We live and die by hard drives for music. There’s no substitute for redundancy and backups (hey, you could be Matthew Dear and have a drive stolen during your set). But it is helpful to know whether a drive is healthy or not. S.M.A.R.T. monitoring features built into drives can help.

Lifehacker today points to a free Windows utility for the job called CrystalDiskInfo:

CrystalDiskInfo Monitors Hard Drive Health and Uptime [via gHacks]

But that got me thinking about other tools. There’s quite a range of choices for Mac, Windows, Linux, and even some obscure operating systems. The only bad news: generally you’ll only be able to monitor internal drives, unless your external drive is eSATA rather than USB or FireWire. (eSATA is where I’d like to go generally – it’s quite a lot faster, and frees up your USB and FireWire buses for other things — but that’s a discussion for another day.)

Cross-platform / Linux

The smartmontools package is a powerful ATA/ATAPI/SATA monitoring tool that runs on – well, pretty much everything. There’s a Windows package, plus a *nix version for Mac, Linux, BSD, Cygwin on Windows, Solaris, OS/2, QNX, and so on. This looks like your best choice on Linux.

Mac OS X

SMARTReporter (pictured at top) is probably the friendliest way to get at SMART data for SATA, ATA, and eSATA drives on the Mac. It even includes a handy menu bar item so you can monitor how your drive is doing at a glance. It’s free via Open Source “MIT License.”

You can also use the command line, via something like this:

diskutil info disk0 | grep SMART

Windows

In addition to CrystalDiskInfo, you have a number of options:

SpeedFan is a general-purpose monitoring and management tool for just about everything, including (as the name implies) fans.

HDD Health is a hard disk-only monitoring tool, like the others here. One thing it has going for it: friendly feedback and tidy tabs to view it.

More Information

The good folks at SpeedFan have an article on what SMART is and how to interpret data you get – well worth reading whether or not you’re a SpeedFan user.

Be sure to post bug reports and forum posts over there, but we’re curious to know how it works here, as well. (Now, Linux, Bome?)

Update: Information on Pro Tools Compatibility for Mac OS X 10.5.3

The reason you might still want to wait on Leopard upgrading, in case this hasn’t already made you cautious: not all RTAS plug-ins are expected to be “Leopard-ready.” (TDM plug-ins run on Digi’s DSP hardware and are apparently unaffected once the host works.) We’re told developers are being advised to test rigorously because of changes to Mac OS X. This may not be limited to Digidesign. Based on reports from readers, while users are on the whole happier with 10.5.3 than 10.5.2, there are still some kinks to work out — including users of products other than just those from Digidesign and M-Audio. Best advice: stick with Tiger 10.4.x if you can for the most stable alternative.

Pro Tools Plug-in Compatibility with Leopard

Just as being patient now is advisable, though, it’s equally good advice to reserve judgment on Leopard until the OS matures. Changes made to 10.5 promise better performance on multiple-core systems, for instance — so while the short-term side effect may be glitchy audio until bugs are ironed out, once software is mature, you may squeeze out more performance. The problem is, we can’t know either way until other issues are resolved first. That means patience pays off doubly: sticking with the most stable option if you can is a good way to avoid trouble, while waiting to see how things go means you could reap some rewards upgrading once the software matures. (On the other hand, some readers have no problem, so if you have more than one machine or a new machine that requires Leopard, I’d say go for 10.5.3)

I’ll say those two words I tend to say all the time: stay tuned.

Thanks to Ray Tovey and others for the tips!

“Addresses an issue with stuttering video and audio playback in certain USB devices.”

Also interesting, given that some issues may have been related to wireless issues: “Improves 802.1X behavior and reliability.”

About the Mac OS X 10.5.3 Update [Knowledge Base HT1141 at Apple Support]

Thanks to John for the tip. (I hear shouts of joy from various people as that Software Update dialog pops up…)

This would appear to address at least some of the audio performance complaints with 10.5.2. Those of you who have been having issues who were unable to downgrade, let us know as you test if it seems to make your problems go away.

Because operating systems are complex, however, it was unclear whether this was the only issue with 10.5.x and audio, so we’ll also be watching for more comprehensive testing feedback from CDM readers and music and audio product makers. (Specifically, we had gotten reports of issues with FireWire devices as well as USB, meaning this may not be the complete fix we had hoped for. But Apple software update release notes are notorious for being vague and incomplete; as Vince notes in comments, the version number on the FireWire driver has in fact changed and there may be other changes not explicitly listed in the notes.)

