Question What causes Disk Cache Overload issues?

[lunarish]

Hello,

when I have alot of tracks running in Cubase the disk cache overload meter maxes out and I get audio dropouts. I suspect that my HDD is too slow to handle the load.

Any ideas?

 

[Ralston18]

Edit/update your post to include full system hardware specs and OS information.

Be sure to include HDD: make, model, capacity, how full?

Next, start reducing the number of tracks to determine if the overload meter stops maxing out and the audio dropouts end.

Be methodical, keep notes, post accordingly.

 

[lunarish]

Edit/update your post to include full system hardware specs and OS information.

Be sure to include HDD: make, model, capacity, how full?

Next, start reducing the number of tracks to determine if the overload meter stops maxing out and the audio dropouts end.

Be methodical, keep notes, post accordingly.

I apologize.

I have read threads on the cubase forum and posted my own, but the people there don't seem to have a good understanding of computer hardware. Since other people are experiencing the same issue I doubt there is an issue with my system in particular. I think one component is bottlenecking my workflow. My guess is that it could be resolved with a SSD? Is this plausible?

 

[Ralston18]

Resolved with a SSD?

Perhaps but more information is needed. As an initial assessment - likely not but more needs to be known.

You can use Task Manager and Resource Monitor to determine if some bottlenecking is occurring.

Just use one tool at a time and see if you can discover what is happening when the overloads (?) occur.

 

[lunarish]

Resolved with a SSD?

Perhaps but more information is needed. As an initial assessment - likely not but more needs to be known.

You can use Task Manager and Resource Monitor to determine if some bottlenecking is occurring.

Just use one tool at a time and see if you can discover what is happening when the overloads (?) occur.

I hope this helps:

 

[Ralston18]

Helps a bit....

Disk E = 100% , Disk F - 0% (?) As stated, more needs to be known.

Not familar with Cubase so not at all sure about what all it is actually measuring and how the measurements, etc. should be intrepreted.

Back to basics....

Update your post to include full system hardware specs and OS information.

Include PSU: make, model, wattage, age, condition (original to build, new, used, refurbished).

Disk drive(s): make, model, capacity, how full?

Open the Disk Management window and expand so all drives and information can be seen.

Take a screenshoot and post the screenshot here via imgur (www.imgur.com).

Also: have you made any changes to virtual memory?

It may well be that the HDD is "too slow". That needs to be confirmed in some manner and other possibilities eliminated: e.g., lack of drive space somewhere...

 

[NorbertPlays]

Cubase isn't my DAW of choice, but the principle is the same in most of them. While it's playing audio it reads it in big chunks from the hard disk into RAM (the "cache"), then plays from RAM whilst reading the next chunks; when recording audio it'll buffer some in RAM then flush it to disk whilst recording the next chunk (whilst also having to read audio for the other tracks). Cache Overload is telling you that the hard disk can't keep up - it might be it can't read the data fast enough during playback so it can't keep the cache full, or it might be it can't write data fast enough so the cache fills up. The two most likely reasons for this are:

• There are too many tracks, and it's just exceeding the capabilities of a mechanical drive.
• Hard disk is getting full/fragmented which means the mechanism has to work harder to find what it's after.

You can temporarily fix both problems (merge tracks so it has to read less data, or delete some files and run the Disk Optimiser in Windows), but longer term I'd strongly recommend switching to an SSD rather than a mechanical drive as it'll fix the problem regardless of what's causing it. It doesn't even need to be a big one - use the SSD while you're working on a song, them move them to the other drive for storage.

 

[lunarish]

Thanks for the help so far!

Helps a bit....

Disk E = 100% , Disk F - 0% (?) As stated, more needs to be known.

The Data my DAW reads is on Disk E. It goes to 100% when I press play in my DAW.

Not familar with Cubase so not at all sure about what all it is actually measuring and how the measurements, etc. should be intrepreted.

Back to basics....

Update your post to include full system hardware specs and OS information.

Include PSU: make, model, wattage, age, condition (original to build, new, used, refurbished).

Okay, I have to check what powersupply is in there, but the PC was professionally put together, so it should be adequate.

Disk drive(s): make, model, capacity, how full?

Not full at all the model is already in the OP.

Also: have you made any changes to virtual memory?

No, I haven't.

It may well be that the HDD is "too slow". That needs to be confirmed in some manner and other possibilities eliminated: e.g., lack of drive space somewhere...

Okay, drive space is plenty accross the board.

• There are too many tracks, and it's just exceeding the capabilities of a mechanical drive.

I think this may be the reason. The issue occurs when I have alot of tracks running in parallel from this particular HDD.

• Hard disk is getting full/fragmented which means the mechanism has to work harder to find what it's after.

It certainly isn't full.

You can temporarily fix both problems (merge tracks so it has to read less data, or delete some files and run the Disk Optimiser in Windows), but longer term I'd strongly recommend switching to an SSD rather than a mechanical drive as it'll fix the problem regardless of what's causing it. It doesn't even need to be a big one - use the SSD while you're working on a song, them move them to the other drive for storage.

That is a good idea. Is there a benefit on getting a M.2 style SSD? Since there is no hurry, can I expect to find good deals and how can I look for them? I take it a SSD is so much faster in any case, that I should see improvement with a random model?

 

[NorbertPlays]

Is there a benefit on getting a M.2 style SSD? Since there is no hurry, can I expect to find good deals and how can I look for them? I take it a SSD is so much faster in any case, that I should see improvement with a random model?

A typical SSD will be 5-10 times faster at reading than a typical mechanical drive which is probably enough to solve this particular issue - an NVMe M.2 drive would likely be overkill if you're just looking to fix the Cache Overflow problem, but using one as a boot drive and to store applications and plugins and sample libraries and stuff will improve your quality of life no end!

 

[lunarish]

A typical SSD will be 5-10 times faster at reading than a typical mechanical drive which is probably enough to solve this particular issue - an NVMe M.2 drive would likely be overkill if you're just looking to fix the Cache Overflow problem, but using one as a boot drive and to store applications and plugins and sample libraries and stuff will improve your quality of life no end!

Thank you very much. At what size are SATA SSDs stopping to get cheaper $/TB?

 

[NorbertPlays]

Thank you very much. At what size are SATA SSDs stopping to get cheaper $/TB?

I'd say between 1-2TB is probably the sweet spot and anything above 4TB seems to attract crazy prices.

 

[lunarish]

I'd say between 1-2TB is probably the sweet spot and anything above 4TB seems to attract crazy prices.

Thanks again. Have a nice day.