By cogswell
Mon Aug 23, 2010 8:11 am
I recently bought a new Mac, Logic Studio and an extra internal SATA drive (this one) to serve as my dedicated audio drive. I intend on getting a few more drives for "samples/libraries" and Time Machine. I ran into an issue with the drive though and I cannot figure out for the life of me how to solve it and would definitely like to avoid doing the same shit twice. For those of you who are using Logic Studio, notably Logic Pro 9, which drives are you successfully using with it? I'm mainly interested in drives that are quiet, SATA, at least 1TB and 7200...though they can be Firewire 400/800 external, I'm really looking to get more internal ones first. I'm only interested in the advice of people who are actually using their drives with Logic Studio successfully, not really recommendations on which drives PC World/Macworld or some guy with a citrus tan said are best buys. Just saying. 
For those interested in helping with the problem I have, here's the issue. Every time I'm streaming audio from the dedicated audio drive (above) I get "Disk Too Slow or CPU Overload" warnings about 20mins in. After that first warning I'm often able to play back the project for about another 30mins to an 1hr before the next one and this cycle continues ad infinitum until I get pissed off and use something else. I'm sure the CPU is not the issue. The errors are intermittent and only slightly predictable but I have noticed they seem to occur about 20-30mins after starting playback. Toggling the buffer size, sample rates, et cetera has no impact on the frequency of the errors. The errors happen even when using only Logic's own processors and effects. I also use Ableton Live 8 and Pro Tools 8, both of which seem to function fine with the same setup. I was not able to test Logic 8 as I do not own Logic 8. I've tried Mac OSX 10.5.8 and now I'm running 10.6.4 and the problem persists. This is with Logic 9.1.1. The drive is formatted to Mac OS Extended (HFS+ with no Journaling Enabled). Turn Drive Off When Not in Use is disabled. I'm not using Logic with Digidesign/Avid hardware, I'm using another interface and it's CoreAudio drivers. I did most everything that I'd usually do to troubleshoot it but nothing worked. I suspect that the issue is to do with Logic being incompatible with the drive somehow because it works fine with the system hard drive that came pre-installed in the Mac and even the other software in Logic Studio work fine with it. Shit's gay (no offense intended to homosexual people).
For those interested in helping with the problem I have, here's the issue. Every time I'm streaming audio from the dedicated audio drive (above) I get "Disk Too Slow or CPU Overload" warnings about 20mins in. After that first warning I'm often able to play back the project for about another 30mins to an 1hr before the next one and this cycle continues ad infinitum until I get pissed off and use something else. I'm sure the CPU is not the issue. The errors are intermittent and only slightly predictable but I have noticed they seem to occur about 20-30mins after starting playback. Toggling the buffer size, sample rates, et cetera has no impact on the frequency of the errors. The errors happen even when using only Logic's own processors and effects. I also use Ableton Live 8 and Pro Tools 8, both of which seem to function fine with the same setup. I was not able to test Logic 8 as I do not own Logic 8. I've tried Mac OSX 10.5.8 and now I'm running 10.6.4 and the problem persists. This is with Logic 9.1.1. The drive is formatted to Mac OS Extended (HFS+ with no Journaling Enabled). Turn Drive Off When Not in Use is disabled. I'm not using Logic with Digidesign/Avid hardware, I'm using another interface and it's CoreAudio drivers. I did most everything that I'd usually do to troubleshoot it but nothing worked. I suspect that the issue is to do with Logic being incompatible with the drive somehow because it works fine with the system hard drive that came pre-installed in the Mac and even the other software in Logic Studio work fine with it. Shit's gay (no offense intended to homosexual people).
) it's likely the drive, despite it working fine even under Avid's anal Pro Tools specifications and Apple having no known reports of conflicts with the brand nor drive. I'm skeptical, hence me asking about drives that others are using. I figure if I get another drive, which has proven to work for others, I can at least attempt to isolate the problem. According to Gearslutz and various information I've found via searches, this is apparently a prevalent issue with both Logic 8 and 9. However, it does not seem to affect all users and those whom it does affect seem to have very different components. Though helpful information, this didn't at all help solve my issue. All of the posts I found on the subject seemed to deal with many other variables and systems that were often way different than mine. I still tried all of the "solutions" that were mentioned in those posts but nothing worked. I figure it would just be easier to get a new hard drive and start there, making sure at least that it is absolutely not the drive. Right now one drive works with Logic, the other doesn't. If a proven drive does work, out with the drive! If I still can't get it solved after that I'm going to slap the hair mousse and vivid ass shirt off an Apple employee. 
