Pro Tools HD # of tracks per hard drive?

[oldanalogguy]

I run PT HD3 on a PC and can get around 40 tracks per hard drive. Is it the same, more or less on a Mac?

[Kenny Gioia]

My system (Pro Tools hd3) craps out before the hard drive does.

I've had well over 120 tracks on one drive. 7200RPM.

[s0nguy]

Originally Posted by Kenny Gioia

My system (Pro Tools hd3) craps out before the hard drive does.

I've had well over 120 tracks on one drive. 7200RPM.

agreed... .ive never split a session... even at 40+ tracks at 96k... oh... and Im on PT HD3 7.3.1. on PC as well.

-s0nguy

[Mike Brown]

Never had a problem.... 100+ tracks.

[CompEq]

If you're talking about inputs, as I recall I ran 48 tracks on a single drive at 24/48 into an HD rig for about an hour without problems. At 83 min I got errors. I tried to do the same at 24/96 and was only able to record 5 minutes without an error.

[jval]

HD1 and mac pro, most tracks I've ever had was around 60 and I had no hard drive problems.

[Eoin Ramone]

the only sure thing about pro tools is that it runs as much tracks as it feels like on a given day,and then craps itself. Ive had issues with 30 tracks on HD 3 on a mac pro one day, and then it runs fine the next...........temperamental one would say!!

[psycho_monkey]

I've done 64 tracks at 96k from one FW800 drive...above that, it gets a bit intermittent.

It's down to the drive much more than anything else.

[narcoman]

number of tracks doesnt matter so much as number of conformed individual edits. If you have many small edits and then conform to individual files things can get sticky.

[AudioFocus]

Yeah. I've had over 100 tracks coming off a 1TB Western Digital internal drive at 88.2kHz. No problems here. I have had some issues at 96kHz but nothing terrible.

[allencollins]

I did 265 tracks @ 96/24 with a nuendo project on a 15k Drive
Protools HD is comparable to Nuendo as far as speed goes.
I think the file system and kernel drivers are the bottle neck.
w/ osx or XP. Not so much the DAW

[AnthonyRochester]

265 tracks, that's ridiculous..

[AnthonyRochester]

(I mean, its nice that you can run that many tracks, but who needs to..)

[Chris G]

on my Mac quad 3.0 and HD2 over 100 tracks on a surround project on one drive. I had to borrow another HD card to make it and HD3 to keep up with the surround mix engine and tdm plugs, and I had to use a sep drive for the video playback in PT, but never split the audio among drives.

[Duardo]

I've never had a problem with 40 tracks on a single drive on a Mac system either, but when you get beyond that...especially if you have a high edit density, lots of overdubs, etc...it may not be a bad idea to run two just to be safe. It's hard to say that you can expect to be able to run x number of tracks off of a single drive because there are so many variables involved...especially if you're running streaming samples as well. You don't want to find your system's breaking point at the wrong time...

[Kenny Gioia]

Originally Posted by beebay007

(I mean, its nice that you can run that many tracks, but who needs to..)

Perhaps that's a different topic.

Although rarely discussed.

[jordanstoner]

For the official requirements, see this page.

[Mike Brown]

Originally Posted by beebay007

265 tracks, that's ridiculous..

Post production gets into/suprasses these track counts often.

Originally Posted by jordanstoner

For the official requirements, see this page.

These numbers are very conservative.

[jordanstoner]

These numbers are very conservative.

No one complies with them, either. However, splitting audio between drives can save a large session with "cannot get audio from drive fast enough" errors. And FWIW, these numbers are referring to simultaneous playback of regions.