Logic's Dreaded "disc Too Slow" Error Message! Options

[ryanie]

I am running a 1.25 Ghz G4 power book with 1.25 gig of ram. I am running Logic 6.4.1 and I constantly get the "disc too slow" error message if I use more than 5 tracks of audio and an audio instrument. I have tried buying more ram, freeing up space on my hard drive, freezing files, changing buffer size.. everythng! From what I can gather from other fourums it's a pretty common problem and it does not seem to be a hardware problem it seems to be a data transfer problem with Logic. My question is what can I do about it ????
Is it possible to upgrade my Logic 6.4.1 to a more later version of 6 (i dont want to buy logic 7) and will this even help matters?

[lepetitmartien]

Max up your ram anyway, 1,25 GB is not fun enough anyway.

Now, if you use the system drive, it's common, you ask too much from a drive which has other duties (system, apps, VM swap file). Start maybe with maxing out the RAM, as the more you have the less you rely on the VM (you'll have still need of a swap file, but a small one, it'll take days of continuous use to make it to 512 MB). It may do the trick for your case, but else:

Simple solution is the external firewire hard drive…

[mortalengines]

I'd recommend the external Firwire drive in addition to all the RAM you can afford. Pacific Pro Audio sells high quality Seagate Oxford 911 drives from 40 gigs on up & they are quite reasonable in price in addition to the fact that for a while there they were one of the only brands endorsed by Digidesign for use in their Pro Tools systems. I think the link is pacificproaudio or they can be googled.

This post has been edited by lepetitmartien: Tue 19 Dec 2006, 01:39

[gdoubleyou]

mortalengines, is correct the internal Powerbook drive is only 5400 rpm, also OSX will allways use part of your system disk for virtual memorya( sometimes up to 15-20 GB) so if you have less than 10 GB free disk space system performance will suffer.

I use the Pacific Pro Audio drives, or you can get a CompUSA branded fanless firewire enclosure and put in your own drive.

I have a 1GHz Powerbook, and I have no problems with sessions of 32-48 tracks, but I have to freeze tracks when adding effects during the mixing process.

[lepetitmartien]

Very good and fanless enclosures are the Icecube/pleiades ones, they can be found at firewiredepot, they seem to be name FireXpress.

I have 5 enclosures of 2 different types of the icecube/pleiades brand (similar), they rock. But use quiet drives (like seagate) as they tend to conduct well drive noise.

[ryanie]

Thank you for your wise advice, I have ordered a 250gig pacific pro oxford 911, I'll let you know how it goes. My ram slots are maxed out. Ps Is it advisable to partition my external drive when I get it?

[lepetitmartien]

Well, on the block size issue, it's no more a real problem, but if you make 2 equal partitions, you can move files from on to the other for instant optimisation

developed:

- you have partition A and Partition B
- you use mainly partition A
- you"back up" (it's not a real one, you have still one physical drive only so its failure if there's one is for both partions…) song S (that is all the files) to partition B
- you have song S clean and proper on B
- you can reformat Partition A so it's clean and proper and empty (don't mix up! you see the potential problem) and use it for something new
- you can work on S still from partition B with better access times.

To part the drive in two will help the work of the system and the drive a little too (no more on huge location table, but 2 smaller ones and less distance between the allocation table and the files.

Given the potential mix up (there's a format in between, if you don't back up properly of format the wrong partition or the drive… no paranoia but keep this in mind somewhere), I can't tell you do this but it's one possible use. You can just use partition to séparate projects to simplify things for you, it's all up to you. It way more safe to do this by using 2 different drive with one as a back up, only powered when needed.

[Heath Watts]

I have a LaCie 320 GB external HD, but only 1 GB of system RAM. I'm getting the disc too slow message too. I am using a new Mac Book with the dual core processors. I'm planning to upgrade my RAM. Is my LaCie a good choice for recording using Logic Pro?
Thanks,
Heath

Max up your ram anyway, 1,25 GB is not fun enough anyway.

Now, if you use the system drive, it's common, you ask too much from a drive which has other duties (system, apps, VM swap file). Start maybe with maxing out the RAM, as the more you have the less you rely on the VM (you'll have still need of a swap file, but a small one, it'll take days of continuous use to make it to 512 MB). It may do the trick for your case, but else:

Simple solution is the external firewire hard drive…

[lepetitmartien]

LaCie is usually all right though there's been reports of hard drive failure in the last months (at least in Europe). Now the enclosure themselves are fine, it's the drives used which seemed a bad bunch.

this said, no known issue at all known with Logic.

In fact if it's not LaCie, always look at the bridge chipset (oxford are good) then you can check if there's a fan or not etc. If you can see the enclosure IRL, always check the metal parts touch well the drive, the sturdiness of the power adapter if there's one (bigger IS better: small transformers inside will die sooner than later and small switched-mode power supplies will pollute the mains), the finish (if it looks cheap, it is cheap).

For example I've got a USB2/eSATA Icybox as a safety for my G5 SATA internal drives, just in case (had to buy it last year as my CPU was dead), the enclosure looks cheap (a few part are in plastic and shouldn't be), but the bridge is fine, no fan and none needed (vent all around, fin metal plates touch the 2 large surfaces of the hard drive), sturdy adapter, I wouldn't recommend it for live or on the move use, but at home, it's fine. This one is widely available in Europe, I don't know for North America, I don't remember to have seen it online in US shops… Just an exemple of a compromise (cheapest SATA to something I could plug enclosure I've found a year ago)

[LaMort]

From what I can gather from other fourums it's a pretty common problem and it does not seem to be a hardware problem it seems to be a data transfer problem with Logic. My question is what can I do about it ????

The obvious answer is buy a ext FW drive, but there is other things you could do to increase the performance of Logic, like streamlining your operating system when you run Logic. Some examples would be turn off your "Airport" and Bluetooth. Turn off your "Dock" functions like magnification and hiding. Also the manual says taking off the photo on your desktop helps.
Then optimize your "Audio Hardware and Driver" preferences, you could turn up the latency on your soundcard or adjust your memory buffer till your system is running better. You should also turn down the amount of audio channels you require, to conserve RAM. All of this stuff is minor but should help.

Don't forget though, you should always use a different drive then your system drive when working with audio.

This post has been edited by LaMort: Tue 13 Mar 2007, 02:03