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[Ed Redfern]

it's ok chris. relax. you and I are masters in this business. we've got our fingers burnt with apple hardware and software and the whole digidesign thing. so to us, this is old hat but cozy old hat at that lol.

now to try and resolve this hickup politely.

I'll demonstrate the faults in question with your setup, chris knows where I'm coming from here.

you're using an IDE to SATA Slice adaptor and not a PCI SATA HOST controller. here in lays the problem. ok you've 4TB 7200rpm drive as you say, at the time when PT 5. came out, we were working with SCSI hard drives, not IDE for data recording. Why? at the time of SCSI, we were using 10,000rpm or 15,000rpm drives for recording because of greater reliability, ok less capacity than today's SATA or ide relatives, but it was more to do with data stability in a studio. in the days when PowerPC G3's and earlier were driving  TDM and earlier via early PCI or NUBUS cards with inbuilt SCSI controllers to internal and external SCSI drives, this is what protools was designed for. 5.1.3 echoes this sentiment   by relying on SCSI as the main area for recording. though it's capable of SATA 1.5gbps rev 1 capability  SCSI is better for this task.

now, your drive in question is a SATA 6GBPS setup and not backwards compatible to 1.5gbps because of the platters, etc in question, read write heads and the amount of data handling needed both host controller and applications supported by it. therefore your HD is not performing what it needs to do.

in our time, we never bothered with multiple partitions per drive as most drives on the field were RAID set so a bank of drives were mirrored RAID 1 or Raid 5 so we had storage requirements capable within the SCSI framework. if something went wrong, retrospect was there to help solve the problem.

you're still going to face this regardless of what version PT up until PT7 onwards / officially PT8.

you need to rethink your storage plan. you should have 2 drive sleds in your G4. time to properly utilise them as apple designed it.

ed

[supernova777]

dont bother explaining it again ed
its been explained..
many people have tried to tell this guy the multiple errors of his approach..
and yet he shrugs off the advice.. as though were trying to tell him that pigs fly...and he wants proof..

its like a guy trying to update his toyota with ford parts.. wondering why it doesnt work
lol

but good point re: sata3 (6gbps)
the drive i have connected to my pci sata card is jumpered to adhere to sata150 speeds..
this isnt 100% neccessary imho but again, its a safety precaution... when u are dealing
with outdated technology interacting with newer technology there is always going to be undocumented
wierdness that can occur EVEN IF IT SEEMS TO BE FINE.. becuase these items were never tested + debugged

[lukpac]

I'll demonstrate the faults in question with your setup, chris knows where I'm coming from here.

you're using an IDE to SATA Slice adaptor and not a PCI SATA HOST controller. here in lays the problem. ok you've 4TB 7200rpm drive as you say, at the time when PT 5. came out, we were working with SCSI hard drives, not IDE for data recording. Why? at the time of SCSI, we were using 10,000rpm or 15,000rpm drives for recording because of greater reliability, ok less capacity than today's SATA or ide relatives, but it was more to do with data stability in a studio. in the days when PowerPC G3's and earlier were driving  TDM and earlier via early PCI or NUBUS cards with inbuilt SCSI controllers to internal and external SCSI drives, this is what protools was designed for. 5.1.3 echoes this sentiment   by relying on SCSI as the main area for recording. though it's capable of SATA 1.5gbps rev 1 capability  SCSI is better for this task.

now, your drive in question is a SATA 6GBPS setup and not backwards compatible to 1.5gbps because of the platters, etc in question, read write heads and the amount of data handling needed both host controller and applications supported by it. therefore your HD is not performing what it needs to do.

in our time, we never bothered with multiple partitions per drive as most drives on the field were RAID set so a bank of drives were mirrored RAID 1 or Raid 5 so we had storage requirements capable within the SCSI framework. if something went wrong, retrospect was there to help solve the problem.

you're still going to face this regardless of what version PT up until PT7 onwards / officially PT8.

you need to rethink your storage plan. you should have 2 drive sleds in your G4. time to properly utilise them as apple designed it.

