Pro Tools|HD and Pro Tools|HD Accel Systems for Windows XP

Hard Drive Minimum Requirements

• Dedicated audio drive or drives (internal or external). Recording to or playback from system drives is not supported.
• SCSI drives recommended for maximum performance
• Support for IDE/ATA, SATA, and Firewire drives listed below
• Pro Tools does not support RAID technology. Please do not activate this feature

SCSI Hard Drives

• SCSI interface: Wide single-ended or low-voltage differential (LVD or Ultra 160)
• Disk drive rotational speed: 7200 RPM or faster
• Buffer Size: 512K or larger

Additional SCSI Requirements for Windows Pro Tools|HD systems

• Windows XP file system: FAT32 or NTFS
• NTFS supported on Mac OS X for transfer only (FAT32 not supported for Mac transfer)
• Mac HFS+ supported for transfer only when using MacDrive 6
• Drives should be formatted with Windows XP disk administration without Dynamic Disk selected

Hard drive families from the following manufacturers are recommended:

* First generation DigiDrives are not supported in LVD mode

Avid & Digidesign SCSI Storage Options

• Avid MediaDrive rS300/320 LVD
• Avid MediaDrive rS146/320 LVD
• Avid MediaDrive rS73/320 LVD
• Avid MediaDrive rS36/320 LVD
• Avid MediaDock Shuttle iS146/320 LVD
• Avid MediaDock Shuttle iS73/320 LVD
• Avid MediaDock Shuttle iS36/320 LVD
• Avid MediaDock Dual
• Avid MediaDock Dual+
• DigiDrive SCSI Drives
• DigiDrive MediaDock
• SCSI-128 Kit (includes ATTO Express PCI-UL3D, qualified for up to 192 tracks @48 kHz on Pro Tools|HD Accel systems)

Not compatible with Power Mac G5 or tested with Pro Tools 6.9 and higher:

• SCSI-64 Kit/ATTO Express PCI-DC

SCSI Accelerator Cards

• See Qualified SCSI Host Bus Adapter Cards - Pro Tools|HD Systems for Windows

Notes

• 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.
• High Speed Drives require manufacturer-approved enclosure to ensure correct heat dissipation, required for sustained drive reliability.
• Windows XP is unable to create partitions larger than 32 GB when using FAT32. If your drive is larger than 32 GB, either create partitions smaller than 32GB, use the NTFS file system or use a partitioning application such as PartitionMagic®.

Storage

Approximate Storage Consumption (Megabytes per Minute per Track)

As with all Pro Tools systems, drive performance depends on a number of factors, including track count, edit density, and the use of crossfades or processing like Beat Detective. For sessions with high edit density, we recommend the following configurations. Testing has been conducted using Digidesign's DigiDrives. Performance with other drives may vary.

SCSI Drives — Approximate Track Counts:

IDE/ATA Hard Drives

IDE/ATA drives meeting the following requirements are qualified for up to 32 tracks at 44.1/48 kHz with Pro Tools TDM systems:

• Pro Tools TDM Requirements for IDE/ATA Hard Drives — Windows Systems

Firewire Hard Drives

The Avid MediaDrive rS80 & DigiDrive FireWire 80 have been qualified with Pro Tools|HD systems for the following:

• Supported track count (per drive): 24 tracks per drive at 48 KHz/24-bit
• Maximum 4 drives for a total of 96 tracks at 48 KHz/24-bit
• More than 4 drives may result in -6042 errors

FireWire Drive Formatting

• Windows XP file system: FAT32 or NTFS
• NTFS supported on Mac OS X for transfer only (FAT32 not supported for Mac transfer)
• Mac HFS+ supported for transfer only when using MacDrive 6
• Drives should be formatted with Windows XP disk administration without Dynamic Disk selected

FireWire Drives — Approximate Track Counts:

For more information and specific requirements, see FireWire Drive Requirements