Tony! Hulette
Forum Replies Created
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Nope, and you won’t find anyone that has.
Tony!
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OK, this is a classic case of not giving us any info to go on. How are you connecting this drive to your Mac? That is likely where you problems lies. Replace the cables. Try a different port. Update your SCSI, Firewire, USB or SATA cards firmware. Try it on another Mac. If it’s a LaCie drive, make sure it has this update: LaCie Update Tool v1.3.3 for Mac OS X found here: https://www.lacie.com/support/drivers/. If not a LaCie drive, then check with the manufacturer for any updates and compatibility with your Mac (we don’t know what Mac you have).
You should also try removing all other devices plugged into the Firewire and USB ports (assuming its a FW or USB connected drive). Make sure the drive is spun up before connecting the cable and/or starting up your Mac.
Does the drive make any unusual noises? If so, it may have died. Even if you don’t hear strange noises, it could have failed. Is it spinning up, when you start it? You can also, try zapping the PRAM on you Mac (depending on which one you have), it has helped some problematic Firewire connection before.
Hopefully, there’s a solution in there somewhere.
Tony!
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Retrospect has dominated the Mac backup software market since the early 90’s. It works and has some nice features. The company has pretty good tech-support as well. However, the interface has always been wonky (as in not intuitive) and there have been some compatibility issues on and off over the last few years. None the less its still a good choice and should be considered. I don’t have a recommendation at this time, just research all the options and go with the one that you like and whatever you feel will be around for many years.
I will say, that we stopped using DLT’s and other tape backup systems along time ago (except for a couple of my clients). We found its far more cost effective, quicker (both to backup and to restore), and easier to backup to hard drives. you can buy ATA or SATA drives for cheap. You can pop them in a Firewire/USB case or use something like Wiebetech’s Drive Docks to connect bare drives to your Mac for backups. When you’re done, you just stack the bare drive on a shelf somewhere. If you need data off of the drive, it takes seconds to reconnect it and get your data. In most cases you can work right off the drive and so have zero restore time. We buy a drive for each project (unless they are small) and just add it to what we bill the client. Anyway, just my $.02.
https://www.wiebetech.com/includes/home/featuredproduct.php?item=3
Tony!
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Make sure in your performance settings that “Use Controller Write Cache” is on (make your you have the RAID connected to an uninterruptible power supply) and the “Use Drive Write Cache” is checked. Make sure that the “Allow Host Cache Flushing” and “Use Steady Streaming Mode” is left unchecked. I use the 8 stripes option.
You must format the RAID as Mac OS Extended (no journaling).
Make sure your RAID and the Fibre channel card has the latest firmware (backup before updating). Make sure no other card is plugged into the same PCI bus as your Fibre channel card.
If you’re capturing through your Mac’s Firewire port, make sure no other Firewire devices are connected while capturing. If you using a capture card/device, check with the manufacturer for suggestions.
Triple check your FCP settings and make sure the video/audio is not going to the startup drive and that all your capture settings are correct. Of course, make sure the Canvas and Viewer is set to “Fit to Window.”
Make sure the RAID is not anywhere close to full.
Trash your FCP prefs and caches.
Turn off any Virus software (or anything running that doesn’t need to be).
Set your Energy Saver preferences to never for “Put your computer to sleep” and under options change your “Processor Performance” to “Highest.” (these probably won’t fix your problem, but you should do them anyway).
If nothing else seems to work. Suspect 3rd party memory. Remove it all leaving only the stock Apple memory and see if the problem goes away.
That’s all I have off the top of my head right now, but there’s probably a few doesn’t more possible causes.
Good Luck,
Tony!
