HD24/96 Technical Reference

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Select Set Active Drive from the File menu, then select External from the pop-up menu.

Select Format Drive from the File menu. Click Ok to format, or click Cancel to quit before formatting.

When the format operation has completed, another message will appear prompting you to Verify the drive for recording and playback. Select Cancel to exit the Format routine if this is going to be strictly a backup drive (an ORB cartridge, for instance), or Continue to run the performance verification test (see Verify Drive Performance).

Verify Drive Performance

Verify Drive Performance tests the read/write speed and overall transfer rate of the external drive under simulated worst-case scenarios to determine whether it can sustain 24 tracks of recording and playback. Although any IDE drive can be used for backup, only UDMA IDE drives that pass the performance verification test can be used for recording and playback.

When a drive passes the performance verification test, it is designated as a real-time drive. Formatting erases this designation, so each time you Format a real-time drive you must rerun the test. If a drive fails the test, that drive can be used for backup, but not recording.

Drives tagged for backup-only service will be designated as External* (with the asterisk) in the GUI and front panel menus and dialogs.

After a Format operation the HDR24/96 automatically prompts you to run the performance verification test. The test should be run only on UDMA IDE drives. Don’t run the test on Mackie Media PROJECT drives – the cows will come home before the test finishes.

To Verify the Performance of external media from the HDR24/96 front panel:

Press the Disk Util button. If the Active Drive is the Internal drive, then select Set. From the Set Active Drive menu, Select External, then select Ok.

Select Verify. When the message appears asking you to confirm the operation, select OK. After a couple of minutes, the result of the test will be reported in the front panel display.

After the performance verification is completed, select Continue.

To Verify the Performance of external media from the GUI:

Select Set Active Drive from the File menu, then select External from the pop-up menu.

Select Verify Drive Performance from the File menu and click OK in the Verify Drive dialog box. After a couple of minutes, the result of the test will be reported in the dialog box.

Click Continue.

If you plan on using your own UDMA IDE drives, check Mackie’s web site for up-to-date information on compatible makes and models.

Mount/Refresh Drives

The Mount/Refresh drives command updates the HDR24/96 Project file lists to reflect the current status of both the internal and external drives. Use this command to mount a new Mackie Media PROJECT disk, or to view the size of files in a Project file list.

To Mount drives from the HDR24/96 front panel: