Large file is on Hard Disk instead of memory

[NicoW]

I'am working on a sound file of 350 MB. The hard disk keeps on spinning (15 seconds!) when I put the view window to the right. So horizontal scrolling very slow!

How can I force Audacity to put this file in memory to make operation much faster?

[kozikowski]

Close everything but Audacity? When was the last time you restarted your machine?

This sounds like what happens when your machine is busy doing other things and Audacity gets left in the dust. Having multiple processors doesn't help. Audacity can only address one processor

I know people that constantly juggle Twitter, Facebook, Texting and multiple different projects. Not everybody gets away with that.


One other note. Each time you make a change, Audacity has to save the whole project for UNDO. If you're running short of hard drive space, that can really create problems.

Koz

[Gale Andrews]

How can I force Audacity to put this file in memory to make operation much faster?

You don't, unless you use obsolete versions of Audacity that had such a feature, or want to risk setting your Audacity temporary folder to a RAM drive.

Note that if this 350 MB file is a compressed format like MP3 or M4A, Audacity expands that to PCM audio so the space on disk (or in RAM) could be several GB. Audacity is only a 32-bit application, so the native Audacity RAM feature that we used to have could only address 2 GB of RAM, and it often caused Audacity to crash before using that much memory.

The safer option would be to use a solid state drive.


Gale

[NicoW]

Indeed, closing down all applications helps a lot! Thanks.

I was working on a gpp-file; compressed as well. I will consider installing a ssd.

Thanks