P.S. You can reset the controllers on your RAID and that will reset the default passwords. Here’s how: https://searchdocs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86367&coll=cp
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I’d go with at least 4gb’s again. If you run multiple animation/editng applications at the same time, then you might consider doubling that to 8gb’s of memory. I don’t think you need to go beyond that for most pro work at this point (that will change in the future). I highly recommend you get your memory from Crucial as they are the OEM for many computer manufacturers (including Apple) and it will be much more cost effective than getting it directly from Apple. They are a good company that stands behind their products.
I prefer the AJA Kona cards myself, but you can pickup a BlackMagic card for cheap and they both should get the job done. Make sure you get the PCIe version of whichever you choose, and not the PCI or PCI-X, as they will not work in your Quad.
Tony!
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[Underbelly] “We are all running G5’s with the original graphic’s card that comes with them”
There must be 10 or maybe 15 different graphic cards that could have shipped in the G5’s. It all depends on which G5, when it was purchased, and which card you chose at the time (usually they had more than one option for graphic cards). Some of the cards had ADC connections and VGA connections. Some ADC and DVI. And some only DVI. Just make sure what you have matches what you’re buying. There is no standard Mac monitor connection. There is no standard Mac monitor connection even on just G5’s.
[Underbelly] “I mostly do photoshop work with an old Viewsonic monitor that, as far as I know has never been calibrated. (Although I’m pretty good as using CMYK and RGB values when I have too). “
This is a company doesn’t care about color and is too cheap to give you the equipment to do your job. I wouldn’t worry about it. Get proofs and adjust whatever monitor you get to match them as closely as possible. At a minimum try to make sure the lighting in your office is consistent at all times of the day, and remove any strong colors near you that can affect your perception of what you are seeing on screen. We’d always paint our rooms a neutral gray special bulbs for lighting. There are tons of books and internet info on the subject. I would do as much research as possible before making any purchase decisions. If you’re really good at color correction & Photoshop, you can adjust color even with your monitor set to black and while, but proofs are the only way you’re going to have a good idea of what the final result will be. You maybe able to calibrate your office color printer to come fairly close to the proofs if you invest some time, and if its a decent printer. This can help you in the future, by at least letting you know you’re on the right track. Keep in mind that monitors change over time and so you have to color match or calibrate them often as they age.
![Underbelly] “I guess me real question should have been if there is any issues, like color calibration if I use a PC monitor on a Mac. I’d just hate for this company to invest $2000 in a monitor and find some little quirk that makes it hard to use or calibrate!”
I believe the manufacturers website has many of the answers you seek in their compatibility section. Some of the info is a bit dated, and there maybe some issues with sleep, and other things, when using it on a Mac (instead of the Apple Cinema Displays). However, it sounds like it should work well for you needs. Research it more, and you’ll make a good choice.
https://www.eizo.com/support/compatibility/index.asp
Tony!
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Most PC monitors will work fine with Mac’s. But you didn’t tell us which Mac’s and which graphic cards you’re using so you may need adapters (which can be expensive) if your current Mac graphic cards are using ADC or VGA connections, instead of DVI. If you need to run two monitors (required for most graphics departments) you’ll need to know which connections you have on your Mac graphic cards as they are very possibly not the same (one ADC and one DVI, etc). You’d probably be better off upgrading the graphic cards in the Mac’s that don’t have the DVI connections you need, rather than buying adapters. Adapters can affect the color accuracy.
Of course, monitors are never going to match print work. You can sometimes get fairly close with various calibration tools, but proofs are always recommended when accuracy counts.
Tony!
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Does Disk Utility see it? Have you checked with the manufacture for firmware or driver updates? Also, make sure you SCSI card has the latest firmware and drivers.
Tony!
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Also, with NAB only a month or so away, you may want to wait for the new version of FCP Studio that is likely to be released.
Tony!
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The standard way to do it in all versions of OS X (it’s changed its looks in various versions) is to do a find (command + F), then select “visibility” and “invisible” from the Search Criteria pulldowns in the window that opens up (“Kind” and/or “Last opened” are the defaults). You can select the name you are searching for as a second criteria.
Tony!