DP 11 "pauses" when recording a high track count to external thunderbolt drive

[rjbishop]

I do not track with plugins even inserted, let alone active, and the drive is connected directly to the computer, no hub. (though I do have a USB hub hooked up to the 3rd TB/USB4 port for things like my time machine drive, webcam, etc.) I'll be trying the new thunderbolt cable today.

You mentioned that "The fastest that your PCIe 3 external can run is 1/4 to 1/3 that of internal storage over a 4 Lane pipe." So this means the external drive by nature is considerably slower than the internal drive?

You've been very helpful and I appreciate that. One thing I just realized based on the knowledge you passed to me is that I left out a crucial element to the signal path: my analog console. What happens during tracking is that the individual tracks go into the the preamps in the interfaces, go to the computer over TB2, are recorded by the computer, then go back out (still as individual tracks) to the analog outs of the interfaces and into the line inputs on the console and are summed. the 2-mix is routed back to a stereo track in the daw and i monitor all the audio through that stereo track.

This is the signal path for when I record to the internal drive. When i try to record to the external drive it's adding two more stages to the signal path - one to the external drive and one from the external drive. Maybe these last 2 stages are too just much for the bandwidth.

I'm still going to try the new cable, clean out my internal storage (needs to be done anyway), and if all else fails, upgrade my OS. We'll see what happens. Again, thanks for the help and I'll keep you posted.

[CharlzS]

Maybe has something to do with background processing. Not that it solves anything, but just for grins, in preferences, turn off background processing and beat and tempo analysis to see if the pause is eliminated.

[rjbishop]

I double checked and those processes are definitely turned off. Thanks for the idea, though.

[rjbishop]

just tested with the cable that came with the drive and the problem remains, so it's not the cable.

[mikehalloran]

…
You mentioned that "The fastest that your PCIe 3 external can run is 1/4 to 1/3 that of internal storage over a 4 Lane pipe." So this means the external drive by nature is considerably slower than the internal drive?

Yes, you are limited by the bandwidth of the 4-Lane TB3 pipe. TB4 adds the ability to connect more TB3 devices to a port and bus but the max data flow is the same. This cannot change till TB5 based on the USB 4.2 standard is released — next year, perhaps? Till then...

One thing I just realized based on the knowledge you passed to me is that I left out a crucial element to the signal path: my analog console. What happens during tracking is that the individual tracks go into the the preamps in the interfaces, go to the computer over TB2, are recorded by the computer, then go back out (still as individual tracks) to the analog outs of the interfaces and into the line inputs on the console and are summed. the 2-mix is routed back to a stereo track in the daw and i monitor all the audio through that stereo track.
…

TB2 has a max rate half that of TB3/4 over 2 or 1 Lanes and TB1 is half that TB2 over 1 Lane. This may very well be the bottleneck.

Internally, your storage is on a PCI 6 Lane bus that allows a huge multiple in the amount of parallel processing power over 4, 2 & 1.

Again, thanks for the help and I'll keep you posted.

Happy to help where I can.

Meanwhile, move everything you can to external. With your setup, you should be able to move projects over to the external for mix/master after tracking without noticing a significant hit if any. VIs, AppleMusic and a few others can be moved over as well.
https://support.apple.com/guide/music/c ... 48042d/mac

[rjbishop]

thanks for all the help. Yes, I am now of the opinion that the convoluted data chain is the problem. Unfortunately I cannot change to TB3 or TB4 the interfaces - they're TB2 and that's that. I was originally going to use MOTU 8Ms as interfaces and link them via AVB, but MOTU is having ongoing manufacturing problems and I couldn't wait any longer, so I had to go with the only other option that fit my workflow: Presonus Quantums. They're actually doing a decent job even if it's TB2.

I think it interesting, though, that while there are 6 data transfers points in my data flow, the first 5 work great. There's no slowdown at all, even though it's mostly TB2. But add a sixth transfer point and THAT's when the problem starts, and it's a pretty big problem.

Yes, I will most likely just track from the internal drive and mix from the external. I'll just have to stay on top of disc space and archiving. Not a huge deal.