Specify disk for recording

This section is now closed.
Forum rules
Audacity 1.3.x is now obsolete. Please use the current Audacity 2.1.x version.

Mac 0S X 10.3 and earlier are no longer supported but you can download legacy versions of Audacity for those systems HERE.
Locked
Equuleus
Posts: 3
Joined: Sat Sep 10, 2011 2:47 pm
Operating System: Please select

Specify disk for recording

Post by Equuleus » Sat Sep 10, 2011 3:14 pm

Greetings All:

New to Audacity.
Cannot find how to direct recording data to external hard disk through USB connection to iBook. Would like more continous recording time than internal disk has room.
Thank you for any assistance.

Robert

steve
Site Admin
Posts: 80677
Joined: Sat Dec 01, 2007 11:43 am
Operating System: Linux *buntu

Re: Specify disk for recording

Post by steve » Sat Sep 10, 2011 3:34 pm

Recording direct to an external device is not recommended as the device needs to be able to sustain a continuous high transfer rate without any interruption. It is generally better to move other stuff off the internal hard drive so that you have sufficient space on the internal drive.

That's not to say that it won't work - just that it's not recommended and may cause problems. If you want to try it, just Save the empty project to the external drive before you start recording. Once the Audacity Project has been saved to disk all audio data will then be written into the project _data file rather than using the temporary folder.

If you've not already done so, I'd highly recommend that you read this section of the manual: http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Audacity_Projects
9/10 questions are answered in the FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQ)

kozikowski
Forum Staff
Posts: 68901
Joined: Thu Aug 02, 2007 5:57 pm
Operating System: macOS 10.13 High Sierra

Re: Specify disk for recording

Post by kozikowski » Sat Sep 10, 2011 10:55 pm

Use FireWire. FireWire was developed to do jobs like this. It's fast and it's fully bidirectional, unlike USB. I'm trying to remember whether or not my iBook had FireWire. I don't remember. USB isn't good because it only sends data one direction at a time and has to periodically wait while it turns the channel around. Waiting is deadly in video or audio.

Koz

Locked