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Activity Forums Avid Media Composer Experiencing a lag with Thunderbolt, but not with USB

  • Experiencing a lag with Thunderbolt, but not with USB

    Posted by Nina Tenny on July 17, 2017 at 8:07 pm

    Hi there, we’re wondering if anyone else has had this problem, and what might be causing it.

    So: we’re working with DNxHD36 files that are stored on a LaCie 6Tb D2 desktop harddrive. We have found that when we’re editing using a thunderbolt cable, we have a playback lag. It’s a second or two lag, sometimes longer, with a pinwheel, especially when Avid is not being used for 15-30 secs or more and then you hit play on a sequence.

    When we are using the USB 3.0 cable, we have no lag at all.

    We ran Blackmagic Disk Speed Test on both thunderbolt and USB with the drive and the results are basically the same — about 200 mb/s, which is about where these drives top out. So it seems like it might be an Avid thing. We’re experiencing this same phenomenon on two separate systems, a late 2013 MacPro and a late 2015 iMac.

    I guess we have a “solution” — work on USB — but we’ll be incorporating drives in the future that are thunderbolt only (a Thunderbay Raid) so it’s a problem I’d like to fix now. Any clue as to what might be causing it?

    Jonathan Abrams replied 8 years, 8 months ago 2 Members · 1 Reply
  • 1 Reply
  • Jonathan Abrams

    September 2, 2017 at 4:38 pm

    Is the drive the first device in the Thunderbolt chain? Is the drive the only Thunderbolt device connected to the computer?


    Jonathan S. Abrams, CEA, CEV, CBNT
    Apple Certified – Technical Coordinator (v10.5) Support Professional (v10.6 through v10.10)
    Chairman, NY section, AES

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