10 Things to Try if you get "Disk too Slow"

[JimJulian]

We should put together a sticky given the overwhelming number of replies and views on the forum regarding "Disk too Slow" messages.

I have 12 or so editors using Edius and here are some of the suggestions I give them when this message occurs.

1. Don't overload the computers USB ports or Firewire with hard drives and other devices while digitizing.

2. Check Project Settings to make sure they match the source material.

3. Is the source material your digitizing all the same format, ie, framerate, pixel size, audio, etc

4. Make sure the hard drive is not less than 7200rpm and never fill it beyond 80%. And please no don't format Fat 32. Many LaCie drive default Fat 32.

5. I'm no expert on this one but you might have a bad power supply or not enough power.

6. Try rebooting computer, restarting software, or toggling between OCHI and HDV input settings.

7. Try a different USB or Firewire port.

8. Is it possible your computer is not fast enough to convert material on the fly that is being inputted as HQ?

9. Try digitizing to internal hard drive that is not the system drive.

10. Finally, "Close that Audio Window! Your ******* up resources!"

And yes these are just suggestions. Results may vary.
I'm sure I've missed a bunch. Please add your own.

jim

[pjsssss]

Nice post Jim. Thanks for the time and effort. I wish we could find a common cause from the people that do have this problem.

[THoff]

11. If you are trying to capture live 720P DVCProHD, set the camera to FREE RUN timecode instead of REC RUN. For some reason this works fine in 1080 but not in 720, where you will get the "DISK TOO SLOW" error unless you are using free-running timecode.

[JimJulian]

#12
Defrag, defrag, defrag!

[bashvideo]

thanks for this post ,

yesterday , and before i read this post , i have the same problem : disk too slow .

befor one week i was captureing very well . just yesterday i have 13 tape i need to capture , its 1440 X 1080 60i , i have 2 booting windows on my system , xp and vista ultimate . im working on vista .

when i have this problem yesterday , and before i read this post , i did all the 10 , but the problem also happened , also i make defrag and i have the same problem .

then i went to windows xp , and now im captureing the tape number 5 without problems . just one time windows crash .

thanks alot .

[JimJulian]

#13

According to Brandon @ Grass Valley
"For all intents and purposes, "Disk too slow" really means "Something interrupted the capture process and we stopped before dropping a frame."

In Edius go to Settings, Application, Deck Settings. Be sure to check "Skip errors and continue capture"

[Jeordie]

One more thing to try...

Check if your SATA hard drive(s) drivers are installed.

It has driven me crazy...

Gio

[David Ice]

Another Disk Too Slow "problem"

Now I'm getting error messages at the end of capture that says "Disk Too Slow"--but--when I check the hard drive, all the files are there, correct, and just fine. It's just that Edius does not seem to realize they were captured fine, and when you click the OK button for the "Disk Too Slow" button, the files do not automatically import. It has to be done manually. Any idea whazzup?

[mike0130]

In my case the problem was with the overlay- I made a custom preset for capturing with very small monitors windows, since then I had no problems...

[Majac]

Just realised I hadnt posted my solution which has worked countless times over the last few years - just try capturing again. The drive too slow message usually comes in the first 5 mins, so when capturing a large file I wait for five minutes or so and if the message comes I just try again. It always worked for me on the second try
Michael

[johannesj]

This mide help in some case´s

http://www.diskeepereurope.com/en/03_eb/xhtml/dk_pro_prem_overview.htm

My best
Johannes

[John Harding]

Additional idea/workaround

Hi - just had this on a brand new Quad core PC - the PC builder (DVC in Hove, UK) said it is an Edius 'bug' and advised to capture via OHCI (for SD stuff anyhow). Have done 2 captures since and not had a problem - hope this helps someone out there!

[mike0130]

the PC builder (DVC in Hove, UK) said it is an Edius 'bug'

Sure, it is Just think- nobody had this problem before ver 4.5. But there is a trick- this problem may not appear on some motherboards.
To solve it (temporary) on my machine, I made a interface preset with very small player /recorder windows that I am using during capture. I restore their sizes while I am editing.

[JimJulian]

GrassValley_BH
Demystifier/Analogizer

Destination drive is too slow can mean a number of things, but the root cause is that there is a buffer overrun during the capture.

Essentially, something interrupts the data flow enough to cause a frame drop.

This can be from background scanning programs, CPU power management (SpeedStep or the like), drive errors, bus contention, or other odd things.

It can also show up when capturing to a FAT32 volume and you hit the 4GB filesize limit.

Brandon



GrassValley_MD
The Jollymon

To add to Brandon's thoughts here, it can also be caused by a drive going out on you. I know this is a brand new system but watch it closely because you might have a bad drive

Mike


GrassValley_BH
Demystifier/Analogizer

And most drives that ship nowadays have Write Verify enabled for the first 10 or so powerups. Write Verify lowers write performance.

The idea behind it is sound though - with Write Verify on, if any problems are detected early on, especially during format, those bad sectors will be reallocated to spare sectors. This is all done internally on the drive - the system doesn't "see" anything different, except for some write performance degradation.

Brandon

[easy_edit]

I repeat my answer this is not advertising...
Use scenalyzer software and forget disk to slow error if you work with SD.
I capture on one disk and burn DVD in same time or edit in Edius with files on second disk. In task manager set Affinity use CPU0 for Eius and CPU1 for scenalyzer on my C2Duo E6600

http://www.scenalyzer.com/main.html

ScenalyzerLive now supports capturing from the Storm, the EZDV and the Raptor RT Canopus Cards