, but this is an interesting starting point.   We can only hope other PT users will setup some late volumes and run a few tests to either support the current data, or post different findings.

agreed, totally...
if they can read 120 replies into the thread lol

[DieHard]

Good Point... I'll Start a New Thread

[lukpac]

What I ended up doing was partitioning the drive, copying a session to a volume, and testing. With 5 volumes (419,430 MB volume size), Pro Tools wasn't working correctly, but with 6 (349,525 MB volume size), Pro Tools worked fine. From there I kept playing around with the size of the last partition (which, due to a bug in Drive Setup, would resize partitions 1-5 to 32 MB) until I found where the cutoff point was. And that point seems to be 418,815 MB. With a volume that size, Pro Tools seemed to run without problems. However, with a volume size of 418,816 MB, Pro Tools was playing back noise/incorrect audio/etc.

My previous "data" drive is a 500 GB IDE drive. Once I have everything copied back off and I'm comfortable with the new setup, I may try wiping that and playing around with the partitioning to see if I can replicate the issue. Not quite ready to do that yet, however. If/when I do, though, I'll report the results here.

I just tested with my 500 GB IDE drive. Exactly the same results (418,815 MB partition works fine, 418,816 MB partition causes problems). So it would appear the large (4 TB) drive and PATA to SATA adapter had nothing to do with it.

[DieHard]

Good to know, can you post results in the new thread I made under Protools for other PT users

[DaCat]

So I wanted to test out some of the above suggestions, using a Quicksilver DP 1GHz (2002) with a Seritek dual external E-SATA PCI card, an Iomega 1TB boot drive with about 10 partitions (APM) and an OWC Mercury Elite Pro with a 3TB drive, formatted in 16 partitions (GUID).

I have continually used the Iomega 1 TB as the primary boot drive, both OS9 & Leopard. Some have commented re the speed difference of ATA vs E-SATA & without more detailed tests I can say copies from one E-SATA drive to the other seems to average about 1GB per minute, which came in useful cloning multiple partitions from one drive to the other, it is also noticeably faster than the internal ATA drive, I'd guess twice as fast at least.

The 3TB OWC doesn't seem to show up in Startup Manager so that is likely the limitation of its GUID partitions, but otherwise is fine for data backups and tests fine in Disk Utility.

[supernova777]

it is also noticeably faster than the internal ATA drive, I'd guess twice as fast at least

this is why i suggest this [sata pci cards] to people..
the performance increase for the price is worth it if you are actually using your mac..
using older os with newer technology = marked performance increase
using a new drive with a sata/pata adapter is just slowing down [bottlenecking] the performance of the drive
when u finally use it.. and see just how much quicker it is.. u find a way to make room for that pci sata card

[devils_advisor]

I did my tests on the limits and i found 2tb is the end of the line under os9. Even with my fibre connection os9 chrashed when i bumped the workspace up to 3 or just slightly above 2tb.
Besides for efficent recording you should use either a scsi raid or firewire drives which can be newer or even a sata card in the machine with added drives. Protools seems to be a headache when it comes to drives. It has to be internal. There are few versions that let you record external but thats on avid hardware. Protools unity.