Again, as above, performance isn't, nor has ever been a problem. I've been using IDE drives with Pro Tools (both the free version and LE) for over a decade, across several different Macs, without any problems. That was even true when using the ATA/66 controller.

Nor is performance a problem with my new drive using the SATA adapter. When running a session from the 100 GB partition, Pro Tools performs perfectly. It's only on the 970 GB partitions where there is a problem, and it isn't one of performance. It's that Pro Tools isn't reading the audio files correctly during playback.

FYI, I updated to Pro Tools LE 5.1.1, and the behavior is the same.

I'm going to play around with adjusting the partitions, although I may first need to find some extra space to move things around.

[supernova777]

There are plenty of known limitations with old hardware and software. We know exactly why only ~2 TB of the drive can be used with OS 9, for example.

yes u know it because i took the time to research it + detail it explictly.

There are various other known issues. But what we're talking about now - Pro Tools not reading files correctly that other programs can - isn't a known issue.

if u know anything about pro tools.. u should know that it is very pariticular and supports only certain hardware..
by you using the sata/pata adapter in combination with a drive of that size... u have brought these problems upon yourself.
it was reccommended to you that you change your setup for best results.
you chose to ignore this + now u are here still asking for help..
if only u could step outside of yourself and take a look to see how you look.. 

the empirical evidence you are looking for is all here.
you are exhibit a.

I'm going to play around with adjusting the partitions, although I may first need to find some extra space to move things around.

^^^ LOL   

u are too much    unbelievable

if your drive was connected to a pci sata controller such as a SIL3112 (like we told u within the first few replies) you would most likely be ok.
go back and re-read diehards first response to you in this thread above ^^ http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?topic=1941.msg12051#msg12051

You should try to explore SATA solutions under OS 9 / OS X (see the many posts by Chris & Mactron); a drive of this size with speed/cache/etc. will be seriously hindered with the PATA/SATA adapter on the internal bus.  As far as the size and the partitions, remember, this is new territory for OS 9.  I know you mentioned your 500GB was full, but as you know you can go up to (4) 500 GBs internally, which all connect to the internal controllers if your setup does not permit the addition on an SATA card; lastly, we posted some awesome solutions for FireWire with RAID in really small enclosures the take 2 laptop hard drives, so that you can move finished products to the RAIDed backup and free up internal drives.

why do u think people keep offering u advice that u dont like? do u think this is a conspiracy for us to take away your 4tb drive? lol

u could have easily afforded a pci sata controller + a 1 or 2 tb drive for the same price as this 4tb drive u bought..
i cant understand why u are being so ignorant... im sorry we dont have time to recover all of the "case studies" that led us to know the information that we know for your review... but trust me. we have come to know this info thru alot of consistant effort.. make this easier on yourself + everyone else here and just take us at our word. we arent here to steer u wrong. u can buy a fucking 1tb driev for 50-60$ sell the 4tb drive to someone else for 120$ get a pci sata card.. possibly even get another sata/pata adapter.. as some of these can be cheap.. im prettty sure mactron had some problems with some different sata/pata adapters.. i remember someone saying they are not all the same.. and some can cause problems

[supernova777]

to everyone else reading this thread
heres some tips for avoiding problems + getting best performance

- use a 30-120gb SSD (or flash DOM) dedicated for just your boot drive (if u dont have an ssd use a 80-120gb fast drive such as a 10krpm, or 7200rpm drive)
- use a dedicated drive reserved for read/write for pt audio
- dont use drives larger then 1TB (500gb would be even safer, but 1tb is the new lowest baseline (60$) of drives available to purchase new as of early 2015)
- read and understand all the compatibility info documents related to your product http://archive.digidesign.com/compato/
- dont use mac os x on the same boot drive/partition/machine
- dont use more then 1GB of ram

some of u might not agree with what ive said here but these are the guidelines i would use for myself, given what ive learned from interacting with people + researching many times the related info.

