"Disk is too slow" ???

I've been running Garageband happily eversince I bought my iMac 18 months ago, using it to transfer old cassette tapes to the Mac. Then suddenly 2 days ago I got the error message 'Disk is too slow'. Nothing unusual about the tape, just pop group (M People), not 1000-piece orchestra. The 250GB disk has 224GB free space. Tried closing all other apps (I don't run many anyway) but still problem. I need to finish off this copying urgently and I'm slightly desperate. No-one in the Garageband discussions has come up with anything.
No other apps have any problems, but then all the others presumably can control their input speed.
What is the problem causing the message, and how can I fix it? Is it because the disk has become fragmented, and if so is there an equivalent of the PC defrag utility for Mac? If not, what? Please help!!

Even in the PC world, defragmenting is never going to cause a problem like this. Defragmenting gives negligible benefits, at best. In the Windows world, people would be much better off if they forgot words like "defragment" and "registry". They end up either just wasting time or messing around with things they shouldn't be messing around with.
That said, run Apple Hardware Test on your system. The extended tests. That will see if there's anything obviously wrong with your system. If not, take it to an Apple store or AASP in your area, and ask them to run a check of the HDD. I'd tell you exactly what program to have them run, but in my experience you just get blank stares, followed by a second or two of silence, then a quick, "Uh-huh". Meaning they didn't understand a thing you just said. So just tell the person to have the monkeys in the back run tests on the HDD. They should be able to have an answer in a half hour or so.

Similar Messages

No Audio Playback due to Error Message "Disk is too slow. (Prepare) (-10001)"

Out of the blue, no audio playback. Was working just fine earlier today.
I repeatedly get the error message:
Disk is too slow. (Prepare)
(-10001)
NOTE: I have more than enough disc space. That is NOT the issue.
I also just got a second error message:
Part of the Project was not played
This project has too many real instrument tracks to be played in real-time. To optimize performance, see the 'Optimizing GarageBand performance' page in GarageBand Help.
NOTE: Odd as I have only 2 tracks in the GarageBand file.
Any others experience this? Suggestions?

Have a look into the Preferences folder (YourUserFolder/Libraries/Preferences/) and trash all Logic preferences.
You'll have to setup the program again.
cheers
rob

Why am I getting this error message, "Disk is too slow. (Prepare) (-10001)"

Hello all! I've been using GarageBand for a while now and I've accumulated quite a few files. Along with all of my movies and iTunes library, my internal hard drive filled up rapidly and I didn't catch it. I received a warning message on my screen one day saying that my hard drive was nearly full and I only had a few MB available. I'm using a 150 GB Solid State Hard Disk on my 2009 MacBook Pro (2.6 GHz Intel Cre 2 Duo, 4 GB of RAM). I remembered reading a while back that it's better to use an external hard drive for pretty much everything when using Garageband, so I bought one. I now have a seagate 500 GB, 5400 rpm external (USB 2.0) and I moved ALL of my movies and music over to it. I freed up around 60 GB of space on my internal hard drive in doing so.
So now that I've given you a little background, let me explain the issue I'm having. Before I noticed that my hard drive was full, I started receiving this error message:
Disk is too slow. (Prepare)
(-10001)
Upon receiving this message, I was unable to do pretty much anything in GarageBand. I couldn't listen to tracks, export to iTunes, or do anything! All I'm using GarageBand for is editing. My band and I do all our recording (and mixing) offsite at a separate studio and i just deliver a 2 track stereo signal (L/R) to my MacBook. From there, I just cut the individual tracks from a block of 30-45 minutes of recording because we just record our entire studio session and mix everything there. I pretty much never have more than two tracks and a few effects going at the same time.
After I realized that my disk was nearly full, I consulted my brother-in-law. He's head of the IT Deartpment at a major hospital here in West L.A. and he told me that I may have created a problem with the cache by filling up my internal hard drive and that I may still have issues with performance even after I free up space. He then told me that I may need to reboot my MacBook a few time to "free up the cache" (or something close to that, sorry guys I'm not that tech-savvy). It seems he may have been right, as I'm still experiencing the same issue. I rebooted around 10 times overall to no avail. I'm still using my internal hard drive to store the files that I'm working on (temporarily) because USB 2.0 is way too slow for my liking, when using GarageBand.
I've read quite a few articles on this offering solutions such as:
1. Do a complete Uninstall and Reinstall of GarageBand
2. Clone my hard drive to my external, format it, and reinstall everything back on it
3. Get a hard drive that supports Firewire 800 (The HDD I bought is USB 2.0, but it has two USB cables to increase speed, but I only have 1 port and I tried a powered USB Hub, but this HDD won't work with it for some reason).
4. Use different editing software.
5. Take it to Apple!
Will any of these things fix my problem? Are some better than others? Before I do anything, I wanted to ask this question on the furum to see if anybody had an easier (or cheaper!) solution. Any suggestions, tips, or advice would be much appreciated, as my band is starting to get on my case about finishing our CD! Thanks...

