Memory issues when saving Excel

Question

All
I recently wrote a small piece of software which is collecting data at a very high frequency and for a long time. This is the first time I am attempting to do something like this and have hit an issue with memory not being enough as the size of the Excel file increased.
Excel has a limit of about 65000 rows, but I have written only ~10000 rows when the following error showed up:
I can briefly tell you how the data acquisition loop works:
1) timed loop has a period of 1 minute.
2) there is a sequence structure in the loop.
3) first - a sub vi goes to agilent equipment and collects all the data
4) second - a sub vi processes all the data into individual arrays in preparation for writing them to the excel file
5) third - a sub vi writes all the arrays into a single Excel file (which is already open) and saves the file
6) then the timed loop checks if the condition is met for termination of the loop. If not, then it repeats steps 3, 4, 5 above.
Possible issues that may be causing the problem:
The period of 1 minute may not be enough. I checked the size of the excel file, and it is right now 23 MB at ~10000 rows. I intend to collect about 20000 rows of data over 250 hours. Now what will happen if 1 minute is not enough to save the Excel file of size 23 MB or above? I am not familiar with timed loops, but can somebody explain will I get an error similar to above if that happens?
How can I create a functionality where the timed loop "waits"  till the Excel file is saved? I basically want the timed loop to keep counting (not stop time) but wait till file is completely saved. In that case the period of timed loop cannot be fixed to 1 minute.  Because as the size of the file increases that period has to increase too.
Appreciate all the help.
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Thanks. 
I am attaching the main vi of the application where the main timed loop is located. Hopefully this will help.
Could you please elaborate about buffers?
About the data acquisition freqency : I am acquiring data every minute  - and the intentiion is to do it for 250 hours at least.
Thanks. 
Message Edited by labview_beginner on 10-31-2008 09:22 PM
Message Edited by labview_beginner on 10-31-2008 09:24 PM
Attachments:
data_recording.vi ‏472 KB