[supernova777]

lukpac.......
let me just say..
I respect the fact that u question what other people tell you
i think this is a must have trait for anyone to really know wtf they are talking about u have to find out for yourself...
but like i said this is the wrong thing to "take a stand on"

but please understand, the reason everyone has suggested that you dont use this 4tb drive (whether its formatted to 2tb or not)
was for your own benefit... to avoid wierdness + problems. I have nothing to gain from you listening to me... other then you having no problems
and merrily going about your business!!!

the question is.. do u want to live the next 2 weeks of your life doing tech trial + error to find the real limit + specifics of this problem?? or do u just want
everything to work fine.. now.. + in the future?

we would love to hear from you after u spend 2 weeks problem solving to find out the real specifics of as to why the problem u had happening ocurred..
this will only add to what we have to offer the community here at macos9lives.... another mystery solved is always great to have on the belt..

reading your last comment , its easy to see that u are thinking that the problem is simply to do with partition size... (somewhere between 750gb-970gb?)
and that there is a partition size limit that is just a hard limit no matter what... if this was the case this would (should) be a well documented fact by now..

I believe you need to consider
-its possible the drive itself has slight differences in the technology involved regarding the physical platters themselves (being how they got the capacity up to 4tb)
-its possible that the partition being a 2nd or 3rd non-primary partition has something to do with it
-a combination of the above (im leaning towards this one)

it could be that your session files work from the first partition simply because its the primary partition (first on the drive) regardless of its size
or it could be that your session files work from the first patition because the size is before the 137gb LBA limit or 190gb defag limit (but we all know this isnt the case as larger drives are known to work...
which leads to the question, whats the largest partition size / drive u have successfully used with pro tools?)

i have a 2tb drive here thats blank, also have a sata to pata adapter, also have a digi 001... also have a genuine sonnet Tempo Sata pci adapter
im tempted to do some tests...

as of right now before even trying anything, my thoughts are that despite the fact you have formatted only the first half of the drive (Within th 2.2tb limit of APM partition map) the physical make-up of this drive is to blame .. (regardless of the sata/pata adapter being used) pro tools obviously is trying to access the drive using a direct method that is bypassing the os itself.. and its not accessing the right area of the disk.

this is exactly WHY most of us said do not even try to use this disk, because we know therse already so many freaking things that can go wrong without even having a disk thats larger then 2tb.... yes achieving the "MAX" is fun, but its not worth the headaches alot of the time.. and definately not worth spending 160$ + on a disk that u cant even use 50% of the capacity on.. its just a waste.. not the right fit for the device... would u wear XXL size pants when u usually take a Medium? or would u find the pants that naturally fit.. without having to use a belt

[supernova777]

http://archive.digidesign.com/compato/os9/sw/macos501.html

one more note .. see the bottom of this page.. for all versions of 5.0x (TDM vs LE vs FREE) it says

Pro Tools 5.0.1 and OS 9.1:

    Mac OS 9.1 will only be tested with Pro Tools 5.1 or higher. While Pro Tools 5.0.1 may work with OS 9.1, this configuration is untested and therefore not supported.

so officially 5.01 was only supported on Mac OS v8.6, v9.0, v9.0.2, and v9.0.4
8.6 being only supported on pci graphics macs + 9.0/9.02/9.04 supported on both PCI + AGP graphics macs..
which would mean that it was only officially supported on the sawtooth + gigabit/mystic models.. (http://www.everymac.com/systems/by_capability/minimum-macos-supported.html check this page for any macs that support 9.0/9.02/9.04 the last to support 9.04 on this chart appears to be the cube... digital audio models all required 9.1+ which meant the digital audio models require running pro tools 5.1.1+)
the reason it doesnt say anything about 9.2.2 is probably because this document is from the time that 9.1 was out and 9.2.2 was not out yet... 
but already u could see the attitude of digidesign "9.1 will only be tested with 5.1 or higher"

this keeps in tradition of digidesign only debugging + supporting specific version of os, and most of the time specific updates of that version of os. for example on mac os X they would go 'on record' saying they support only 10.3.7 and not 10.3.8 + 10.3.9 etc etc and if u had called them for support they would not help u if u werent running the specific version of os they said they support!!!

