[Darryl Ramm]

Do you need to have a 256 sample buffer when recording or can you run at a larger buffer size and monitor through hardware monitoring in the interface? Even if you cannot in practice record like that can you at least play back reliably with the largest size IO buffer?

Sounds like you had a fairly useless interaction with Avid support.

Yes plugins all load at startup, but it’s the sample based VI plugins that soak up memory, and good it seems you are not using any of those.

With limited memory set disk cache to “normal”, do not have any other programs running, including web browsers. uncheck “dynamic plugin processing”. And while troubleshooting uncheck “ignore errors”

What *exact* model G-tech external drive are you using?

What session sample rate are you working at?

What *exact* AAE or other errors are you getting?

Double check every last optimization is done, including disable WiFi, disable Bluetooth, I would try disabling all networking, (also mark all drives private so they are not spotlight indexed).

Please try to pay careful attention to stuff and provide clearer specific info... sounds like you should have run through standard troubleshooting steps long ago... you are running a marginal memory system but I would try to understand what is causing your problems with small sessions before potentially spending thousands of dollars.