Have a look into the Preferences folder (YourUserFolder/Libraries/Preferences/) and trash all Logic preferences.
You'll have to setup the program again.
cheers
rob

Error message: "Disk is too slow or System Overload."

When I try to record from the line-in on my MacBook Pro (2.16GHz, 2GB RAM, 100GB 7200rpm HD), I get after some time (that can range from a few seconds to a few minutes) the error message: "CoreAudio: Disk is too slow or System Overeload. (-10010)".
This is weird because I get that error even when recording into an empty project. I have no such error on my old PowerBook G4 (867MHz, 512MB RAM) with the same version of Logic Express (most recent). Both computers are fully up-to-date.
I also get that error on my MacBook Pro very often when I'm working on a project and it's getting pretty annoying, it sorts of halts the process each time...
I also have Mail, iCal and Adium running at the same time as Logic Express, none of which use much CPU so the problem can't realistically be from them...
Any help to resolve this issue or at least shed some light on the potential cause would be greatly appreciated!

Simply having idle applications in the background is probably fine, but I certainly believe that something like Mail checking for new messages in the middle of recording in Logic could cause problems.
I would also check Activity Monitor to see if you have any background processes running that you aren't aware of. My wife's iBook slowed to a crawl once, and I discovered that a printer driver she installed to use a printer at work was using about 80 percent of the CPU.
-Eric

How do I fix the problem 'disk is too slow' and what does it mean anyway?

I'm transferring casete tapes to the Mac via the input line. I've transferrred nearly 100 with no prouble, but sudddenly today two things have gone wrong (see separate question for the other one). This one is that suddenly the error message 'Disk is too slow' comes up. also the track (the top one, not the bottom edit section one) is bright red instead ofthe usual dark purple.
What's gone wrong and how do I fixit?

Sorry about the lack of terms: lazy of me I admit. Having read up Garageband Help, I think I've got the answers. Yes, by the top part I mean the track in the timeline. The bottom part is the same track showing up in what is headed the 'Audio Region' The bright red is the colour the track is in the timeline during recording, and it stays like that until after stopping recording I click somewhere in the timeline section (not necessarily on the track itself) at which time it just goes the normal kind of dull greyish colour an unselected region does.
Thanks for telling me how to see the HD info. Its 250GB, of which I've used about 23GB. The first computer I worked on as a programmer back in 1962 had a 400KB drum (the first disks didn't arrive until 1963) as its random access backing store - and yes, that is a K. The machine also came with 12KB of RAM and 4 tape decks, was the size of a hotel kitchen, and cost about $200,000. You young people don't know how lucky you are

Logic Pro X - Disk is too slow or System Overload. (-10010)

