LONG saving times...

[Prime Mover]

I'm having some bad saving problems. Times of a minute, 2, maybe even 3. I repaired permissions, trashed my prefs, and it's still bad. But it's inconsistent. Sometimes it's only about 5 seconds, some times minutes. I've restarted, and done everything I can think of. Only thing I want to do left is defrag my drive, cuz I'm over-taxing it.

I've heard of other people having long save times before, but I never heard the verdict. Anyone know what causes this?

[FMiguelez]

Are you using something like VE Pro in Preserved mode?

If so, that could be one reason The solution would be to use Decouple mode, minding its caveats (my saving times are also quite long, but this does not explain the different saving times you talk about).

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Might be a corrupted file. Is it just one project or all? If one, I'd load the sequences to another new project. Could also be a bad directory. Check the drive w/Disk Utility.

[cuttime]

Long Undo History?

[Radiogal]

You probably need to copy/clean/format/restore your audio hard drive or defrag it.

[labman]

I second FM's query - VE Pro in Preserved mode??? That will kick it up in a big way

[Prime Mover]

I don't use/have VE Pro, so that's not the problem.

[Radiogal]

Hard drive Hard drive Hard drive Hard drive Hard drive Hard drive Hard drive Hard drive Hard drive Hard drive Hard drive..!!!

------------- hard to read/write------------------

defrag me defrag me defrag me defrag me defrag me defrag me
Reformat Reformat Reformat Reformat Reformat Reformat Reformat
Whatever, DO SOMETHING to make your hard drive happy !!!!
Cuz it seems to feel like this:

Just my 2 heavy coins...

[waterstrum]

Multiple chunks with lots of data on each?
Or try saving to another drive?

[PJ]

I'm also having this problem sometimes. Big projects with multiple chunks. I have noticed that if DP crashes after you have created files, those files keep hanging to corrupt save process (somewhere in undo history or something). When you start DP after crash and it will ask you to use those files created before crash, delete(!) files. By doing that at least I didn't have long saving times in that project. Clearing undo history/deleting analyze files could also help. Of course it's possible that we don't have the same problem.
I have emailed this bug to Michael Miller (Motu) and he had some ideas what is going on. Save your Activity Monitor's Sample Process (DP) next time this happens. Send those log files to him. There was some other user who had this same problem. Don't remember who.

At least with my setup this has nothing to do with HD problems.
Edit: This has happened me with 2 weeks old mac and brand new ext HD.

When this long save time happens, look your projects audio files folder. Files are jumping there continosly. DP is doing something odd there.

[Gravity Jim]

I have to go with RG. The first thing I'd do is defrag the drive where the audio files live. I went for years without doing it ("you don't have to defrag a Mac drive anymore"), but thanks to RG's postings I just recently did some reading on the subject that explained why a drive with large files should be defragmented once in a while (and why video and audio guys still do it).

Defragging my Projects drive made DP8 run faster and "cooler." It's a good idea.

[Radiogal]

Defrag is king. My Time Machine drive (4 TB with 2 TB of data) was verrrry slow.
Backing up (every day) took like ages.. even if I only had started the Mac and hadn´t done anything.
I erased the whole disc and did a total TM backup of my system over night. (4 TB with 2 TB of data)
Backups went from verrry slow to verrry faaaaaast!!!

[FMiguelez]

I'm having some bad saving problems. Times of a minute, 2, maybe even 3. I repaired permissions, trashed my prefs, and it's still bad. But it's inconsistent. Sometimes it's only about 5 seconds, some times minutes.

That's the key here.
This inconsistency of saving times is not explained by anything proposed in this thread thus far. If the disk were badly fragmented, it would ALWAYS be slow, would it not?

[Prime Mover]

That's my concern too. I've noticed that it's sometimes connected to Time Machine backups (every hour). When the TM is running, it's almost always slow, but I think I've experienced it at other times too.

Yeah, I'm kinda stumped. But my next step is defray. I'm leaning towards formatting my drive and reloading from a TM backup. Should be more thorough than a defrag, and I won't have to purchase any more software. I've saved all my important stuff to another drive as well, just to be safe.

But I'm not convinced it's just the drive, when I "save" I'm not sure it's actually doing anything for a while. I've had the computer for 2 years now, maybe it's time to get a whole new drive, 2 years is about the max you're supposed to have a drive, from what I've heard. Now that everything in Thailand is sorted out, drives are pretty cheap. I'd like to get two and an external optical. But my budget is pretty tight, and I really need a new LDC mic, which I'll be demoing a number of in the next week or two. I'll have to do some more research.

[FMiguelez]

Yeah, I'm kinda stumped. But my next step is defray. I'm leaning towards formatting my drive and reloading from a TM backup.

I suggest you do a bootable clone using CCC instead. Much faster and less hassle (I also trust it more than TM).