Attention All Numark D2 Director Users

[soundmaster mobile disco]

I recently bought my self a brand new D2 Director to use for digital djing.My question to you fellow D2 user is this

1) what file system are you useing on your external hard drive?

I am useing a freecom hardrive with the Fat 32 file system but when loading tracks from player a to b i get a slight blitch in the music that is playing in side a.(ie you have a track playing in side a but now want to cue up side b,when i have selected my track from the crate and press to b the music that is playing out from side a gets a slight blich).

I contacted Numark today and they say its the hardrive file system that causing that!

2) i also have another freecom hardrive which is formatted in ntfs.The proble that i have with this is it does not seem to store any information after i switch the hd of.

When i first switch the D2 on and the hd on i get the following message

Warning the device in usb 2 (freecom hardive ntfs) does not support writing data.You can only use the file browser to access tracks on this device.

What does this mean?
Is this why nothimg is stored on the crate\playlist that i have previously made up?

Can you help me out please

[Excalibur]

I recently bought my self a brand new D2 Director to use for digital djing.My question to you fellow D2 user is this

1) what file system are you useing on your external hard drive?

I am useing a freecom hardrive with the Fat 32 file system but when loading tracks from player a to b i get a slight blitch in the music that is playing in side a.(ie you have a track playing in side a but now want to cue up side b,when i have selected my track from the crate and press to b the music that is playing out from side a gets a slight blich).

I contacted Numark today and they say its the hardrive file system that causing that!

2) i also have another freecom hardrive which is formatted in ntfs.The proble that i have with this is it does not seem to store any information after i switch the hd of.

When i first switch the D2 on and the hd on i get the following message

Warning the device in usb 2 (freecom hardive ntfs) does not support writing data.You can only use the file browser to access tracks on this device.

What does this mean?
Is this why nothimg is stored on the crate\playlist that i have previously made up?

Can you help me out please

The problem you describe occurs when using file browser on the Cortex. However, all my drives are NTFS, and I can do anything except write to them with the Cortex. I don't have to search in file browser. Ah. The light's just come on. Have you created the necessary database with the Numark software? Without that I think you can only use file browser. I run mine in NTFS so that it doesn't corrupt data in the case of a power cut. Vectis will know the answer to this.


Edit. I note the Numark forum is still down.

[Vectis]

I recently bought my self a brand new D2 Director to use for digital djing.My question to you fellow D2 user is this

1) what file system are you useing on your external hard drive?

I am useing a freecom hardrive with the Fat 32 file system but when loading tracks from player a to b i get a slight blitch in the music that is playing in side a.(ie you have a track playing in side a but now want to cue up side b,when i have selected my track from the crate and press to b the music that is playing out from side a gets a slight blich).

I contacted Numark today and they say its the hardrive file system that causing that!

2) i also have another freecom hardrive which is formatted in ntfs.The proble that i have with this is it does not seem to store any information after i switch the hd of.

When i first switch the D2 on and the hd on i get the following message

Warning the device in usb 2 (freecom hardive ntfs) does not support writing data.You can only use the file browser to access tracks on this device.

What does this mean?
Is this why nothimg is stored on the crate\playlist that i have previously made up?

Can you help me out please

My advice? Not just as a digital DJ of 5+ years but as an IT bod of 25+...

Firstly make sure the d2's firmware is the latest version.

Then rethink how you want to use the d2/HDD combination such that you use NTFS rather than FAT. FAT is bad news, especially on big drives over 32GB, from the point of view of stability and ease of corruption through power outages, accidental disconnects etc.. If you want the full technical explanation I can forward you a recent PM I wrote to another forum member who was having trouble.

NTFS cannot be written to by the d2, so if you want to use the Numark database tools you'll need to generate them on a Windows PC with the HDD connected. This explains the 'errors' you get when plugging in an NTFS drive.

