[Fleemo]

I'm about to spring for a new hard drive for my Pro Tools sessions. I
find I also need a hard drive to backup my Mac. Can I buy a large
drive and partition it into two partitions, using one for Pro Tools
sessions and the other to store backups of my files?

[D.M. Procida]

Fleemo wrote:

I'm about to spring for a new hard drive for my Pro Tools sessions. I
find I also need a hard drive to backup my Mac. Can I buy a large
drive and partition it into two partitions, using one for Pro Tools
sessions and the other to store backups of my files?

That's a fairly bad idea.

I'm sure it will work just fine, but it's not the way to treat or manage
your backups.

If you need to back up your stuff, then do it regularly, and keep the
backup drive(s) as far away from the computer as possible (and off-site,
if you can).

If theft or fire or some other disaster should befall your computer, you
don't want it to take your backups too.

Daniele

[Richard Crowley]

"Fleemo" wrote ...
I'm about to spring for a new hard drive for my Pro Tools sessions. I
find I also need a hard drive to backup my Mac. Can I buy a large
drive and partition it into two partitions, using one for Pro Tools
sessions and the other to store backups of my files?

IMHO it would be dangerously fiddly to share an external drive
partitioned separately for PC and Mac. Not recommended.
Especially with hard drive capacity so incredibly cheap these
days. Better to get two separate (smaller if necessary) drives.

[Fleemo]

If you need to back up your stuff, then do it regularly, and keep the backup drive(s) as far away from the computer as possible (and off-site, if you can).

While logically that sounds like an excellent plan, realistically, how
does one do that without being remotely connected to a backup drive?
I hear Google is about to launch an online backup/storage service, but
I'm not sure I'd want my personal files floating around in the cloud.

IMHO it would be dangerously fiddly to share an external drive partitioned separately for PC and Mac.

It wouldn't be PC and Mac, it'd just be Mac, just one segment for
backed up files, the other for my Pro Tools sessions. Doesn't really
have to be partitioned, though I thought that might be a better idea.
Money is tight these days, so I'm just exploring options before I go
plunking down the dough for a pair of drives.

On a side note, any recommended drives? I know it should be a 7200
RPM or faster drive with Firewire 400 (or 800) connectivity. But any
specific models out there that are particularly well suited for Pro
Tools sessions?

[Scott Dorsey]

Fleemo wrote:
I'm about to spring for a new hard drive for my Pro Tools sessions. I
find I also need a hard drive to backup my Mac. Can I buy a large
drive and partition it into two partitions, using one for Pro Tools
sessions and the other to store backups of my files?

Yes, but when it fails, you'll lose BOTH sets of data.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Scott Dorsey]

Fleemo wrote:
If you need to back up your stuff, then do it regularly, and keep the backup drive(s) as far away from the computer as possible (and off-site, if you can).

While logically that sounds like an excellent plan, realistically, how
does one do that without being remotely connected to a backup drive?
I hear Google is about to launch an online backup/storage service, but
I'm not sure I'd want my personal files floating around in the cloud.

Back it up to an external drive. Take the external drive home and leave
it in your sock drawer. Or give it to a friend and have HIM keep it in
his sock drawer. Every month or so, do it again.

Get a safe deposit box from your local bank. The smallest sized one
will hold about a dozen of the miniature laptop drives.

IMHO it would be dangerously fiddly to share an external drive partitioned separately for PC and Mac.

It wouldn't be PC and Mac, it'd just be Mac, just one segment for
backed up files, the other for my Pro Tools sessions. Doesn't really
have to be partitioned, though I thought that might be a better idea.
Money is tight these days, so I'm just exploring options before I go
plunking down the dough for a pair of drives.

Actually, the Mac and PC are fine sharing a drive with two filesystems.
They're okay but not great sharing the same filesystem, even. But
disk drives are cheap and your data is valuable. Keep a backup of
everything every day, then keep another backup somewhere else.

On a side note, any recommended drives? I know it should be a 7200
RPM or faster drive with Firewire 400 (or 800) connectivity. But any
specific models out there that are particularly well suited for Pro
Tools sessions?

If you're using it for backup, it doesn't matter how fast it is. And
you can buy a whole stack of IDE drives and then a single Firewire
enclosure if you are counting pennies.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Mike Rivers]

Fleemo wrote:
I'm about to spring for a new hard drive for my Pro Tools sessions. I
find I also need a hard drive to backup my Mac. Can I buy a large
drive and partition it into two partitions, using one for Pro Tools
sessions and the other to store backups of my files?

Don't do it. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. A better approach is
to get a number of smaller
drives and put one or two (no more) projects on each drive. There's a
class of drive case now that
lets you pop in raw drives just as if they were plug-ins. Look for "Icy
Box" and get the smallest drives
that it will accommodate. I'm not sure if there's an IDE version, maybe
just SATA, which probably means
that you won't find drives smaller than about 160 GB. But that's better
than having a 1.5 TB drive
crash with all your ProTools projects and Mac files.



--
If you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring and reach
me he
double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo -- I'm really Mike Rivers
)

[Richard Crowley]

"Fleemo" wrote ...
If you need to back up your stuff, then do it regularly, and keep the
backup drive(s) as far away from the computer as possible (and off-
site, if you can).

While logically that sounds like an excellent plan, realistically, how
does one do that without being remotely connected to a backup drive?

But you don't connect to a backup drive except when you are backing
up. You connect the backup drive (or whatever kind of device), do the
copying, and then disconnect it and store it away somewhere. Big
companies have daily armored car service that takes their backup
tapes to a big cave in Utah (or wherever). Or maybe Scott will let
you keep your drive in his sock drawer.

I hear Google is about to launch an online backup/storage service, but
I'm not sure I'd want my personal files floating around in the cloud.