Hi there, I'm a professional music user and recently switched from Pro-Tools to Logic due to PT11's lack of third party plug-in support at the moment. I was looking forward to leaving behind the error messages of Pro-Tools for the supposed plain sailing of Logic. However, after installing Logic X and starting a new session with one track of audio and 4 tracks of software instruments, I'm receiving the following error message when attemping to record a part on one of the software instruments. 'Disk is too slow or System Overload. (-10010)'
I have an 8 core Mac Pro with the latest version of Mountain Lion, 16GB of Ram and a 250GB SSD boot drive (which Logic is installed on). My sessions are ran from a secondary 120GB SSD which has 110GB of free space on it and my sample libraries are streamed from another internal 250GB SSD and a 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive. My interface is a Focusrite Scarlett 6i6 USB 2.0 and my I/O buffer is set to 512.
It is completely unacceptable to me that I should be experiencing error messages with this set up and a 64 bit DAW, particularly when the session in question only has one track of audio and one instance of East West's Play engine, spread across 4 software instrument tracks.
Has anyone else experienced similar problems or have any ideas as to what the solution could be? I'd really appreciate any advice.
Cheers,
David

Just as a quick followup....
After doing a little research online it seems the Scarlett is one of those USB2 devices that has issues with how Apple changed their implementation of USB when they released Macs with USB3 interfaces and put this updated implementation into Lion and later Mountain Lion... and that this is probably why some people have major issues like the OP is reporting and why other's do not. It depends on the hardware/OS X version combination as to if this issue rears it's ugly head.
Oddly enough some Win 8 users are also reporting similar issues with the Scarlett for much the same reason.
The March 2013 Scarlett OS X drivers are intended to 'alleviate' this issue but Focusrite have stated it is only to 'alleviate' in some instances and not completely fix the problem for everyone who has it,.,..
However, the good news is that Focusrite have released some beta drivers (v1.7b2 and later b3) which seem to work better for some people than the last official release...
Mac Only.
General stability/logging improvements:
- Improved audio stream syncing
- Fixed bug which results in occasional inaccurate timestamps
- Improves sample rate switching
- 18i20 stream formats now switch automatically
- Fixes Forte streaming at 176.4/192kHz
You can find them here..
http://beta.focusrite.com
Note: These beta drivers again seem to only alleviate the issues for some people and not all but it has got to be worth giving them a try I would think...

CoreAudio: Disk is too slow

Have just switched over to MAC Pro Intel, a few years old. When press play in Garageband 3 get message "CoreAudio: Disk is too slow. (Prepare) (-10001)" This applies all previous Garageband 3 files and any newly created ones. I cannot play any of them. Can you tell me what this means and how I can fix? Thanks.

I looked at the Activity Monitor and didn't see anything using up resources. I saw disk writes peak out, but nothing to suggest why. I recorded track after track in the same project and finally after the 4th track, it started recording as long as I wanted without a problem. I'm going to chalk it up to disk fragmentation in that particular area.

Repeated Error: Disk is too slow. (Record) (-10005)

Hello brilliant forum users,
I'm using a brand new mac mini with all of the software updated. It's got 2GB of RAM.
I am recording spoken word through a mixer, onto one track (male basic).
There are no other tracks.
I have no other applications open, and the computer has had a fresh boot.
I am getting this error repeatedly, intermittently, with no apparent cause:
Disk is too slow. (Record)
(-10005)
After googling and reading up, I have done the following:
Made sure FileVault is off (it was).
Turned off time machine (I had it on).
In the energy saver preference, deselected 'put hard disk(s) to sleep when possible'.
Still, the error occurred.
Then, I decided to record to my 500GB external (backup) drive, which is connected via usb (I do not have a firewire external drive). I thought, surely this will fix the problem. I made sure time machine was disabled.
Still, the error occurred.
It is totally random, happens at 2 minutes, 20 minutes, or not at all.
I have recording audio resolution set at 'good'.
I am recording via an audio-in (3.5mm I think?) aux cable from an OUT on the mixer.
It seems that I should call apple, but I am at a meditation center in Thailand, and the time difference makes it difficult, not to mention that the computer is in the meditation hall, which makes phone calls difficult.
So, I turn to the trusted experience of YOU!
Thank you very much!
Most appreciatively,
Lizzy

I have also been getting this one intermittently while playing back - sometimes while playing back only one track. Don't know if it's related.
Part of the project was not played
This project has too many real instrument tracks to be played in real-time.
To optimize performance, see the 'Optimizing GarageBand performance' page in GB Help.
hmmm.. that doesn't sound right - and may suggest a software issue.
Have you tried creating a new user account (go to System Preferences, Accounts, and add another account with the "+" sign) and using Garageband from a new account?
Or if that's not working, do a complete uninstall of Garageband...
• trash GB receipts (at the hard drive level)
• trash your Caches folder (at the user level)
• trash all GB preferences (at the user level)
• trash the GB application
... then reinstall Garageband from scratch?
Hope this is helpful!

