Cause

If you're experiencing a warning dialogue with the message "File Recording Restarted" then it means that HDDs inside the host PC can not keep up with the amount of data they are receiving from the NSP. Specifically, it indicates that the buffer of data waiting to be written to disk has overflowed. Central responds to this by clearing gate current buffer and starting the recording again. If you get this message then it means that data which is currently being recorded will be terminated then immediately a new data file will be automatically created inside same folder and recording will be resumed inside the newly created file. There is still a good chance that some data points are lost in the transition between the old and the new recording. 

Solutions

There are several ways to optimize Windows and the hard drives, so the File Storage application inside the Central Suite can record data smoothly without losing any packets. Please follow the steps below to better optimize your computer for data recording:

Check the version of Central Suite application

Ensure the most up-to-date version of Central is installed on your Host PC. The latest version of the software can be downloaded directly from our website. 

Double-check the RAID configuration

Blacktock Host PC data drives must be configured in RAID 0 (data striping) mode. Please verify this by typing "Computer Management" inside the Windows search bar then opening the "Disk Management" tab under the "Storage" on the left toolbar. The target disk for data storage must be labelled as "Striped" with "Dynamic" type and "NTFS" File System format. Contact support if hard drives are not formatted in this way.  

Available storage space on the drive

Low storage space (less than 25% available) can cause issues with the ability for the drives to quickly find a writable sector. This time can, over the course of a recording, add up and cause the buffer that is queued for disk to be overwritten, triggering a file storage reset (or very rarely, crash). Increasing the available space will always be helpful. 

Other services that can access the Drives during recording: 

Avoid letting other services access the drives, such as 

Please keep in mind that that windows can sometimes automatically revert itself back to default settings for example after a non-successful boot up then re-enable all theses services that you might have had previously disabled. A best way to see which applications are using disk resources is by typing "Resource Monitor" in Windows Search box and select the "Disk" tab and sort processes and services by the amount of data they are writing to the Disk. Identify and disable non-critical applications other than (File.exe, System, svchost.exe) that is writing to the disk. 

Data Fragmentation

Similar to the above point, if data on the drive is fragmented, it can make the drive to take a longer time to find a valid sector, and this can add up over the recording. Running defragmentation on the drive in a weekly basis after clearing the drive is a good way to keep the drives healthy and optimized. 

HDDs in standby mode

Try giving the drives some time to warm up before beginning a recording. This could entail copying a small file to and from the data HDDs before beginning and recording. This caused by windows power saving schemes that can occur if computers stay awake but data drives are not frequently (every few minutes) accessed.

Incorporating Solid State Drives (SSD)

Some of the above points including mechanical failure, drive waking, available space, defragmenting, are all completely avoided with incorporating the much faster Solid State Drives (SSD), thus the recommendation. If the above methods do not resolve the issue, then a solid state drive very likely will.