WD Mybook freezing FCP

I'm working on a lot of material (2.5+ gb) spread over two external hard-drives. One Caldigit (S2VR duo, 1gb, e-sata); the other Western Digital MyBook (2gb, fw800).

FCP is freezing with the spinning beach ball very randomly. Sometimes I go days without it, today it already happened twice. If I force quit FCP it doesn't really close (though it disappears), so that if I hit cmd+opt+esc again, it's still listed as an opened application.

If I try restarting, everything freezes, so I have to force shut down the computer and start it again.

This only happens when I'm seeing material that's on the WD drive, never on what's in the Caldigit. Both drives have enough free space.

The WD is formatted as mac os extended JOURNALED, which I've heard could be a problem, but since I cannot reformat it to non-journaled now, I'm hoping some update or driver could fix this.

I run FCP 6.0.2, QT 7.4.1, OS 10.4.11, on a PPC 2.3dual with 2.5gb ram.

I've used one of those ungodly MyBooks before...and the only conclusion I could reach is that this drive ignores my System Preferences to never go to sleep, and shuts itself down to something similar to Power Save mode when it hasn't been accessed for a certain amount of time. Journalling shouldn't cause such major issues.


www.derekmok.com

The only way to fix a MyBook...is to get rid of it. Worse than LaCie IMHO. I have a shooter that "tries" to transfer camera files via a MyBook...sometimes it boots...sometimes it doesn't. Useless IMHO for such a high data rate required by video. I talked him into a G-Raid2 and he's MUCH happier now (of course he billed US for it ).

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

> The only way to fix a MyBook...is to get rid of it. Worse than LaCie IMHO.

I had simliar experiences. I cut a talk show last year where the MyBook got its ass kicked...by two four-year-old Maxtors. The Maxtors never had issues; the MyBook coughed and hacked. Of course, I kept asking my executive producer to stock up on better drives and she never did...


www.derekmok.com

Ok, I'm screwed

The drive doesn't seem to be going to sleep, or standby, since it stops in the middle of a sequence while I'm watching material stored in it.

Does it make sense if the drive freezes the system when it reaches a certain specific frame of video? It has stopped three times on the same point in a sequence. Does this mean that it has a "bad sector" or something? I'm moving the material of this sequence to another drive, since I cannot touch it without a freeze.

And since Mybook sucks: are MacGuru's sata enclosures good? Since I already have the e-sata card from Caldigit, I could hook up one of those. What's the consensus, if there is one?

There is no need to reformat the drive to turn Journaling off.

Open Disk Utility > select the drive on the left.

Hold down the Option key and click on the File menu > Disable Journaling

--ken

IMHO, get your stuff off that drive before you lose it. Since you are using eSATA, Caldigit's S2VR is a hot property:

[www.caldigit.com]

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

I wonder if the mixed protocols are helping cause this issue? I'm about to experiment with a LaCie on FW 800 and another on eSATA, assuming this cheap PCI eSATA card works...

Ken, that's a great little tip about Disk Utility. I always booted TechTool Pro to disable journaling. *DOH*

- Loren
Today's FCP keytip:

Toggle your Timeline Filters bar with Option T !

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Now available at KeyGuide Central.
www.neotrondesign.com

bernardojv,

Yes, MacGurus stuff is good. They also use our PCIe or PCIx 4 port eSATA cards.

Jon

Thanks for all the help.

MyBook seems to be in a good mood, didn't freeze anymore, but I'll look into buying Macguru's burly sata box.