There are lots of vendors of online backup services that have been
out there for years. You'd think that Google would have enough of
their own data they need to store without offering to store more.

IMHO it would be dangerously fiddly to share an external drive
partitioned separately for PC and Mac.

It wouldn't be PC and Mac, it'd just be Mac, just one segment for
backed up files, the other for my Pro Tools sessions. Doesn't really
have to be partitioned, though I thought that might be a better idea.
Money is tight these days, so I'm just exploring options before I go
plunking down the dough for a pair of drives.

"Pro Tools sessions" are just files when it comes down to it.
Files is files. Especially when it comes to offline backup.

On a side note, any recommended drives? I know it should be a 7200
RPM or faster drive with Firewire 400 (or 800) connectivity. But any
specific models out there that are particularly well suited for Pro
Tools sessions?

Are you really talking about a *backup* drive, or a drive that you will
be working from? If it is truly a *backup* drive, then it makes absolutely
no difference how slow it is. Except maybe the amount of time it takes
to back up the files. But that is something you can let run ovenight while
you sleep, if necessary.

OTOH, if you are talking about a *removable working drive* then, of
course you must have something capable of keeping up with Pro Tools,
etc.

I use raw drives and a $15 IDE to USB2 cable and it is plenty fast
enough even to "scrub" the timeline when editing video. Indeed I use
whatever drive has the best storage/$ ratio at my local shop. And they
have all been more than fast enough for both multi-track audio OR
video NLE.

"Professor Schickele plays whatever piano is available. Exclusively."

[Laurence Payne[_2_]]

On Tue, 3 Feb 2009 16:50:19 -0800 (PST), Fleemo
wrote:


It wouldn't be PC and Mac, it'd just be Mac, just one segment for
backed up files, the other for my Pro Tools sessions. Doesn't really
have to be partitioned, though I thought that might be a better idea.
Money is tight these days, so I'm just exploring options before I go
plunking down the dough for a pair of drives.

On a side note, any recommended drives? I know it should be a 7200
RPM or faster drive with Firewire 400 (or 800) connectivity. But any
specific models out there that are particularly well suited for Pro
Tools sessions?

Don't Macs do eSATA?

[Richard Crowley]

"Laurence Payne" wrote ...
Fleemo wrote:
It wouldn't be PC and Mac, it'd just be Mac, just one segment for
backed up files, the other for my Pro Tools sessions. Doesn't really
have to be partitioned, though I thought that might be a better idea.
Money is tight these days, so I'm just exploring options before I go
plunking down the dough for a pair of drives.

On a side note, any recommended drives? I know it should be a 7200
RPM or faster drive with Firewire 400 (or 800) connectivity. But any
specific models out there that are particularly well suited for Pro
Tools sessions?

Don't Macs do eSATA?

And newer PCs, also. But likely not older Macs or PCs.

[William Sommerwerck]

Use the old drive to back up your files.

[david correia]

In article
,
Fleemo wrote:

I'm about to spring for a new hard drive for my Pro Tools sessions. I
find I also need a hard drive to backup my Mac. Can I buy a large
drive and partition it into two partitions, using one for Pro Tools
sessions and the other to store backups of my files?


For our internal PT drives, I partition them. Helps to create order. I
don't partition our backup firewire drives.

Since you're in the market, check out OWC. Great service and prices.
www.macsales.com

Stay away from the 1 tb Seagate Barracuda drive. It's a dog.

Obviously, be sure to put your backup data on a separate drive. We own 5
firewire drives and we back up after EVERY session, and keep those
backup FW drives offsite.

(I recently got one of these and it is so tiny and cool, great if you
need to travel around with data:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/on-the-go )

A few days before Christmas one of our internal PT drives croaked. I had
everything on backup firewire drives. You have no idea what deep **** I
would have been in if I hadn't been vigilant, and I'd never had a PT
drive croak before.

You can also backup your PT data to DVD's every week or month or so.
Damn cheap to do. One day it may save yo ass.




David Correia
www.Celebrationsound.com

[D.M. Procida]

Fleemo wrote:

If you need to back up your stuff, then do it regularly, and keep the
backup drive(s) as far away from the computer as possible (and off-site,
if you can).

While logically that sounds like an excellent plan, realistically, how
does one do that without being remotely connected to a backup drive?
I hear Google is about to launch an online backup/storage service, but
I'm not sure I'd want my personal files floating around in the cloud.

You can do any combination of the following:

* backup to a network device in the next room (Apple's Time
Capsule is excellent for this)
* backup to a pair of drives that you swap round and leave with a
neighbour each week
* attach a FireWire drive (that you store as far away as possible)
each day for your backup; Apple's Time Machine will do the
backup automatically

What you really don't want to do is keep your backup drive hanging
around your computer.

Daniele

[Arny Krueger]

"Fleemo" wrote in message

I'm about to spring for a new hard drive for my Pro Tools
sessions. I find I also need a hard drive to backup my
Mac. Can I buy a large drive and partition it into two
partitions, using one for Pro Tools sessions and the
other to store backups of my files?

At current prices, you buy two large ones. ;-)

[Fleemo]

Thanks to everyone for chiming in with their feedback on backup
strategies.

Since you're in the market, check out OWC. Great service and
prices. *www.macsales.com

David, thanks for the suggestion. I had checked them out before and I
liked what I saw. I have a G-Drive that I really like, but I may save
some dough and go with a pair of OWCs.

Stay away from the 1 tb Seagate Barracuda drive. It's a dog.

Yesssss, I recently purchased a pair that I installed as a RAID 1
assembly in my Mac. Come to find out, they simply brick after about
three months of use. Seagate put out a firmware update which I'll be
implementing this very evening. What fun.

Best regards.