the first mdd was released august 2002
see my timeline here: http://www.oldschooldaw.com/forums/index.php?topic=389.0
u can see they never released any updates for pro tools 5 after the release of the first mdd
all of these 5.1.1 updates listed below happened when the digital audio models were the latest & greatest

http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/en_US/readme/en207687
pro tools 7 was released Oct 28th 2005
pro tools 6 was released February 3rd 2003
pro tools 5 was released November 19th 1999

Release Dates for Pro tools 5
06/06/2002  5.3.1 (HD)
01/17/2002  5.3 (Pro Tools|HD)
11/09/2001  5.1.3 (second interop release - Unity + DT)
09/13/2001  5.2 (DigiStudios release)
08/xx/2001  5.1.1cs5 (TDM Mac only - MC & Airport issues)
08/xx/2001  5.1.1cs4 (SDII Timestamp)
08/01/2001  5.1Ucs1 (Unity issues)
06/15/2001  5.1.1cs3 (MC for CB SR, breaks Soundmaster )
06/15/2001  5.1.1cs2 (SoundMaster ATOM)
06/15/2001  5.1.1cs1 (Time Stamp problem)
06/15/2001  5.1.1
05/03/2001  5.1U (first Unity release)
01/26/2001  5.1cs2 (slow load with large OMS setup)
01/26/2001  5.1 (surround, beat detect, added Control|24, dropped PTIII)
09/12/2000  5.0.1cs6 (slow launch)
09/12/2000  5.0.1cs1 (Region/Fade loss)
05/30/2000  5.0.1 (Win98, CP change to Serial #)
12/16/1999  5.0 AV (for AVoption)
11/19/1999  5.0 (dropped PT Project engine)

[mrhappy]

RECCOMMENDATIONS:
take out 1gb of ram.. and lose the 4tb drive.

MORE does not always equal BETTER (ie this is one of those times)

Chris... I guess you can't help yourself from being helpful!!!!

[supernova777]

mr happy..
all this version stuff drives me mad.. i hate it really i do.. thats why im 'helping' because the info is relevant to all of us.. and its a complete head f**k and my whole purpose here + with my own site was to try to put all the info in one place .. where people can see the details simpler then having to do all the ground work of digging up obscure documents... its a real pain in the ass... especially when people just want to make some music!!!!! and all this technical bullshit gets in the way all the time !!!!!!! some people get lucky and pick all supported hardware + software .. but most of us get tangled in the neverending web of issues...

[DieHard]

On Large Audio Volumes, it might pay to initialize Volumes as "Mac OS Standard" since when using Audio files (that are big in nature), it is beneficial to have a larger "Block size" upon volume initialization. Let me explain...

Since audio files are large... a block size of 64K (like under Mac OS Standard) would be preferred over a block size of 4K (like Mac OS Extended) with all volumes over 4 GB in size that will store audio files. The default bock sizes are directly proportional to the volume size and they differ greatly between Mac OS Standard and Mac OS extended.

Under Mac OS Standard we are limited to 65 Thousand files (assuming most are Audio, this might be OK) per volume. A small block size is STORAGE efficient, but not System efficient.  The larger the block size, the smaller the number of blocks the system has to track and load in memory and this is a huge benefit, and thus much more efficient in terms of the NUMBER of blocks needed to store a file.  Do you really care if at the end of an audio file that you waste 64K of disk space ? It is miniscule; if you need to store 2 billion text files of 2K in size, then the clear answer is Mac OS extended, Number of files goes up to 4 Billion plus per volume and much more disk efficient.

Maybe a good approach would be to make as many 190GB Volumes, each Mac OS Standard for the volumes that will have Audio recordings and making the one that will store samples and OS Files Mac OS extended.

