Studio Veterans : What File System for Storage HD?

[Harley-OIART]

A question to all you pros :

I have a 160GB Hard Drive, freshly extracted from my Powermac G5, that will be going inside a SATA/USB external enclosure and given the task of holding all my session backups and sample libraries. This is Just a Storage Drive, and I will not be recording to it.

Here is where I am unsure : What is the most logical / most effective choice for the Drives format?

-HFS Extended (Journaled)
-HFS Extended
-HFS Extended (Case Sensitive, Journaled)
-FAT 32
-NTFS
-Something Else I am Forgetting (Like MS-DOS)

I am Looking to have Seamless Compatability with PC's, Mac's, and Anything else.
Equally important is the safety of my data, and having maximum data transfer rate + Compatability with all computers.

I wanna go all over the world with my system, but have a Storage HD that will work on any machine without problems, but still be error free.

Thanks in Advance,
Scott in T.Dot

[T_R_S]

HFS Extended (Journaled)

Then install Mac Drive on your PC

Using a PC formated drive on a Mac for recording could give you a lot of trouble

[Harley-OIART]

Thanks for taking time to reply :

Won't that Mean I would have to install 'Mac Drive' on Every PC I walk up to???

And Remeber, I won't be doing any recording to this Drive, It is purely a Storage Drive.



Cheers,
SCott

[guid0]

Originally Posted by Harley-OIART

I wanna go all over the world with my system, but have a Storage HD that will work on any machine without problems, but still be error free.

This requirment means you need to choose a format that will work on any OS.

AFAIK, the best one would be FAT32. Readable on windows, MAC and Linux/Unix.

[Harley-OIART]

Originally Posted by guid0

This requirment means you need to choose a format that will work on any OS.

AFAIK, the best one would be FAT32. Readable on windows, MAC and Linux/Unix.

Thank you very much, That Answers my Question to a Tee.

Cheers man,
Scott

P.S. Howz Ottawa Doin?

[by-tor]

For storage fat 32 works just fine.

[skygod]

Originally Posted by Harley-OIART

A question to all you pros :

... This is Just a Storage Drive, and I will not be recording to it.

This is a word of caution for all you non-analog heroes tracking, mixing, and douching in the box:

... 70 x 20 GB of Steeley Dan timeless and irreplaceable tour data audio lost forever … tsk tsk tsk … now how can this be?

Yo Mario ... grab a couble of doze drivez two by twoz, and dip'em in the grease and see if ya can spin'em ...

Den Sal, pud'em in d'vize grip one by one and spank'em' wid de hammah from the bottom ...

while Luigi ove-heeh takes deh 9/16th ove-heah and tuirns da drive in da udder direction ...

Getdafuggoutta heah, I'm a freaggin genius!

Welcome to the future ... and while were on the subject ... did I tell you how much I hate ****ing digital everything?

<<<<<< Original message >>>>>>>:

Here's a tip I received from another recording newsgroup >>

In the new Sound on Sound magazine, there is an article by Roger Nichols...
Part of the article deals with Backups... A quote from the article...

"I used to back up to extra hard drives. I would install a second drive, format it, and copy everything that would fit onto it, remove it, and store it on a shelf. As drives got bigger I always backed up to the biggest, baddest Firewire, USB, Fiber channel, SCSI or whatever drive was available. Nobody ever told me that you were supposed to "exercise" each drive once every two or three months by reading the data or you would lose everything. This was not mentioned until some record company needed to get a session off of a hard disk that had been sitting in the archives for 10 years - and it was empty, or the drive would not spin up because the bearing grease was solid as a rock. I immediately grabbed all of my stored hard drives, and started finding computers to connect to them to so I could see if my precious data was still there. Ten percent of the external Firewire Drives would not spin up. During the Steely Dan tour, we recorded all of the shows using a pair of Mackie 24 trackhard disk recorders. We filled 70 - 20 Gigabyte drives. None of them will spin up now." stike stike stike
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And on my continuing series on the realities of the ongoing human existential despair and of the recording and motion sound industry, here’s todays lesson on Reliability & Validity boys and girls

If the arrow hits the target consistently … it’s ‘Reliable’ (Hey boss, hell, we’ve been doing it wrong for so long now, we all think it’s right!)

If the arrow consistently hits the ‘Bullzeye’ in the center of the target … its ‘Valid’ -- Meaning that it is consistent over time being both Reliable, and actually measuring what if was designed for in the first place consistently therefore being Valid.

An instrument or medium can be Reliable and not Valid, but cannot be Valid and not Reliable (Duh … wh’aaaat. … wh’aaa da’fugg? You’re hurting my head, shut’uuuup. Shut da fugg up!)
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[MAProTulz]

If the data's that important to Roger, there are ways to get the bits off the platters if it's just the motor and bearing that's bad. Not cheap, but hey, if it's worth that much to you, it's only money.

Rule of thumb, if it doesn't exist in 3 different places on 3 different formats, it doesn't exist