Hard Drive Requirements - DigiDesign DIGI 1 Quick Start Manual

Hard Drive Requirements

For audio recording and storage on the Macintosh, Pro Tools LE requires one or more
qualified ATA/IDE or SCSI drives with the following properties:
• Formatted with HFS or HFS+ file system
• Data transfer rates of 3 MB per second or faster
• Drive spin speed of 7,200 RPM or faster
• Average seek time of 10.0 milliseconds or faster
For the latest compatibility information on hard drives, visit the Digidesign
Web site (www.digidesign.com).
Using System Drives for Audio
Although Pro Tools will let you record to your system drive, this is generally not
recommended. Performance for recording and playback on system hard drives is worse
than on non-system drives, resulting in lower track counts and fewer plug-ins.
You should record to system drives only when absolutely necessary—if your computer
system has just one hard drive, or if your other hard drives are completely out of space.
SCSI Hard Drives
SCSI hard drives offer several advantages over ATA/IDE drives. First, SCSI drives can be
external and therefore provide portable audio storage that is easily moved between
systems. Second, SCSI drives offer slightly better performance when recording to large
numbers of tracks; attempting to record to a large number of audio tracks with an ATA/IDE
drive will result in a short delay before recording begins.
Initialize and Defragmenting Drives
It's recommended that you start with a newly initialized audio drive. You should also
periodically defragment your audio drive to ensure continued system performance.
If you are using a SCSI hard drive, you can use the ExpressPro-Tools software from ATTO
(included on the Pro Tools LE Installer CD) to initialize and defragment the drive.
If you are using an ATA/IDE hard drive, use the Drive Setup utility included with the Apple
System software.
12 Digi 001 Quick Start Guide