I modified my way of working thus:

Use an NTFS drive for the d2 with two master directories - one with the few hundred or so tracks that satisfy 80% of your average gig - therefore with folder names such as '70s Disco', '80s Electro', '90s Trance' - and the other with artists sorted by alphabet so for example A -> Abba -> Dancing Queen.mp3

Then I bought a couple of 4GB USB memory sticks formatted FAT and use these for any volatile content such as playlists for upcoming gigs, plus any recent tracks downloaded. 4GB goes a long way and means I only need to "consolidate" about once a year.

I DON'T use the Numark management software nor do I even use a keyboard. All the tracks I need are only 2 or 3 directories deep and are so logically sorted that I rarely struggle remembering where they are. Crate does me quite nicely.

System is steady as a rock and I've not lost a disk to corruption since moving from laptop to d2 as my primary playout.

[Excalibur]

There you are look, the full unexpurgated from the Master. I do something like that with the Cortex, but not as well or efficiently. And how Vectis gets away without a keyboard is beyond me ( and probably Rob
As a fully qualified Numpty, I just use the string search, which works very well. If I were computer savvy, and starting again, I'd tag with scrupulous efficiency, and organise the folders more, rather than just letting them happen.

[soundmaster mobile disco]

Hi Vectis how does this explaian the blitches in my sound when useing a ntfs hardive compared to no blitches when using a fat 32 hardrive?

Can it be the processer in the D2 cpu thats faulty?

[Excalibur]

Hi Vectis how does this explaian the blitches in my sound when useing a ntfs hardive compared to no blitches when using a fat 32 hardrive?

Can it be the processer in the D2 cpu thats faulty?

Unlikely I feel. I think I got it right and Vectis certainly did, it's because you need to connect the drive to a PC, and install the Numark software. This will allow you the D2 to find tracks without thinking as hard, and pausing. The same thing happens if you ask the Cortex to use File Browser, rather than the search facility.

[Vectis]

Hi Vectis how does this explaian the blitches in my sound when useing a ntfs hardive compared to no blitches when using a fat 32 hardrive?

Can it be the processer in the D2 cpu thats faulty?

I've only experienced this with an old WD hard drive which was spinning down every couple of minutes... a d2 firmware update soon fixed this which is why I suggested doing the firmware.

FAT drives have a single file access table (index if you like) and on big drives > 32GB it can take an age for the disk heads to zip across to the index to find out where to locate your file, then go back and find the file. It's probably these 'seek' delays that are causing the glitch. NTFS drives have multiple copies of the fat scattered along the disk at regular intervals and only one is updated at any time (hence NTFS's ability to better suffer outages) BUT it means seek times are greatly improved.

I'll wager your FAT HDD is quite big, yes? Several hundred gigs? FAT32 was only really designed for disks up to about 64GB - in fact in Windows you can't natively format one bigger than 32GB because Microsoft don't recommend you use them that size due mainly to the inefficiencies and increased possibility of corruption.

[Excalibur]

I've only experienced this with an old WD hard drive which was spinning down every couple of minutes... a d2 firmware update soon fixed this which is why I suggested doing the firmware.

FAT drives have a single file access table (index if you like) and on big drives > 32GB it can take an age for the disk heads to zip across to the index to find out where to locate your file, then go back and find the file. It's probably these 'seek' delays that are causing the glitch. NTFS drives have multiple copies of the fat scattered along the disk at regular intervals and only one is updated at any time (hence NTFS's ability to better suffer outages) BUT it means seek times are greatly improved.

I'll wager your FAT HDD is quite big, yes? Several hundred gigs? FAT32 was only really designed for disks up to about 64GB - in fact in Windows you can't natively format one bigger than 32GB because Microsoft don't recommend you use them that size due mainly to the inefficiencies and increased possibility of corruption.

Vectis, I hesitate to cast doubt on your ability, but isn't Soundmaster experiencing the reverse of what you suggest, ie long seek times with NTFS? That's why I reckon there's some ( Numark?) software missing.

[Vectis]

Vectis, I hesitate to cast doubt on your ability, but isn't Soundmaster experiencing the reverse of what you suggest, ie long seek times with NTFS? That's why I reckon there's some ( Numark?) software missing.

That's not how I read post #1

[Excalibur]

That's not how I read post #1

Vectis, I humbly apologise for ever doubting you, I'll shut up now!