Partitioning, for PC users to.
 

It is a good idea to partition your HDD if you only have one drive to work with. Partitioning the drive creates a virtual drive so your computer thinks it has 2 drives instead of one.

When working with audio/video, it is recommended that you keep the A/V files seperate from the OS files. This is what Joe meant by prefering 2 seperate drives. Keeping the files seperate means the computer dosen't have to sort through the OS files to find your A/V files. As you would imagine this makes the process much smoother and faster. It also adds to system stability. Not such and issue on Macs but it is on a PC.

I agree with Joe in prefering 2 large capacity drives, but if you can't afford to buy a second drive, then partitioning is the next best thing.

To do it you'll have to use a third party partitioning application like Partition Magic. I'm not sure if there is a Mac version, but I'm sure there is something out there to do the job.

However, DON'T try partitioning unless you know what you are doing. You can lose all your data or make your computer unbootable. If you do know enough to have a go at partitioning, remember the most important thing to do when changing anything to do with your file system is to backup everything before you start making changes.

Thanks guys, that's 2 of the best reasons to add both to my new system

Hi,

I would say if you are using Mac OSX and Final Cut Pro you should be partioning. Almost a must. To avoid a HUGE reply go over to Apple's site and FCP support discussions and search partion and in particular some of Jerry Hoffmans posts. Best perfomance will result from a partioned drive or drives. Good luck.

Jeff Donald

Another solution for future prijects might be to get Pro Tools Free from Digidesign. You can mix up to eight tracks of audio (more MIDI tracks) and import into FCP. As the name implies its free by download or they'll send you the CD for a small handling charge. I haven't had a chance to totally check this out but it seems to work.

Better than using two separate drives, one for OS and the other for the video files?

I should have been more specific. For overall system stability with OS X you would want to partition the drive for the system files and library on one partition. The applications should be on another partition but the same drive. The media files should be on another drive. This is how the best stability for the system would be achieved. The best overall performance for capturing is to have the media on a seperate drive. If all you do is DV FireWire is fine. If you want to do anything more than DV you should consider large 7200rpm IDE ATA drives. The fastest being stripped as a pair (RAID 0) internally. If you want to do HD go for SCSI drives stripped as a pair or more in a RAID 0.

If you need more details e-mail with specific sizes of your drives and what formats you work in and I'll be happy to help.

Jeff Donald

Thanks for the info!

I'll be working exclusively with DV. If I do get a second drive, then is partitioning something that I can live without? I'll admit that I'm not that comfortable trying something like that right now...maybe down the road. Also, you feel that a firewire hard drive would be suitable for DV work?

I appreciate everyone's help!

There will always be differences of opinion for the need to partition. However, if you write all of your media to a second hard drive, there is little to be gained by partitioning your drive, especially considering the potential for screwing things up. I've used an unpartitioned main drive for several years with no problems.

Using a FW drive for the media will work well, provided you insure that you have an adequate data transfer rate, i.e., at *least* 5 Mbps. Most FW adapters will exceed that by a bunch.

If using something like the Firestore to record your video directly to a FW drive in real time, you can then import the video directly into your editing program. Saves all of that capture time.

video raid trouble for computer dingbat
 

I'm hoping someone can help me in time for me to edit some footage on my G4 tonight for a class that's descending upon my home!

Warning--there are many technical terms that I don't know how to use correctly, so please bear with me.

I have a G4 that I purchased in Feb. of 2000 -- it's got 256K, 400MHz, and 10 GB. I also purchased a refurbished Medea Video Raid with 24GB of SCSI. Herein lies my problem. A friend set all this up for me, partitioning the raid into three partitions of 8GB a piece.

Lately, the computer has been doing weird things when I first turn it on---it will take forever to start, with the start "bar" getting stuck. Sometimes the starting process will finally make it to my desktop screen, only to get locked up there, so that I can never see any icons, or menus. All I can do is press the restart button. A few times, it finally started all the way through, but this morning, no luck, after restarting six times.

If I turn the computer on ***without the raid*** on, everything is just peachy, and it turns on fast.

I wish the stupid raid wasn't partitioned, because I also run into trouble capturing footage. The partition will run out of space, and the capturing process will freeze up.

I have no earthly idea how to reconfigure everything, and a friend once idly mentioned that to UNpartition things, I'd have to take everything off my computer! Great. Piece of cake.

Anyone have any ideas about what's going on, and what I can do? I have to admit that I feel like a real idiot about messing with the internal "structure" of the computer. I've put in a few calls to friends, and I'm hoping that somehow, I can get this all resolved by tonight. I was also hoping to get in there and delete some projects so I can have some more room and not have things freeze up again while capturing...

Sorry to make this so long, and I hope I've been clear enough to understand, technically. Any advice would be GREATLY appreciated!

Many thanks in advance,
Jennifer

forgot to add---I have OS 9, and FCP 1.2... I looked at a few other posts and something caught my eye: I have never defragmented anything. Maybe something to try?

thanks again,
Jennifer

Í don't know how much help this will be but the first thing I would do is to reconfigure your RAID as the 3 partitions may be causing the system some confusion. The whole idea of using RAID for video is to use multipule disks as one disk. Set it up to stripe all the SCSI disks into one 24GB drive. This is RAID 0. Once that is done it might solve your problems

Thanks Adrian,

I just don't know how to do that!

I've looked at the Medea site (where I bought the RAID), and at 2-pop, and couldn't come up with anything...

Jennie,

Drop Chris Hurd a line he'll be able to steer(bad pun for Texas) you in the right direction as to someone in Austin who can set your RAID up for you. There are quite a few Texans here, maybe one of them can help you.

Yeah, we Texans are everywhere... :-)

That's a good idea--I might look into finding a pro.

In the meantime, I'll just keep my fingers crossed that somebody here posts a solution!