I use Audacity for Audio recording and mixing music. I get Not Responding message and pause pretty regularly. System freezes for a few seconds during effects processing. And then resumes.
It hasnt been a problem until this weekend. Freeze time noticeably longer with frequent dropped segments during recording. I am editing and recording multiple tracks - lately cant get more than 2-3 before crashing. I upgraded to latest Release 2.4.2 and problems continue.
Using Windows 10. - Lenovo T420s laptop with Core I7 2.7ghz; 128gb SSD; 8gb ram. I do not appear to be at 100%CPU or Memory. Using USB 16gb memory sticks for storage instead of hard drive. I wonder when my machine is going to sunset but this setup has been working pretty well during Covid lockdown, so something is different.
I would not recommend working on a USB stick. USB sticks can be handy for storing finished work, but computer’s access USB sticks as “block devices” which is not really suitable when low latency access is required. Also, they can become very slow when free space starts to run out.
USB 16gb memory sticks for storage instead of hard drive
You should be using a solid state drive. Among other things, the speed pickup when you get your first SSD means you’ll never go back.
SSDs use data shuffling and interleaving to keep you from wearing out one part of the drive. I’m pretty sure the sticks don’t do that. You do back up your work, right?
One of our Systems people and I had almost the same laptop except I had the SSD. I had to do a short job on his machine and I thought it was broken. “No,” he said. “That’s normal.”
Boy if that is all it takes! I cleared out a Sandbox area on my SSD. Load project files from thumb, process on SSD, save to thumb. That gives me space for my folders and versions on thumb drive and so far the Not Responding condition has not appeared! I will work some more before offering to bear your children, but so far I am encouraged!
New to this forum so not sure how to give kudos for the quick and helpful feedback! Running active tracks out of my SSD seems to have corrected my problems! So my thumb drives are now offline storage! Very easy solution!