Disk is too slow or System Overload Errors(-10010)

Hi, It may have been a mistake, but for the 1st time in a long time, I updated my system and software two days ago, after which i tried to runm Logic 9. During playback, I am not getting a random error message that "Disk is too slow or System orverload. This is a system that has operated error free for the past eighteen months, no problems, until now! What really puzzles me about this is the part about "motion Sensor" ! My system is a Mac Pro Desktop unit and not a laptop, and definitely not equipped with and motion sensor(s) at least not that I am aware of.
Can nyone shed some light on this for me?
Thanks in advance

Hi
rockfort wrote:
Did you repair permissions after the OS update?
** I don't know how**
To repair Permissions, in the Finder, use the Go:Utilities function, and run Disk Utility.
In Disk Utility, select the boot drive partition on the left and click on "Repair Disk Permissions".
rockfort wrote:
Free space on the OS and/or Project drive(s)?
** 1.78TB space free on the drive**
So, are you recording /playing back your projects from your System drive?
This is not generally recommended. Instead one should really use an second (Project) drive either Internal (no good for an iMac) or external Firewire/Thunderbolt drive (depends which iMac you have).
Further, the error message you have been getting is a general "Disk too slow" and/or "CPU overloaded" message.
It would be worth keeping an eye on the System Performance meter in Logic whilst playing the project (Double click on the CPU meter in the Transport or use :Options:Audio:System Performance) to see if it is CPU or Disk related
CCT

Disk is too slow or System Overload. (-10009)

Hello all,
I'm running a G4 PowerBook, with 1.67 GHz, and 1.5 GB DDR SDRAM. My Logic set-up is Logic Pro 7 and a Motu 828mkII.
My present Logic project contains 7 tracks, with EXS24 through 6 tracks and Sculpture through the last. The instruments were triggered through a midi keyboard.
While trying to score a short film, I keep running into the following error:
CoreAudio: Disk is too slow or System Overload. (-10009). The error happens while recording and during playback only. There are times when I do not recieve the error message, but playback is terribly jerky and I'm unable to clearly see exactly where I am on the timeline.
I have searched for similar errors on this site and cannot seem to find an answer. I imagine the solution is changing the way I have my I/O setting in the CPU usage. Am I on base?
I'd appreciate any help,
Kris

Hey Cyril and 25G's,
Well I went out and bought a OWC Mercury Elite Pro Firewire 800 with Oxford 912. I transferred the EXS Factory Sample files to the OWC drive. Then I deleted the EXS Factory Sample files on the OS hard disk. Then I created the alias for the Samples and placed the alias back in the Logic file under Application Support on the OS hard disk.
The alias' seem to be working because the Logic project works. The only problem is that it is still terribly jerky.
The CPU is maxing out while the I/O meter is not responding at all. Could this be the clue to my problem?
(Also, Cyril, call me stupid, but I cannot find the Virtual Memory portion in the EXS Preferences.)
Thank you for all your help. (I am a bit slow myself when it comes to Logic and the proper steps to de-bugging a problem. So, very detailed explanations are appreciated)

Disk is too slow or System Overload.

I was working on a project that had a little over hundred tracks, and got this error. I thought that it was understandable, as I had many tracks(even though I was only recording one), so I started a new project to record it, with only one track. But I still got this error when I was recording one track, with no other tracks in the project! How can I fix this?
Here's the complete message:
Disk is too slow or System Overload.
(-10008)
The sudden motion sensor may have parked the hard drive head, or the disk performance is not sufficient to read or write all audio tracks, or the system was not able to process all data in time.
I run this on a 27" iMac with 8GB ram and 7200rpm, which should be enough to play and record many tracks.

