Projects Slow to open up.

The specs on the external drive would be my first concern. Also how is the external attached to the PC? A slow drive on a USB2 connection probably will not perform well.

I'll jump in and say yes, you should move your projects to the D: partition of your internal drive. Performance will likely still be significantly better than with an external drive on USB3.

Cheers for the info man, Much appreciated, I'm not much of a techie when it comes down to it, I really just know the basics.
Andrew

If you are not using per-project audio folders, moving projects around is not going to affect performance. All the audio would still be loading from the global audio folder.

That being the case, you have your answer WRT running the projects on a separate partition. I am guessing this is not a laptop, the best solution is another internal drive either 7200RPM HD or SSD. There are no USB3 ports so an external drive is not a good solution.

I thought your question was, "Will I get better performance running on a partition on the internal drive" and the answer based on your test was No. The best performance one can get on a PC is running multiple internal HDs or SSDs. Usually one only resorts to an external drive when there is no way to add internal storage, for backup or convenience when performance is not an issue.

sausy1981
Hi guys, this is not specific to manchester but has been happening since day one for me. I open sonar go to open a project and it takes around 30 secs or longer for my project to open, in that time sonar goes to 'not responding' then it starts responding and another few secs later my project opens. I never asked before as I just got on with it and it wasn't a big deal. But I'd hate to think something is not as it should be. I'm running Windows 10 64 and sonar 64 on Intel i5, 8 gig ram and 3,10Hz. I store all my projects on an external hard drive while all the other sonar stuff is on the C drive.
Is there anything I should check or is this common enough and it shouldn't worry me.
Thanks,
Andrew

This has been the case for me ever since I first installed Sonar (X1). It varies from a couple seconds to around 30 seconds or more (but never more than a minute unless the project is fuxxored).
 
Things that affect the length of the opening process are...
 
1) If I have my antivirus enabled (if it's on it takes way longer because it's doing some real time shenanigans on the files being loaded AFAICT). If I disable real time scanning it significantly reduces load times/whitescreens/not responding crud. The REAL solution is to whitelist all Sonar files in the AV but I don't do that and sometimes I just leave it on anyway until it starts screwing me up (like on a very large project).
 
2) As the project gets larger. The more clips and effects and whatnot that need to be loaded the longer/clunkier it all becomes upon startup.
 
3) As I edit and create more and more splits/composites/etc the more data that needs to be loaded (the splits cause a lot of screwiness since the new compign features because Sonar needs to have every clip at the ready for Fast Comping). This is why often times once I have finished comping a track I wil create a clone with "Events" option disable (so no clips get cloned) then drag my final comp into that and archive the original track with all the edits. This drops resource consumption dow dramatically (including opening time). This is also why I would LOVE an "Archive Take Lane" feature so I don't have to create a new track every time.
 
4) As versions come and go the open time varies. This is a good indicator (to me) of how efficient that version is. It has fluctuated quite a bit since X3. Currently I am getting pretty rapid open times on Lexington... but everything else is acting up. Not "slower" but just touchy and on the edge of crackles and dropouts. It's disappointing and based on reports Manchester seems to be doing the same crap. Still gonna try it I guess but may have to try Kingston or JP instead.
 
Soooooo... 30 second load time? That's pushing it but it isn't abnormal IME. I use HDD's not SSD's. I would expect much faster load times with SSD's.
 
Cheers.

I will add when it comes to discussions about computers and their components the best place is here http://forum.cakewalk.com/Computers-f84.aspx The builders hang out there and they know much more about this stuff. 

This is true. There has been no discussion about the project content and how that impacts opening a project. There can be more to it than opening the project file and associated wave files.

Hi guys, Thanks a million for the help. I've been out in the studio and did a test. I generally have midi and audio but have all my midi bounced to audio come mix time, I opened up a project I was mixing, 31 tracks, 44 plugins, a little bit of automation and it took 25 seconds to load. I opened up the same project with no plugins or mixing done and it took 23 seconds. I then opened a project I had just started working on, consisted of Addictive drums 2, a bass guitar track, and 2 guitar tracks, and it took 6 seconds. So it may be just that its the amount of tracks and plug ins in the project.
I am gonna continue using the 'data' partition on my HD for my projects and back them up on  my external hard drive. Apologies if I should have posted this elsewhere in the forum, I've been guilty of that a couple of times, I generally only go through the general discussion forum.
Thanks for the help guys, I guess this behaviour is not unusual.
Andrew

tenfoot
Andrew - is your system just as slow to open consecutive projects  as it is the first one? In other words, open sonar, then open a project. Let that play for a minute. If you then close that project (not sonar), then open another similar sized project, is it just as slow to open as the first?

Now you say it I think that might be the case sometimes although I had opened and closed a few projects by the time I did my test.

21 seconds with 31 tracks and no plugins seems a bit long. Are you sure you had no plugins? You can save a version of the project with no plugins by loading in safe mode and skipping all plugins and then resaving the project under a new name. Does it still take long to load? 
You can also check if there is any audiosnap data in the project since that can take time. Try clearing all audio snap data and resaving, then test the load time again...

Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
21 seconds with 31 tracks and no plugins seems a bit long. Are you sure you had no plugins? You can save a version of the project with no plugins by loading in safe mode and skipping all plugins and then resaving the project under a new name. Does it still take long to load? 
You can also check if there is any audiosnap data in the project since that can take time. Try clearing all audio snap data and resaving, then test the load time again...

Hi Noel, Yes I have the project saved with all my mix prep done as in edits, colour coding and routing. But basically the 'board' is zeroed. That takes 23 seconds. ( I start each mix version from this saved file) So in a songs folder I will have " 'title' to mix " then " 'title' mix 1, etc. If I open up the one where I have most of the mix done it takes 25 secs.
I'm unclear how to check audio snap data, but will look that up now. I know that I haven't used audio snap in the project.
Thanks for your help,
Andrew