I’ve been using Audacity for decades. Last few years I’ve been using 2.x with Windows 10, with a USB3 external SSD drive. Zero issues. Recently I upgraded to latest version. What a mistake. I’m reading these forums about the error that it can’t read a file from drive… and low and behold there’s a disclaimer that Audacity doesn’t work well with external drives. It was never a problem before, but now it is? I’m not aware of an other windows program that thinks it’s OK not to work with any drive in the Windows file system. I’m not talking about latency, recording to disk or anything like that. Just straight up editing, mixing, exporting, saving. The program crashes, and you’re SOL. I read the troubleshooting section, even downloaded the repair tool. It took forever and did not work. May I suggest you stop wasting time on repair utilities and fix the actual problem. A program that corrupts its own files when the user saves his work is a major failure in my book. I am now abandoning several projects started in V3 and reverting to V2. Thanks for NOT warning us that V3 is unstable, unusable.
fix the actual problem.
The actual problem is that Audacity has to be able to perform all its jobs on whatever drive is assigned to it. The worst-case example given is trying to maintain split-second perfect overdubbing, track managent, and note matching when your backing track is miles away on a cloud drive.
Not happening.
There’s no good way for Audacity to test whether or not a drive is up to the task and the only way to guarantee performance is to insist on using the local drive for everything.
I am now abandoning several projects started in V3 and reverting to V2.
That’s not the worst idea.
My old company used to do usability and stability testing before assigning valuable jobs to a software update.
I’m not pleased with the current fashion of issuing a software update every fifteen minutes because everybody expects it. I believe, but can’t prove, that the last three browser updates had to do with the color of the buttons.
My working Audacity is 2.4.2.
Koz
That’s my gold-standard - and one I often use for initial regression testing.
2.x does, however, require a good understanding of the multiple file project structure so one does not accidentally destroy the project (as many 2.x and 1.x users have done in the past).
Peter
I’ve been using Audacity for decades.
The user claims a good familiarity with version 2, so this seems a good path.
Koz
Indeedy - my warning was really for the incautious, inexperienced, users who may read this thread 
Peter.