Warning: [tag]Geek[/tag] Content Ahead.

I debated posting about this since it’s really esoteric and not very musical, but [tag]modern music[/tag]ians have to deal with [tag]technology[/tag] and if I run into a problem I feel the need to share with the collective. So here goes nothing…

I bought an [tag]external hard drive[/tag] for my studio work. The HD came pre-formatted in either [tag]Fat32[/tag] or [tag]UFS[/tag], I can’t remember which. I didn’t really pay attention since a [tag]Macbook[/tag] can read and write to any disk format out there. I should’ve paid closer attention before my new hard drive decided to eat half my [tag]audio files[/tag].

Here’s the basic explanation: Every disk uses a specific [tag]filing system[/tag] to sort out its collection of ones and zeros. A Word doc is a Word doc on any disk, but the filing system tells the computer where it is and what it’s named. There are several different filing systems out there such as Fat32, UFS, and [tag]HFS+[/tag].

The Mac typically uses HFS+, but it can deal with any system that exists. I should’ve formatted the new drive to HFS+ from the start. Apparently, the other filing systems can’t deal with longer [tag]file names[/tag] such as “Audio Recording #25.12.aif”

So when [tag]Logic[/tag], my audio software, starts naming audio files like that, it truncates both “Audio Recording #25.12.aif” and “Audio Recording #25.187.aif” to simply “Audio Recording #25.aif” This is not good. I don’t know if it’s the fault of Logic, [tag]Apple[/tag], or the filing system itself, but instead of auto-creating unique file names, it just decided to overwrite the older recordings with the newer ones.

This means I open up Logic to find that what should be a tambourine recording (Audio Recording #25.12.aif) is now a duplicate of a backup vocal take (Audio Recording #25.187.aif). Apply this to roughly half of all my audio files, and I end up with a [tag]clusterfuck[/tag] instead of 2 days worth of work.

The moral of this story: Argue until the cows come home about which filing system is better than the others, but always use whatever system your software is comfortable with.