Pro Tools TDM Mac OS X Requirements for IDE/ATA Hard Drives
Up to 32 track, 24 bit, 48 KHz performance from one dedicated internal IDE/ATA audio drive is supported on qualified Pro Tools systems for Mac OS X
Drives must meet the following requirements:
Requirements for IDE/ATA, SATA, FireWire or SCSI drives
- Minimum speed of 7200 RPM & average seek time of less than 10.0 ms
- Boot drives may be used for audio tracks, however performance/track count may vary
- Recording to boot drive not recommended or supported
- For 24-32 tracks, drives must be dedicated for audio (internal or external)
- Mac OS file system: Mac OS Extended (also known as HFS+ format)
- Mac OS Standard (HFS) formatted drives can be used for transfer, but are not recommended for recording or playback
- Windows NTFS or FAT32 formatted drives supported on Mac OS X for transfer only
- Pro Tools does not support RAID technology. Please do not activate this feature on any Pro Tools recording drives.
- Supported formatting utility for IDE/ATA, SATA, FireWire, or SCSI drives: Apple Disk Utility, included with Mac OS X
Formatting Instructions
- Open from the following location: Applications->Utilities->Disk Utility, or in the Apple Menu when booted from the OS X installation CD.
- From the list of drives on the left, select the actual drive (the one on top, with the GB and drive manufacturer listed) rather than the user defined name of the drive below it.
- Choose either the Erase or Partition tab
- Choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
- If you plan on using your drive on both Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X, check the box next to "Install Mac OS 9 Drivers".
Note: partitioning is not an option using the Erase command. To increase performance and improve seek time Digidesign recommends that you allocate a portion of your hard drive for recording. In Pro Tools, Choose Setups/Preferences and click Operation. Under the Open Ended Record Allocation option, select Limit To and enter a number of minutes to be allocated.
Macintosh Journaled File System Now Recommended for Pro Tools
Mac OS X 10.3 and higher incorporates a journaled file system, which will automatically log any file modifications. If your computer crashes badly enough to require a restart (or a restart from a power failure), the OS will then use the journal to aid in fixing any disk problems caused by the crash.
Mac OS X 10.3 & 10.4 ships with journaling on by default. Digidesign now recommends that customers format their media drives with journaling turned on. When using Apple"s Disk Utility program to format drives, Digidesign recommends choosing "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)" format, instead of "Mac OS Extended."
Note: Mac OS 10.4 includes two new formatting options:
- Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled)
- Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive)
Digidesign has not tested these new formatting options with Pro Tools, and therefore these are not recommended. Please choose the following option for drive formatting:
- Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
To enable journaling on an existing drive in 10.3:
- Run the Apple Disk Utility, located in Application/Utilities.
- Select the disk or volume in the left column of the Disk Utility windows.
- Click "Enable Journaling" in the toolbar, or choose "Enable Journaling" or Command+J from the File menu
If you want to turn journaling off for any reason, select the volume and choose "Disable Journaling" or Command +J in the File menu of Disk Utility. Note that disabling journaling will slow recovery if your system has to be rebooted to recover from a kernel panic or power failure.
Drive Space Required
- Mono, 16-bit, 44.1 kHz audio requires approximately 5 MB/minute disk space.
- Mono, 24-bit, 44.1 kHz audio requires approximately 7.5 MB/minute disk space.
Note: Pro Tools has a single audio file size limit of 2048 MB. This equates to about 4.5 hours at 24-bit, 44.1 kHz.