jm24


I was sorta poking the dark.

All versions of Sonar?

Yeah... All versions...
 
I think I'm on to something tho. I think it's a sleep mode built into the drive I'm using as audio drive... an old Seagate Barracuda PATA.... S1Two is using the primary drive only.... I'm going to investigate this some more. I can't afford to buy any drives right now (especially with the high prices since the Japanese Nuclear Disaster and Tsunami) and I don't wnat to take the Audio drive out of my old machine... So I'm hoping to discover a way to disable the drive's built in sleep?
 
It's a Seagate Barracuda ST3750640AS P ATA and I've found some kind of commands related to the sleep and other functions in the drive's manual... I don't yet understand how or if they apply nor how to execute them... yet... but I'm following this line of thought...
 
Thanks...
Keni
 

Could well be.

I thought I remembered that even though I set the power options to High Performance that if you go into the advanced settings within that power plan that it STILL has it set to turn off the HARD DRIVE after some short number of minutes.

THAT is why I suggest that you go look at that and make sure it is set to some crazy high number - I use 999.

Everything you indicate above points to the hard drive going nighty-nite.

Also, MULTIPLE places on web indicate it is better to have performance optimized for Background Services, so I do not at all understand why you seem to have deliberately not made THAT change - a bit baffling.  Your disk transfer process FASTER with that setting checked.

Anyways, I URGE you to go check that SPECIFIC setting under advanced power settings for the hard drive sleep setting, and likewise urge you to optimize for background services.

Bob Bone

"robert_e_bone"
Also, MULTIPLE places on web indicate it is better to have performance optimized for Background Services, so I do not at all understand why you seem to have deliberately not made THAT change - a bit baffling.

<cough>MMCSS</cough> 

"robert_e_bone"

Your disk transfer process FASTER with that setting checked.

How so?

It was my understanding that processing large/sustained data transfers was enhanced with this setting checked.  Is that not correct?

Bob Bone

This advice has been round for a while.As descrbed in this page:   http://www.audioforums.com/windows-xp-optimization.php

Performance

Under Start > Control Panel > System, select the Advanced tab. Click the Performance "Settings" button and select the Visual Effects tab. Choose ?adjust for best performance? and then select the Advanced tab. Under Processor Scheduling, select "Background services" to ensure lowest latency with ASIO-based drivers (ASIO drivers run as background services in Windows). Select "Programs" under Memory Usage to ensure that enough RAM gets allocated to your applications.


BUT::::

 We have been told that Sonar runs ASIO as a daughter process, not a backgroud service.

This does not mean some computers will work better with it checked.

I have not read that it can affect data transfers. Am interested though.

Keni, rather than muck with setting on a probable cause for the drive you place your audio.. why not simply move those audio files to your program drive and see if it runs smoothly?

when i started storing my project files on my main hard drive and not an external drive i noticed a difference.
i used to store all my projects on an external drive and just load them in as i opened projects.
i dont know if it was the cable transfer time,i dont know,
what i do know is i have a much more responsive daw to my projects.

"robert_e_bones"
It was my understanding that processing large/sustained data transfers was enhanced with this setting checked.

How did you come to that conclusion?

I may well be incorrect in my understanding on background services affecting data transfers.  This goes a LONG way back, as I have had that setting in place since about 1891 or so :)

I have always just set it to balance for background services and never ever think about it again.

Bob Bone

I thought that the change affected the time slicing algorithms and that in addition to helping background services like ASIO, this also helped data transfers by getting a longer slice.

Is that not correct?

Bob Bone