Topic: 744/722 "Media too slow" Message

[nickgregory]

So Joe got a media too slow error last night midway into the first set...after a fresh format and drive repair before the show.  At setbreak he siwthced from 24/96 to 24/48 and had zero problems in the second set...he and I were guessing the problem may be the HD may not be fast enough to keep up with 96....just a thought though

[carlbeck]

BTW, I forgot to mention, I ONLY run 24/48 as well. I don't think any of these drives can keep up for 3+ hours at 24/96.

[Brian]

what rpm drive?

i don't see how a 5400rpm drive could have problems keeping up with only 2 channels of 24/96.  the stock 4200 models may have issues though.

Frank from cascade told me the new stock drives all 5400 rpm but his voice didn't sound so sure over the telephone.

what kind of drives are you all running?

[carlbeck]

My drives are Toshiba 5gb 4200 rpm's, I do not know of a faster drive that will work for me. I really should check again as it's been a while since I bought these but really I already have two of these & 24/48 is rock solid, so there isn't much need for other drives. Now when a 10 or 20gb comes out I'll really have a reason to move.

[Lil Kim Jong-Il]

So Joe got a media too slow error last night midway into the first set...after a fresh format and drive repair before the show. 

What firmware is in that box?  I didn't have any of these media speed problems prior to the most recent firmware update and I was hammering on the drive with all kids of fragmentation causing file manupilations over firewire.  This may be a latent bug, but it seems to be a causal relationship beterrn the appearence of these errors and the last firmware installation.

My opinion is that this has nothing at all to do with the speed of the media device.  This is a bug in the new firmware.  I want to know how that media speed error is detected.  If it is reported as media speed but is really a buffer overflow problem in the sample flow, that could be any number of things not at all related to the HD performance.

The stock 744T ships with a 5400rpm drive capable of sustained recording at 192/24 over 4 channels.  At  2 channels of 24/96, this thing should be getting bored at 1/4th the expected datarate.

[nickgregory]

dont know the firmware...and that is a good point...I dont believe that Tim has updated his firmware, and it may not be a coincidence that we have not seen this error on that unit yet

[dmonterisi]

dont know the firmware...and that is a good point...I dont believe that Tim has updated his firmware, and it may not be a coincidence that we have not seen this error on that unit yet

how was the show last night nick?  did you all get a a complete pull?

[Brian]

So The stock 744T ships with a 5400rpm drive capable of sustained recording at 192/24 over 4 channels.  At  2 channels of 24/96, this thing should be getting bored at 1/4th the expected datarate.

that's what i thought.  thanks for the confirmation on the 5400 rpm drives!

[F.O.Bean]

So Joe got a media too slow error last night midway into the first set...after a fresh format and drive repair before the show. At setbreak he siwthced from 24/96 to 24/48 and had zero problems in the second set...he and I were guessing the problem may be the HD may not be fast enough to keep up with 96....just a thought though

nick and tim say here they did that right before the show, thats whats so shitty bout this particular issue

[nickgregory]

I think Michael may be right here, that it is firmware related...Kevin Durant and Tims box both have the older firmware on it, and we have not had any of these problems....

[Lil Kim Jong-Il]

this thread is somewhat rediculous and its frustrating to see a great product and company getting some undeserved bashing

Boogie,

if you have not yet subscribed to the sounddevices support website, you should.  I am not the only person seeing these issues.  There are other people with the stock drive having this problem and I was not the first person to report it.  You may also note announcements in which the SD has indicated that they think they have fixed the media speed problem with friday's firmware release.  So clearly they acknowlege that there is an issue in their code.

You need to reread the threads.  Yes people are running chkdsk against the drives.  In my own case I had the media speed error four times on a drive that was reformatted and clean and written with contiguous sessions.  There was 0% fragmentation according to the analysis tool.

So as for undeserved bashing, I don't see that.  They shipped a device that has a very simple functionality.  It should work with fewer severe issues than it does.  The user should not have to do a magic dance before each show to ensure that the filesystem drivers don't fail during the session.   


Edit:  I'm happy for you that you've seen no problems.  My unit, after they repaired the firewire port, worked like a champ up until the latest firmware install. 
 

[trajhip2000]

i have seen zero problems with the stock drive...i know some of the people complaining on this thread are using aftermarket upgrade drives...methinks you might have created some of these problems yourself

also, regularly formatting the drive on this type of device should be standard practice...its a recorder, not a storage device

-clear drive of contents
-reformat
-record show
-copy recordings to workstation
-verify md5s on both sides
-delete from recorder
-reformat

well, in the manual SD themselves practically encourage people to switch out the HD if they want, as long as they guard against static - plus the drives that most people have switched in are not no-name drives (mine is a Toshiba 5400 rpm drive) - so I don't see that as a legitimate issue.

removing files and formatting after every recording may be a good general practice, but what if you're e.g. on a location shoot and can't do that? I don't think you can reasonably argue that SD owners shouldn't expect a file system robust enough to ensure file integrity out to the capacity limits of the drive under normal use conditions - as well as the ability to transfer files off the HD thru the FW interface without having to worry about corruption. Frustration at the units not meeting those fairly minimal requirements doesn't qualify as bashing in my book. I do give SD full credit for being responsive to these issues, but that doesn't mean I'm not disappointed at either losing recordings or having to expend significant effort to repair them.

Steve

[not logged in]

in addition to the media too slow message there have been other problems with the 722.

i've had two problems that thus far are unique to me.

first there is the the disk full message (when the drive is in fact virtually empty).

http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=39743.0

then there is a far more serious problem which i just discovered last night.  two files from some 15 hours of recording over the past week were corrupted.  they are corrupted on the 722--this is not a transfer issue.

the corrupted files repeat the same segment over and over again usually about 6 times before moving on to the next segment which is repeated 6 times or so and then the next following segment is repeated and so forth.  the entire file is like this.  the files before and after the corrupted file are fine however.

seems to me that 722 users are well advised to run a dat backup until the unit is more reliable.  that's my plan anyway even though its a pain.

[nickgregory]

OK, so Tims 722 has SW version 1.15, and Carrington ran it for the full panic show, 24/96 with no error message...Kevin said last ngiht he hasnt upgraded the FW either, and also hasnt had a problem...I think the statement that this could be a FW issue may be dead on...

[MattD]

Is reverting possible? I'll give up locking the transport for now if need be. I am yet to have any of the recording issues, just transfer issues, but nice to know I can if I need to.