Sudden Disk Usage Spikes to 50-70%

[Nathan W.]

I'm getting sudden random disk usage spies to 50%-70% and sometimes where protools gives me an error saying it can't access my drive fast enough. It's normally 3-7% then boom, huge spike, then sudden drop off. Anybody have an idea what's causing this? PT11.1.2 OSX iMac using a SSD USB 3.0 drive. Could time machine be responsible for this? Happens when I'm recording / printing my mixes down.

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by Nathan W.

I'm getting sudden random disk usage spies to 50%-70% and sometimes where protools gives me an error saying it can't access my drive fast enough. It's normally 3-7% then boom, huge spike, then sudden drop off. Anybody have an idea what's causing this? PT11.1.2 OSX iMac using a SSD USB 3.0 drive. Could time machine be responsible for this? Happens when I'm recording / printing my mixes down.

Clear information helps. What exact mode/date code iMac? CPU and memory specs? What OS X Version? What exact Pro Tools error number are you getting?

What is the exact make/model/spec/capacity of the USB3 SSD audio/session drive? How full is the drive? Is there anything else using that drive? There should be no VI samples, plugins or apps on it, just audio/session files.

What are all your playback engine settings?

What CPU meter are you looking at?

Have you fully optimized your system? Done every last thing? Time Machine should be disabled. I would also disable spotlight (mark the audio/session volume private, in fact mark all drives as private while debugging) even though Avid say it is OK to enable it for Pro Tools 11.

[Nathan W.]

iMac Late 2013 Mavericks 10.9.4
16 GB Ram
Playback 1024 Samples
Disk Playback Normal
LaCie Rugged 256 GB SSD (using USB 3.0)

Looking at the System Usage meter. The drive is clear of everything except ProTools session files.

Had time machine on, leaving on but excluding my SSD drive I was using. Also turning off spot line for the 256 drive.
___

No random disk spikes anymore hurray!

[Darryl Ramm]

That was easy.

I'd tend to turn off time machine all together/only enable it when not using the system.