Setup guide

Appendix B: Hard Drive Configuration and Maintenance 79
Optimizing (Defragmenting) Drives
To prevent fragmentation, you can optimize
your drive, which rearranges your files into a
contiguous format. Most optimizing software
lets you run a check on a drive to find out the
percentage of fragmentation. If your drive
shows moderate to heavy fragmentation, you
should consider optimizing it.
If you use your system for intensive editing, or if
you frequently delete audio or fade files from
your hard drive, you may need to optimize your
drives on a weekly basis, or even every few days,
since it doesn’t take long for even a large hard
drive to become fragmented.
Backing Up Data Before Optimizing
Since your files will be rewritten by the optimi-
zation process, always make a backup copy of
the data on your hard drive before you optimize
it. You should also use a hard drive utility to find
and repair any problems before optimizing data
or re-initializing your drives. If there is any dam-
age to your hard drive's directories prior to opti-
mizing, serious data loss may result.
Defragmenting Windows Audio Drives
To defragment an audio drive:
1 Right-click My Computer (Windows XP) or
Computer (Windows Vista) and choose Manage.
2 Under Storage, choose Disk Defragmenter.
3 In the Disk Defragmenter window, choose the
drive you want to defragment
4 Click the Defragment button and follow the
on-screen instructions.
When defragmenting is complete, close the
Computer Management window.
Using Mac Drives on Windows
Systems
Pro Tools for Windows lets you record and play
back sessions directly from a Mac-formatted
(HFS+) drive connected to a Windows system.
This functionality requires that all Mac session
and audio files be stored on Mac-formatted
drives.
During Pro Tools installation, make sure to se-
lect the Mac HFS+ Disk Support option. This op-
tion lets your Pro Tools system read, write,
record, and play back using Mac-formatted HFS+
disks.
Formatting and Maintaining HFS+
Drives
To format and partition any drives as HFS+, con-
nect the drives to a Mac computer and use the
Apple OS X Disk Utility.
For information on sharing sessions be-
tween Mac and Windows systems, see the
Pro Tools Reference Guide.