Spotlight and its impact to CPU Usage when recording on a Mac.

[jjnssn]

I have read the optimization suggestions for Mac OS, (latest for 10.13);

Why does AVID suggest only disabling Spotlight when recording over 50 minutes?

Question for the individuals who have a deep underlying understanding of the Mac System / OS

1 . How many of you disable Spotlight when using ProTools? If so, how do you disable? via Terminal? (I understand it is required for indexing within workspace).

2. If you don't disable spotlight are there specific "Spotlight Categories" within System Preferences that you choose to disable?

3. Maybe a different way to ask the question is do you have a method(s) you use to optimize the OS such that the Spotlight process does not or minimally impacts the CPU usage when recording however maintains workspace functionality?

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Originally Posted by jjnssn

I have read the optimization suggestions for Mac OS, (latest for 10.13);

Why does AVID suggest only disabling Spotlight when recording over 50 minutes?

Question for the individuals who have a deep underlying understanding of the Mac System / OS

1 . How many of you disable Spotlight when using ProTools? If so, how do you disable? via Terminal? (I understand it is required for indexing within workspace).

2. If you don't disable spotlight are there specific "Spotlight Categories" within System Preferences that you choose to disable?

3. Maybe a different way to ask the question is do you have a method(s) you use to optimize the OS such that the Spotlight process does not or minimally impacts the CPU usage when recording however maintains workspace functionality?

I'd like to know as well.

[TNM]

Spotlight is so essential, especially if you have any samples on the same drive.. But even with audio projects, spotlight is ultra reliable to re link any missing files.. If they are on the drive, it's instant. Logic makes use of it, kontakt makes extensive use of it, spotlight is a wonderful thing.

All I do is use tinker tool system to build a fresh spotlight index on each drive once a month, the entire process takes 15 minutes a month, and my spotlight databases are always optimal size and perfectly up top date.

I have *never* had a performance issue with spotlight, and I swear, for me at least, turning it off uncovers more problems than it fixes.

YMMV of course, and it could very well be in my case, because I only ever record song length audio...But whatever the reason is, it's only benefitted me over here.

[jjnssn]

Originally Posted by TNM

Spotlight is so essential, especially if you have any samples on the same drive.. But even with audio projects, spotlight is ultra reliable to re link any missing files.. If they are on the drive, it's instant. Logic makes use of it, kontakt makes extensive use of it, spotlight is a wonderful thing.



All I do is use tinker tool system to build a fresh spotlight index on each drive once a month, the entire process takes 15 minutes a month, and my spotlight databases are always optimal size and perfectly up top date.



I have *never* had a performance issue with spotlight, and I swear, for me at least, turning it off uncovers more problems than it fixes.



YMMV of course, and it could very well be in my case, because I only ever record song length audio...But whatever the reason is, it's only benefitted me over here.

So you leave all types checked including searches and no drives in privacy? Essentially the default settings? Thank you.


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[skizzo]

is it just me or didn't they USED to have a little blurb about disabling the cmd + space bar combo in spotlight for starting a record take in PT? I'm pretty sure that was mentioned in older versions like PT8 but I went from that version to 2018.3 so I don't know when they would have stopped suggesting that. I always disable that key combo so PT can use it. I'm just surprised they don't still have that in the optimization section anymore.

[BScout]

Originally Posted by skizzo

is it just me or didn't they USED to have a little blurb about disabling the cmd + space bar combo in spotlight for starting a record take in PT? I'm pretty sure that was mentioned in older versions like PT8 but I went from that version to 2018.3 so I don't know when they would have stopped suggesting that. I always disable that key combo so PT can use it. I'm just surprised they don't still have that in the optimization section anymore.

Yes. Disabling the key combo is still a good idea if you use the shortcut key to put your session into record. There are other shortcut keys to do the same thing: F12 or the numeric pad 3. So if you want to leave the default spotlight combo on, you can switch to one of these.

They also used to recommend turning off spotlight (these are two separate issues - key combo vs file indexing) but at PT11 (it may have been PT10), they changed to using the system file indexing (Spotlight) to match up audio clips vs running their own completely separate databases. Which is a good thing.

So now you need to keep Spotlight on. However, you don't need to keep the key combo shortcut "on" for Spotlight.

[TNM]

Originally Posted by jjnssn

So you leave all types checked including searches and no drives in privacy? Essentially the default settings? Thank you.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

No, I turn off as much as the internet based searching as I can.