Updated: As expected, the Mac OS X 10.5.3 update has been released, and it promises to address USB audio playback issues. That may or may not fully resolve issues users have been encountering; I expect we’ll know more soon.

Let’s get one thing straight: if you’re having audio problems under Mac OS X 10.5.2 and you’re looking for someone to blame, it’s reasonably safe to blame Apple, in case that wasn’t already obvious. That’s just this particular case, and it’s not the first (or last) time an OS update caused issues for audio, but that’s my best appraisal of the situation.

I made no secret that I was disappointed with the level of support for emerging OSes from M-Audio and Digidesign, and I stand by that complaint. The response from M-Audio and Digidesign was prompt: based on what I heard from them (and they wrote me personally), I don’t think they made any “excuses.” Representatives from both product lines apologized for lagging drivers, and promised to do better. We’ll of course watch to see if they deliver on that promise in the long haul, but they were at least able to offer some specific clarifications and updates so owners of their products can make some progress right now. (Read my original complaint, and follow-ups from M-Audio and Digidesign.)

Accountability and OSes

That said, all evidence points to audio performance problems on Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.2 specifically being the responsibility of Apple. Pointing out problems introduced by an operating system is not making an excuse; it’s stating an obvious fact, whether in regards to Microsoft or Apple. In this case, the symptoms are not restricted to a single product vendor. Apple’s own Logic Studio is an affected piece of software. (Heck, even Skype and iTunes may have issues.) I’ve gotten reader reports of problems with a variety of hardware, not just M-Audio and Digidesign. Problems don’t seem to affect everyone, but then, most bugs affect only some users, not all.

Consensus from every vendor I’ve talked to — software and hardware — is that an OS-level change in 10.5.2 caused problems. The likelihood is, Apple will have to resolve those issues. So it’s not worth getting angry at your device vendor, because it’s almost certainly not their fault. Likewise, I’m not sure it’s worth getting angry at Apple — 10.5.2 just didn’t work as expected, and the best we can do is to find a temporary workaround and wait for the next update. You can get angry if you want, of course. It just won’t make any difference. (I have about a 20-year history at this point of yelling at computers; I find it at least lets off steam.)

But let’s talk about accountability, since various readers are bringing it up. At the risk of pointing out the obvious, I think accountability has to involve both music and audio vendors and OS vendors.

As I see it, the basic responsibility of hardware vendors is to test their current hardware on new OSes, to release complete documentation in terms of what works and what doesn’t, and to update their drivers to support the current driver model and specifications of a new OSes in a reasonable amount of time. By this measure, there’s room for improvement at many vendors, and it’s my belief that improvement in these areas will mean more and happier customers.

But OS vendors have responsibilities, too. And since this isn’t 1985 or 1990, that means basically Microsoft and Apple. (The Linux community is a different animal, so I’ll leave them alone.) A creator of a device driver can’t possibly be responsible or accountable for fixing OS-level performance issues with scope beyond their own hardware. And that’s been, unfortunately, the situation with Windows Vista, particularly in its first 8 months, and now Mac OS X Leopard in its first 8 months. Problems haven’t affected everyone, but they have been widespread enough that we have a right to be disappointed. As a user, I think I have the right to be disappointed. As a writer, it’s my obligation to point it out. And I hope they do better in the future.

10.5.3: Help is on the way?

I’m equally obligated to watch for these issues to be fixed. In the case of Apple, the rumor mill suggests that a fix is imminent:

Mac OS X 10.5.3 about to hit [APC Mag]

This is not official information, as Apple doesn’t make their OS update process public. Technically, I shouldn’t say that 10.5.3 is rumored to have audio and video applications as a focus. I also shouldn’t say that the major change in the current seed is reported to be “kernel performance.” Of course, that’s exactly what I and many other parties had predicted: anyone running 10.5.2 who is experiencing this issue already knows there’s a problem. The good news is, a fix is likely on the way.

Look, updating and testing operating systems isn’t easy, and my job is not to sit here and be an armchair quarterback. What I can do, though, is do as much homework as possible, and try to use the large community we have here on CDM to provide as much information as we can to help you make informed decisions. I hope that 10.5.3 is an OS we can recommend, as 10.5.2 was not. So, we’ll keep watching.

If you have 10.5.2, have this symptom, and for some reason can’t downgrade, do let us know when an update becomes available and what your experience is.

You may also recall that Audiofile Engineering recently rescued the excellent instrument and effect host, Rax – formerly developed by our friends at plasq. It is clear that Apple borrowed heavily from Rax’s design choices and intentions with their new MainStage application (bundled with Logic 8) but with its impressive features, custom interfaces for audio units, cool visualizer support, and active development, Rax is still the application to beat in this domain.