OK, so I just re-copied this from a post I made... Format the 970GB as Mac OS Standard (Rather than Extended) and give it a try... the system overhead for ProTools should go down drastically; and since you are storing large audio files, the limit of 65 Thousand files on the volume should be fine.
I would recommend having at least one other volume (or a bootable FW drive) in case you have to emergency boot off another volume.  Be aware the volumes over 200GB will not boot the system and also will not defrag unless you boot to a form of OS X via CD/DVD.

[supernova777]

would be interesting if it made a difference..
i think i scared lukpac away tho (lol)

wouldnt defragging an os9 volume in osx screw it up?
didnt u say before not to ever even touch the partition from osx...?

[Knezzen]

wouldnt defragging an os9 volume in osx screw it up?
didnt u say before not to ever even touch the partition from osx...?

I wont. I have been defraging my drives this way for years. No problem what so ever.

[supernova777]

i dont do "defrag" id sooner just copy the data somewhere else and wipe the drive + copy it back
defrag makes me think of norton commander on dos circa 1986-87-88
im actually really kind of surpised u guys take the time to do that



in fact i remember people telling me back in the mid 90s that u dont need to defrag on a mac
but on my pc back in the 486 + early pentium days i did this religiously every night before bed

[Knezzen]

Removing large chunks of data and then adding new data on top makes the drive really fragmented.
Fragmented drive = lower performance because the head has to search for information in a lot of different places on the drive.

Lower performance = less audio tracks playable at the same time.

You do indeed need to defrag a Mac's hard drive if you want to maximize it's performance in performance critical applications. Such as DAW's running large projects with lots of audio tracks.

[DieHard]

i dont do "defrag" id sooner just copy the data somewhere else and wipe the drive + copy it back

If he is really going to use 500GB Plus volumes in OS 9, then this solution would suck. Also, if other volumes are on the same physical disk, then re-initializing would wipe the other volumes also; so defrag under OS 9 is an absolute must if you use a DAW... UNLESS...

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

[lukpac]

i dont do "defrag" id sooner just copy the data somewhere else and wipe the drive + copy it back

If he is really going to use 500GB Plus volumes in OS 9, then this solution would suck. Also, if other volumes are on the same physical disk, then re-initializing would wipe the other volumes also; so defrag under OS 9 is an absolute must if you use a DAW...

I don't need to use volumes that large, that's just what I setup initially. I'm still juggling things around at the moment, so I haven't yet been able to test different volume sizes with Pro Tools.

And of course, it's possible to wipe individual volumes without wiping the entire drive.

[supernova777]

And of course, it's possible to wipe individual volumes without wiping the entire drive.

not with drive setup in mac os 9 - this is probably what he was referring to
if u use drive setup it makes u wipe all partitions + start over to recreate the partitions on the drive

but if u are rebooting to X to defrag.. u can just as easily format the partition in disk utility;)
probably alot faster then defragging and easier on the disk itself... (less reading + writing)

[IIO]

here's the problem. that type of adaptor isn't stable for data caching for projects and isn't recommended.

hi ed,

that would also be my guess, that this (or any?) IDE to SATA solution could be the problem with protools custom disk access.

at this point i wonder if there  are any other applications beside protools which suffer from this. because some day i also would like to add some more SATA drives to my main G4 without the need of another PCI SATA controller.

[supernova777]

at this point i wonder if there  are any other applications beside protools which suffer from this. because some day i also would like to add some more SATA drives to my main G4 without the need of another PCI SATA controller.

there are probably more that have issues - any app with specialized direct disk access..

i should do a test with an 80gb sata + my addonics sata-pata adapter + my digi 001 + pt 5.1.1
to find out if it is indeed the adapter.. but like i said in my earlier comments.. i really think that some of these sata/pata are built differently from each other... alot of them are most likely identical... but i think that more then a few companies implemented their design of adapter differently

[lukpac]

there are probably more that have issues - any app with specialized direct disk access..

i should do a test with an 80gb sata + my addonics sata-pata adapter + my digi 001 + pt 5.1.1
to find out if it is indeed the adapter.. but like i said in my earlier comments.. i really think that some of these sata/pata are built differently from each other... alot of them are most likely identical... but i think that more then a few companies implemented their design of adapter differently

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.