Flash Drive with Pro Tools?

coolwhip

coolwhip

libertarian power.
Is it possible to use flash memory when recording a pro tools session as opposed to an external hd? 2GB drives are pretty cheap, and it seems as though the access times for the flash drive would be considerably faster than for a standard external hd. Has anyone tried this? Any good reasons why it wouldn't work (maybe I'm just being dumb)?
 
If you're asking about saving a pt project to a Flash Drive there's no problem doing that as long as it fits within the 2GB.

If you're asking if you can designate a Flash Drive and the primary drive that pt records to, ask bennychico11.


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in benny's absence, ill give it a go.

no.

PT is a bitch with that stuff. i went through hell getting an external that worked with PT at all.

tunrs out it has to be a firewire 400 drive with an Oxford 911 chipset. ill svae you the trouble and tell you Fantom Drives and glyph drives work. i could find a western digital drive that worked which sucks because i like WD..

it definitley soujnds like a good idea right? im pretty sure it will not work though.
 
TragikRemix said:
in benny's absence, ill give it a go.

no.

PT is a bitch with that stuff. i went through hell getting an external that worked with PT at all.

tunrs out it has to be a firewire 400 drive with an Oxford 911 chipset. ill svae you the trouble and tell you Fantom Drives and glyph drives work. i could find a western digital drive that worked which sucks because i like WD..

it definitley soujnds like a good idea right? im pretty sure it will not work though.
Click to expand...


thats weird. i've had both my external HDs work with PT with no issues - a WD 160gb USB and a 40gb *buss powered*(!!) FW400 and USB drive..
 
Yeah it's pretty easy. The only thing I can think of on Flash drives is they are slower than a conventional hard drive in writing data. Reading it is somewhat slower too. However, M-Audio has the microtrack out that records directly to CF Media flash drives, and there's no problems with that, so you SHOULD be ok, I would figure, but I still wouldn't recommend recording directly onto flash drives. Any external hard drive could work, or hot swappable hard drive. It's just a matter of telling pro tools where to save the data at really, which is done in the first step of setting up a session. I have a 1gb flash drive, which is "fast" for a flash drive, but it cannot compete with my my 150gb raptor in one of my machines or even my 300gb sataII seagate.
 
It's not the speed of the flash memory that makes it appear slower than your hard drives. It's the USB2 interface which would be "slower" than a firewire interface (or using an internal drive). Theoretically, flash memory (such as your RAM) should be MUCH faster than hard drive memory (one of the things you learn in Computer Architecture 101)

So if they made Firewire flash memory, or you could record directly to RAM (read up on virtual RAM drives), you would be cruising pretty fast :-)
 
I've never tried it, and haven't heard of anyone doing it...but it's not on the Digi list of recommendations. Not that there isn't stuff that works that they haven't approved, it's just safer to stay with what they say works for sure.

Personally I think it's a waste of money. If you're paying 20 bucks for only 2GB of space...save up your money and get a 80GB one. It'll save the hassle from having to guess if your session is going to fit on a 2GB drive or constantly having to transfer the session to another drive so you can record something new.
 
MessianicDreams said:
thats weird. i've had both my external HDs work with PT with no issues - a WD 160gb USB and a 40gb *buss powered*(!!) FW400 and USB drive..
Click to expand...

crazy.. are you also using a mac?
 
Didn't work with my camera card in a USB card reader- which should be about the same thing. Using 7.3 on a Mac and there's no reason to think that it would be any different on PC.

Won't let me set it as a record drive, which is pretty much what I expected.

Take care,
Chris
 
TragikRemix said:
crazy.. are you also using a mac?
Click to expand...

external drives should work fine....strange that you can't get them to work.

I have a Maxtor and a EZQuest drive that both work (EZQuest isn't that great though). Both firewire.

never tried a WD though.
 
bennychico11 said:
external drives should work fine....strange that you can't get them to work.

I have a Maxtor and a EZQuest drive that both work (EZQuest isn't that great though). Both firewire.

never tried a WD though.
Click to expand...


the only drives that i've ever seen work on macs are FW800 into a G5. Otherwise Tools won't recognise them as a useable drive, it says something like the files are on an unusable drive, would you like to copy them.
 
i got one that works, its all in the chipset or whatever. all fantom drives, firewire only work.

the glyph drives work and that system looks incredibly cool!
 
I'll give this a go.

flash memory is slower.

technical bit: flash can only change the binary 0's into 1's not back again so in order to rewrite 1's to 0's it has to reset a chunk of data rather than specific bits.

hope this makes sense
 
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