slow data saving in biobench

[mikolune]

I am using Biobench in experiments. I want to save several files for one experiment.  The problem is that after a few hours of recording, when I press the STOP button, it takes about 40mn to save the data to the file.  Is there a way to do this much faster ?

Thanks!

[Coq_Rouge]

Hi

First of all you should stream your data to disk while the experiment are running. Your approach are quite risky. If something happens all your data will be lost, and you may lost some hours of working. You should also consider your file format. It sounds like you have a rather large amount of data, so using text formatting is not recommended. Use a binary format instead.

I might be wrong here, but I suspect you are using a text format for your data. After the experiment is finished you send a big chunk of data to be converted to a even bigger chunk of data in text format, using the "Write To Spreadsheet File VI". This leads to a serious memory problem for your computer. You are quite lucky that you do not get a blue screen and loose all your data.

If you post your code I am sure the forum will give you some pointers in the right direction.

Ps remember to tell us which Labview version you are using

[mikolune]

Hi, 

Many thanks for your answer.

First, I am using an older version of Biobench (LabView came packaged with it): 

Biobench Version: 1.2    Year 2001

Operating System:  Windows 2000

National Instruments acquisition Hardware: BNC-2110 

This old version doesn't have the capacity to save in text format.  Furthermore, it does stream the data directly to the disk:  indeed, I can see the size of the log file grow steadilly as the recording progresses.

However, once I push the STOP button - a long process starts with a waiting window : "Updating data files notes and events ..."  It is not clear to me what the software is doing at this stage, since all the data appears to be already on the hard disk, in binary format.  After this waiting time, the file is changed (as can be seen by looking at the last midification time), but the size doesn't appear to be changed significantly (stays the same in Kbytes.

So, I am wondering if anything can be done to get rid of this saiting stage ... I've been playing around with the options available from the menus but to no avail.

Thanks !

[Coq_Rouge]

Can you post some code ?

[mikolune]

thanks again ...

I am not sure what you mean exactly by post some code - is there som econfiguration script I should find ?  Would this be LabView Code ?  Anyway -  I'll check it out and get back to you with more info tomorrow...

[rpursley8]

BioBench is a standalone LabVIEW program originally put out by NI.  They do not support it anymore.  I tried to get some similar help from them a few weeks back and nobody I talked to even heard of BioBench.

I am afraid you are not going to have much luck.  There is a BioBench forum  that might be able to offer some assistance.

[mikolune]

ok, thanks...  Hum, that's what I was affraid of ...

If I find anything interesting I will post a bout here.

Thanks again.

[Coq_Rouge]

Hi

I browsed through the biobench manual, and I think Biobench is streaming data to disk, so perhaps your problem is something else outside biobench. If your computer is old it could be hard disk problems. Maybe cleaning up the hard disk, and defragment it could help. But this is only guesswork. As pointed out the Biobench system is stand alone. So take a dive into the code is not an option. Perhaps writing your own code from start is a better solution.

Well anyway good luck with your problem