ArnsteinK wrote:
so I started a new project to record it, with only one track. But I still got this error when I was recording one track, with no other tracks in the project!
But you didn't shut down Logic or (sometimes best) restart your machine in between ? Often, data gets left in memory and it hasn't had any particular command to clear it otherwise - a lot of allocated memory can be still considered as 'used'.
Well, maybe, but that aside,
ArnsteinK wrote:
I run this on a 27" iMac with 8GB ram and 7200rpm, which should be enough to play and record many tracks.
- hopefully you're not doing that just using your internal computer's drive - if you have, you've been lucky so far.
If you're into Logic it is a well established fact that this message can appear for so many different reasons and its not possible for me to know what goes on with your machine - there are plenty of articles on this forum and LogicProHelp as well as the very concise and accurate (but not always as explanatory as I'd like it to be) stuff on this Apple website.
That's all I can offer at the moment until we have some more technical information, in which case there are others here that may have particular insights as well, so you're gonna have to take it from there because there is no one answer.

Disk is too slow or system overload error with Logic 9.1.4

I have am running Logic 9.1.4 on a MacPro 2 X 2.8 Ghz (Intel) with 8GB of RAM running OS X 10.6.7.
I recently updated to Logic 9.1.4 and was trying to record one track of vocals on a session on which I had previously worked on a few weeks earlier with no issues.
But today I got this error over and over again:
Disk is too slow or System Overload.
Occasionally I would get the message below with the error, but not always:
The Sudden Motion Sensor may have parked the hard drive head, or the disk performance is not sufficient to read or write all audio tracks, or the system was not able to process all data in time.
I don't have a lap top and tried a few fixes found here (buffer size increase ,rebooting etc.). Again, I recorded several tracks of vocals on other days with absolutely no problems. But today couldn't record more than a few seconds at a time without getting this error. The only difference I can think of is that I updated to the latest version of Logic 9 (9.1.4) rather than whatever the previous Logic 9 version was.
Any help at all would be greatly appreciated.

ISSUE RESOLVED!
So after messing around with this for over 4 hours today, I think I have resolved the issue.
The issue seems to have been primarily with my main vocal track, which was frozen while I was recording a harmony vocal. The main vocal track was actually made up of about 20-30 take folders which I had swiped to make one good take. I was hoping to take a good hard listen at my swipes during mixing once all recording was done, so I had never merged into one audio track. Besides, like I said, this track was frozen so I figured it was already playing back as though it was one audio file.
So I just merged all the takes in this track into one file. Counterintuitively, unfreezing about 10 tracks also seemed to improve performance in the meters. Which makes me wonder whether I should use freezing at all? Both these things together seem to have made all the difference.
In the process, I also learned how to run Logic 9 in 64-bit mode, although this (at least by itself) didn't seem to make any difference other than making AmpliTube inoperable.
So the lesson here: don't have too many take folders going at once. And freezing tracks with take folders doesn't seem to come close to being the same thing as playing back one single merged audio file.

Disk is too slow (Record)(-10004) error..so sick of this.

Hello all,
I can no longer record more than three tracks in logic without getting the error message "Disk is too slow (Record)(-10004)". When this happens, recording is stopped.
At first I suspected my drive was faulty, maybe slowing down. So being in the middle of a session that took me 2 hours to set up, I called for a break and rushed off and bought an external Seagate 7200rpm firewire 800 drive. I installed it and set it as the recording path for the project. There was no change, the same error occured.
I then switched the target drive to another internal one I use for Time Machine - same problem occured.
It seems to me that this problem has nothing to do with my drives. I am at a loss to explain it. I have looked for hours online for a solution but while many have experienced this there seem to be few answers out there.
Unless I find a solution this will be my last project with Logic. I tried and tried for the last 5 years to use this program but things like this keep happening. It's glitchy with UAD cards, Duende, RME interfaces, Midi controllers, Hard Drives, RAM and external clocks. I've had problems with them all over the years. I will most likely switch to Cubase which I feel is inferior for editing and loops, but at least it seems to be stable.
If anyone has any insight I'll try and fix it, but I just can't keep shelling out money for a program that just doesn't work.

