hardrive is eating my babies

U

unknownparts

Active member
Having issues with the external hardrive I picked up.

It is a western digital "My Book" 250gb premium edition. 7200 RPM, 400 MB/sec.

I'm working on Final Cut HD, on an IMAC G5. 1GB of memory. 80 GB hardrive (big mistake, should have spent the extra cash of Hardrive space.)

So I capture about 50GB of video on my new short film project. And now I have serious space issues. Down to about 3GB on the internal, so I bought this external today.

MAC compatible, says on the side of the box, works with FCP.

So I try to capture, it won't budge.

I try using media manager to move the project over to the new drive, snails. It says it will take 3 hours.

Theres no way this thing is this damn slow out of the box. Am I missing somthing?

starting to get worried, the thing cost $300 bucks. Any suggestions?
 
yep

yep

it has the option of USB and firewire. I'm using the firewire.

I know 50gb will take awile, but this thing won't even capture, it just sits "allocating space." somthing isn't right.
 
unknownparts said:
it has the option of USB and firewire. I'm using the firewire.

I know 50gb will take awile, but this thing won't even capture, it just sits "allocating space." somthing isn't right.
Click to expand...
You went into System Preferences and reset the Scratch Disks to your external HD?
 
unknownparts said:
Having issues with the external hardrive I picked up.
80 GB hardrive Down to about 3GB on the internal, so I bought this external today.
Click to expand...

That's your problem. Your system even below half of your original GB, your computer is going to take a dive. You need AT LEAST 10GB for your Mac to function well at all, let alone capture 50 gigs.

Here's what I suggest:

Take the music that you don't listen to on your iTunes, burn it, and delete it off of your computer.

Take all of your videos and burn them on a DVD, and delete them off of your computer. Any document that says "Last Modified: (Over 6 months ago)", delete it. Delete extra apps and stuff that you don't need. If you have any games, put them on a different computer, plus thats what Xbox is for.

Now:
New procedure with the harddrive.

Go up to your spotlight, and search for the document:

"com.apple.FinalCutPro.plist" (sometimes "com.apple.FinalCut.plist")

Delete it.

Restart the computer, and then open up FCP with the external hard drive plugged in. Go to your user preferences and reset your capture, waveform, and auto save capture bins to your external harddrive. Now everything you capture into FCP will go into your external drive.

Note: Firewire is faster than USB.

More Important Note: Next time, only buy the LaCie harddrives that are sold in the Apple store. They're faster, and Apple backs them.

zach
 
-zach- said:
More Important Note: Next time, only buy the LaCie harddrives that are sold in the Apple store. They're faster, and Apple backs them.

zach
Click to expand...
I couldn't disagree more!!!!! NO LACIE!!!! I'd go with the Maxtor. I poo pooed all those that complained about LaCie until it happened to me with a four month old HD.

It might just be the 500 GB, though.

Take a look at this....

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/cu...8368916?_encoding=UTF8&n=172282&s=electronics

and this...

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=46654&highlight=lacie
 
Make sure to format the external drive. Many drives are formated for Windows and you'll be takign a speed hit.
As mentioned clear off some of your other items on your main drive.
 
-zach- said:
That's your problem. Your system even below half of your original GB, your computer is going to take a dive. You need AT LEAST 10GB for your Mac to function well at all, let alone capture 50 gigs.

Here's what I suggest:

Take the music that you don't listen to on your iTunes, burn it, and delete it off of your computer.

Take all of your videos and burn them on a DVD, and delete them off of your computer. Any document that says "Last Modified: (Over 6 months ago)", delete it. Delete extra apps and stuff that you don't need. If you have any games, put them on a different computer, plus thats what Xbox is for.

Now:
New procedure with the harddrive.

Go up to your spotlight, and search for the document:

"com.apple.FinalCutPro.plist" (sometimes "com.apple.FinalCut.plist")

Delete it.

Restart the computer, and then open up FCP with the external hard drive plugged in. Go to your user preferences and reset your capture, waveform, and auto save capture bins to your external harddrive. Now everything you capture into FCP will go into your external drive.

Note: Firewire is faster than USB.

More Important Note: Next time, only buy the LaCie harddrives that are sold in the Apple store. They're faster, and Apple backs them.

zach
Click to expand...

I have the 250 Gig LaCie Big Drive and I hate it...One died on me...And this one isn't that fast...I am going with a G-Raid Next Time Around.
 
The most important thing you need to do with the new drive is format it - as has been mentioned.
Go to Applications/Utilities and open Disk Utility. Select the drive on the left and then choose "erase" and then name it what you want and erase it. Make sure it says "Mac OS Extended (Journalled)".

And Zach makes a bunch of great points, but I will also disagree with the LaCie suggestion. We used to only get LaCie drives for our clients (I'm a Mac tech) and over the past year we have seen a huge number of them fail. They are on the "don't touch" list until they can prove they've fixed their quality control issues.
 
stupid?

stupid?

This may be a stupid question to most, so don't throw the ol' message board hate my way -

If I format the external drive, will it erase everything on it? I've backed up all of my music and graphic design work on there to clear room on the internal hardrive. I can't lose this stuff.

I'm starting to think I need to just use this hardrive as my back up for all that junk, and go get a maxtor for this video stuff.

I've heard good things about maxtor. Any ideas?
 
Yes - a format of the drive will erase everything on there.

Maxtors are good drives. To be safe, however, get an extra drive you can use as a backup. All hard drives these days fail at some point, and a backup is vitally important.
I actually have 2 backups - one of my main system and a separate one for my footage and editing junk.
 
fritz said:
I read somewhere that LaCie uses Maxtor drives...is this true?
Click to expand...
Mine did (does). But my Maxtor drives are rock solid. The LaCie failed within 6 months of use. The LaCie I'm using now is the warranty unit LaCie sent to Drive Savers as my target drive. I am backing it up with a Maxtor AND ALL the raw files have been copied to DVD for archival purposes.
 
The problems with the LaCie drives all relate to their power supplies not being adequate and frying the drives inside (which are Maxtors).
 
skinnyboy said:
The problems with the LaCie drives all relate to their power supplies not being adequate and frying the drives inside (which are Maxtors).
Click to expand...
Then why the hell don't they fix it. It is ruining their rep.:angry:
 
So Maxtor drives are ok then, just not when they're inside LaCie enclosures! Thanks for clearing that up guys.
 
yeah, i put a 200gb maxtor in a best buy bought enclosure and it's worked like a champ for almost two years now, meanwhile a LaCie that was given to me to edit a project on A. takes forever to startup and B. is weird and clunky.
 
hybridtheory said:
yeah, i put a 200gb maxtor in a best buy bought enclosure and it's worked like a champ for almost two years now, meanwhile a LaCie that was given to me to edit a project on A. takes forever to startup and B. is weird and clunky.
Click to expand...
That's how mine was acting just before it took ****. Make sure you have the stuff backed up. :thumbsup:
 
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