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Sick HD advice?
Hello there –
Due to what seems to be a fairly common problem based on past-posts of the spinning beach ball, I am looking to nurse my external HD back to health.
I have an FCP project with no render files or filters applied. All it is thus far is captured footage spliced into various sequences. There’s a couple of GB of free space on the LaCie. But yet the ext. HD seems to go to sleep every few minutes, resulting in about a minute or so of the beach ball. After some poking around, it doesn’t seem to be FCP related as anything I do on the LaCie results in the beach ball, but since many FCPers have seemed to encounter similar issues, thought I’d try here.
What I’ve tried so far:
1. Check Energy Saver in your System Preferences and make sure that the “Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible” box is unchecked.
2. Shut the system off until it cools down to room temp and try again. See if it runs at normal speed and then slows down again.
3. Trash prefsI’ve seen a lot of suggestions of running DiskWarrior or TechTools. I don’t have either. Does anyone have any reason to choose one over the other? Or any other suggestions?
Also just curious if there are any articles on such problems that people have found and can link me to? Always enjoy finding out a bit about a problem if possible –
Cheers,
AprilMAC OSX 10.3.9
1.8 GHz Power PC iMAC G5
768 MB DDR SDRAMMAC OSX 10.5.2
2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo MacBookPro
2 GB MHz DDR2 SDRAMLaCie d2 Extreme 160GB 7200 RPM 8MB Buffer
LaCie Big Disk 380GB
FCP 6.0.2 -
6 Replies
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I’ve had my Lacie drive lock up on me when it gets too warm, and I put an oscillating fan right in front of it to keep some cool air flowing and that has worked well for me with the drive getting warm and locking up. However, I think more likely the culprit is the hard drive capacity. You mentioned that you had a couple of GB left. Taking that literally, 2 GB left on a 160 GB is definitely going to cause issues.
You typically want to keep a buffer of 10 to 15% of your hard drive empty, because as your drive becomes more and more full, the computer has to work harder to access the specific data you’re working with. Also, it will cause bad renders and all sorts of other not so fun stuff to happen. Grant it, you mentioned you had no render files on this drive, however I would still recommend freeing up some space on the hard drive if you’re going to use it as a scratch disk.
Richard Sanchez
North Hollywood, CA“We are the facilitators of our own creative evolution.” – Bill Hicks
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Opps sorry! I mean a couple of HUNDRED GB left —
thanks for the fan tip.
MAC OSX 10.3.9
1.8 GHz Power PC iMAC G5
768 MB DDR SDRAMMAC OSX 10.5.2
2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo MacBookPro
2 GB MHz DDR2 SDRAMLaCie d2 Extreme 160GB 7200 RPM 8MB Buffer
LaCie Big Disk 380GB
FCP 6.0.2 -
April,
As I’ve advised before, don’t pass go or collect $200, go get yourself the latest version of Disk Warrior and run it. I don’t think any Mac, you included, user should be without it.
In the meantime, fix permissions on all your drives using the Disk Utility. If you did that last time we spoke about this issue, don’t sweat it, and do it again.
David
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.
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[April Hill] “1. Check Energy Saver in your System Preferences and make sure that the “Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible” box is unchecked. “
That’s not enough.
Set “Put the Computer to slepp..” NEVER.
“Put the screen to sleep..” NEVER. This option warns you that can short the life of the screen, so program an Screen Saver.
Rafael -
Here’s another option – if the disk is going to sleep despite your best efforts, try this:
https://www.digital-heaven.co.uk/freeware/disksomnia.php
from the lovely peeps at DH. I think will be one of those ‘must-have’ apps for a lot of people, and it’s free – so kudos to Martin at DH for providing it!!
Jason
_________________________________
Before you criticise a man, walk a mile in his shoes.
Then when you do criticise him, you’ll be a mile away. And have his shoes.*the artist formally known as Jaymags*
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Thanks, super helpful, I appreciate it!
MAC OSX 10.3.9
1.8 GHz Power PC iMAC G5
768 MB DDR SDRAMMAC OSX 10.5.2
2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo MacBookPro
2 GB MHz DDR2 SDRAMLaCie d2 Extreme 160GB 7200 RPM 8MB Buffer
LaCie Big Disk 380GB
FCP 6.0.2
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