I am experiencing a similar problem & have been receiving the same messages, even while recording as little as one track and playback has become an issue as well. However, THIS WAS NOT ALWAYS THE CASE. I have heard of people with this same problem, where they receive this message out of nowhere after logic has been working perfectly for them.
I also would like to note that I am running all settings in logic for optimized recording and playback (audio & buffer settings etc etc etc)
THIS IS NOT A HARDWARE ISSUE, at least in my situation as I am running a fast internal HD & have ample memory. Please reach out if you feel like you have a pragmatic solution to this issue.
This may be a possible lead on the fix... I remember reading this post from a user "soundsgood" in 2008 who was having a similar issue..I don't understand completely his solution, but if someone could enlighten me, I feel that this might be the solution to our issue
+"Okay - forgive me 'cause I'm a newbie on this forum and if somebody else has already figgered this out, I'm sorry.... I've been having the same problem all of the sudden after many years of crash-free and error-free recording. I've read everything. I've pulled my hair out. I've done dozens of clean installs. I've repaired permissions so many times I can do it blindfolded. And sitting here tonight, it dawned on me.... there are TWO places Logic is sucking data from: wherever you've got your SONG files stashed, of course.... but it ALSO NEEDS TO ACCESS THE STARTUP DRIVE (or wherever else you might have your Apple Loops installed). I was watching my drives being accessed during a playback of a fairly complicated tune (most tracks were frozen of course), and both of the afore-mentioned drives were going berserck with accesses. We're all focusing on our dedicated audio drives, but forgetting about our boot drives (where Logic usually resides along with most or all of our loops). I carbon copy cloned my boot / operating system (including Logic) to a different (in my case, an external firewire) drive and the problem disappeared. Could've been because the cloning process de-fragged all the loops & stuff, or maybe my OS just likes snatching its sample/loop info from an external drive. Worked for me... so far....... let me know if it works for others....."+

I'm getting "the disk is too slow (prepare)" message

I'm getting "the disk is too slow (prepare)" message when trying to do literally anything in garageband right now, even with all other programs shut down, correct energy saver settings, and only one audio track in garageband.
Everything else on my macbook pro is running fine, iMovie, Safari, etc... so it seems like a garageband problem to me. I updated garageband, have reset computer multiple times, I don't know what else to do... it feels like garageband is keeping all of my recent projects open in the background at once, but when I check my windows, that is apparently not the case. Any help?

Anyone have any ideas to help?

CoreAudio: Disk is too slow (Prepare) error message?

Hi,
In a Logic project I'm currenly working on, each time I open the file and press play for the first time, Logic hangs for 15 seconds or so and gives me this error message:
CoreAudio: Disk is too slow. (Prepare)
(-10001)
If I then stop, rewind and play again everything works fine. It only happens after this specific project is first opened and played.
Any ideas what this could be about? Disk is definitely not too slow. I get the same error if I start at a one track passage or bypass all effects and then play.
The file in question contains imported AIFF files, imported MP3 files as well 100 or so MIDI tracks.
Logic version is 7.2.1.
Thanks,
Maarten

It's in the energy saver preferences, uncheck spin down drive when idle thing.
HOWEVER, I posted this in another post, there is a bug where external firewire drives are still getting spun down with this checked off. I reported the bug to apple, they asked for more info, they said thanks, and last I checked the bug was still open, which tells me it wasn't reported before, and they're actually working on it.
So don't be surprised if unchecking the box doesn't fix it for your external drives.
The trick I use to get around it is simply double click the file on the external drive to open the song. That spins the drive up pretty good because you have to open a finder window which has to list all the folders etc...
hope this helps.

"Disk is too slow" ???

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