Good morning everyone.
Been using Audacity for a bit now and just bought a 1 TB external HDD. Want to know how to increase my recording time with the program. Do I transfer my recorded files from my internal HDD to the external HDD and just load them from there or what?
Also used the Beta program for a while and then had an issue when I closed the 1.2.6 version and wanted to open Beta. Said I already had a version running even though it was closed. Should I try downloading Beta again or just have one or the other only on the computer.
Kindest regards…and thanks for answering.
Marc 
You can put your exported WAV files anywhere you wish, but you can’t move Saved Audacity Projects.
Change the Audacity Preferences (Directories??) to point to your new drive. There is one downside to capturing to a stunningly huge hard drive. They’re slow. Audacity does everything in real time. It doesn’t do slow.
If you’re on a Windows System, you will live in the Error Check and Defrag services to keep the drive speed up. Linux and Mac systems are much better at this. You may find Audacity crashing or producing stuttering shows because of speed problems.
So what kind of machine have you got and how is the hard drive connected?
Koz
Hi Koz and thanks for your reply.
Here is my setup. Win XP Home…1.5 GB RAM and 250 GB internal HDD with 1 TB Western Digital HDD.
i don’t save Audacity projects…rather use indiviual tracks/songs and usually export them to a project folder (such as My Downloads or a seperate folder for my recording work) I set up on the internal drive. Was wondering if just storing these individual wav or MP3 files on the external drive will free up more recording space…or does recording space depend on the size of the HDD the program is loaded on which is my internal.
Bought the external to have plenty of storge space as my internal drive now has about 144 GB left on it and am thinking about storing just music and photo/vid files on the external.
Suggestions welcomed and thanks again for taking time to reply.
Regards…
Marc
What do you back up to? If Windows comes up with a screen that says, “No System Found. Please provide a drive or network address with a bootable operating system.”
Now what?
The rule is to back up all valuable work at least one layer – My Documents on your system drive and My Documents Backup on your external drive. There are provisions to back up to web services, so the work isn’t even in your house. Macs now have Time Machine which does a continuous backup if you let it.
So you’re short one 1T external hard drive.
After you straighten that out, capture to an internal drive. Assuming you can, put a second hard drive inside your computer, d: c: has the bootable operating system and the programs, d: stores the live capture files. Unless you mess something up, all internal drives run at the same speed and it’s very good.
External drive and back up drive carry copies of non real time works. Mine carries my TV show collection. Even in the original MPEG2, they’re huge since they started to broadcast in HiDef.
Koz
Hi again Koz and thanks.
I have My Documents backed up on the External drive…so just save on there I presume and perhaps delete the files on the internal drive…or save to CD/DVD?
That’s what I’m thinking at this point.
Have a good evening.
Marc
Once you have Exported sound files, you can put them anywhere. Capture to a second internal drive if you can or the system drive if you need to. Make sure it’s error checked and thoroughly defragmented.
Sometimes, assuming a Windows machine, the Virus software starts slowing things down. Disconnect the network, halt the virus software and continue on.
Koz
Many thanks Koz…I’ll let you know how I make out.
Regards…
Marc