Competitive upgrade, crossgrade and educational pricing, sleek new icons, one of the finest audio application suites in the industry (and did we mention a simple, non-draconian form of authorization?) – Audiofile Engineering has definitely brightened the days for Mac users this season!

Keep those compatibility reports coming. We’ve heard some general frustrations with Leopard (as can happen with any OS update), and ongoing specific issues with M-Audio products. Digidesign Pro Tools 7.4 remains unsupported on the new OS. (Note that “unsupported” doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t work, as one reader observes.) I’m running Leopard here successfully on a MacBook Pro. It’s working nicely, and there are some nifty usability improvements, but on the other hand I’m not sure I’d go out of my way to make the leap when Tiger works so well.

Speaking of sample management on the Mac, AudioFinder, the popular sample utility, is now in beta of its version 4.7. The new release integrates a basic waveform editor for quick adjustments to sound files. From the software’s forum:

This is not a new audio editor to compete with Peak, DSP Quatro or Wave Edit. This is a utility to save time editing samples. It has a maximum file length limit of 30 minutes. It is 32bit floating point. It saves all files as AIFF, and soon CAF.

AudioFinder 4.7 Beta
Sounds good to me. Could be especially handy editing my Ableton Live clips and samples and such.

In the “bad” category, Paul Davis, the creator of JACK and Ardour, writes:

Leopard has stopped JACK and other inter-application audio routers from being used as the default audio device. Apple is now distributing an SDK that is aimed at “aiding” developers in writing user-space CoreAudio “drivers” such as JACK and SoundFlower. Early reports suggest that the SDK requires a much more complex design. JACK still runs on Leopard, and so JACK-aware apps (i.e. Linux audio apps ported to OS X like Ardour and Jamin) can use it, but native apps can no longer be connected to each other or to JACK applications. Work is underway to make JACK use this new SDK but it appears to be a non-trivial effort. Apple’s motive in making this change is not clear.

Now, the good news. JACK OS X’s developers chime in in comments to point out progress is being made. And this is even a good thing. (Unfortunately, such is the way with OSes — for even small improvements, you have to break, then fix things, then reap the benefits, sometimes not immediately.) From Stephane:

SoundFlower is actually a “kernel space” driver that is somewhat much more easier to develop and maintain

• Apple SDK is definitively a step forward to develop more compliant “user-space” drivers, even if mastering the new code layering takes some time…
• as Dan said, the new version is almost ready and should be more compliant (more application working correctly with it)

And a beta is available now.

In other words, if you use these apps in a critical project, you might want to hold off upgrading, but otherwise all is well. I’ll be sure to post an update when a fix is ready. Note that Audio Hijack is now compatible with Mac OS X 10.5, though that doesn’t allow many of the musical applications possible with JACK and SoundFlower.

A subtler UI annoyance, Apple has somewhat crippled the audio previews you get in Finder’s multi-column view. You get the “play” button in the last column, as before, but no scrubbing or volume control. QuickLook, fortunately, solves the problem. Hit space and you get a full view of your audio file. At first, I thought this would be less convenient, thinking you’d have to preview files one at a time. But you can navigate from one file to another by scrolling up and down with the keyboard to select different files. Thanks to David Hollands for this tip; David says he’s finding QuickLook to be slower than using multi-column view.

Another alternative would be to use a dedicated utility like Iced Audio’s AudioFinder for your sample sorting, which may be better than Leopard or Tiger anyway, depending on your preference.

Sure enough, today we learn that AudioFinder’s new sample editor is in beta. Combined with AF’s other sample juggling tools, the fix may actually be more interesting than the problem.

I consider myself operating system atheistic: I refuse to believe in an operating system unless solid, empirical data is presented proving it exists works. Okay, actually … I spend a considerable amount of time doing production on both Mac and Windows, and even some time working with Linux (not to mention administering Linux servers).

But we’d like to know more about what you use in your music. Our site analytics don’t tell us a whole lot: they tend to sample random users, not regulars, and if you use a work PC to browse, we may not know what you use at home for music.

For that reason, we’d love to have you tell us more about how you work. This isn’t a race, so no need to stuff the ballot box for the OS you like. (And we already know you use some obscure OSes — and some of you even browse CDM from your iPhone, Nintendo Wii, Sun Solaris workstation, Amiga, and PSP, based on our server stats). Anyway, an OS is just as interesting if few of you are using it as if many are. No, the idea is to get an honest metric of what you’re using. We’ll happily share the results.

The survey is now closed. Thanks for your help! We’ll have results up soon.