I would clone the internal system drive to an external ssd
like in https://www.lifewire.com/use-disk-utility-to-clone-macs-drive-4042367
there is a chapter “Restore Using a Startup Drive”
Of course you have to buy an external ssd larger or at least the same size as the internal…
Do not worry about the USB bottleneck, it will not be a big problem in an audio environment.
As the others stated you shoudl increase the buffer to 126 /256 /512…
32 definitly kills the CPU…
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I know you recommended it two days ago lol I just haven’t been able to get to the studio and try out all the stuff you guys have recommended yet. I am very much looking forward to trying this stuff out in hopes of it fixing some of my issues.
Also I looked into SSD drives and the installation process and it’s absolutely something I feel comfortable doing and it looks like it would be relatively inexpensive approx $450 for a 512GB SSD and approx $50 for a kit that comes with the tools etc needed to do it. The installation looks like a big pain in the ass but I used to work on computers so I feel confident that I wouldn’t fuck it up.
First things first though when I have a day to get into the studio I’ll change the buffer size and audio rate, run it for hours while playing with hardware and see what happens, Also I will see if having Overbridge in my template makes a big enough difference in CPU usage to worry about.
Thanks again for all the help I feel way less stressed about the life of my computer now!
My studio is not at my house it’s at a rental space and I am a stay at home dad for my 11 month old so I only get time in there when I can squeeze it in unless I currently have a client then my wife and I plan around those projects so I’ll update you guys about this as soon as I can. (Likely in the next day or two)
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Good luck. It’s a bit scary when you think your computer is on it’s last legs. New macs are so expensive these days! I’m hoping to squeeze a few more years out of mine 
One thing, $450 seems a bit steep for a 512Gb SSD. I’m in the UK and they tend to be around £160 or so here (and we have terrible exchange rates).
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Thanks when I’m ready to do the SSD upgrade I will shop around and I completely agree I’m not a fan of the new Macs at all, They are way overpriced and the whole deal with less and less ports is ridiculous. Hoping with the upgrade, a fresh install and some software tweaks that mine will last for a couple more years at least.
Bumped down my audio rate to 44 and brought the latency down to 128 without removing the Overbridge plugins and have been jamming for a few hours now and have NOT had the latency issue as of yet (fingers crossed that did the trick!) Even if it does I plan on upgrading the HDD to an SSD for the above mentioned reasons.
Thanks so much everyone!
Another quick question: With the setup and configuration I have now do you guys see any need to upgrade my audio interface? Other than maybe having more inputs (I don’t have much of a need for that since I don’t track all my gear at the same time and when working with clients on sound design projects I am recording either one piece of gear at a time or depending on what I’m creating chaining a few pieces together.
I know the Saffire Pro 24 is far from a ‘Professional’ audio interface but thus far I have done projects for even some of the big name companies out there with no complaints of sound quality or anything like that whatsoever and often my work has been things like creating isolated sounds like individual kicks, snares, hihats etc etc or oneshot synth sounds things like that.
I do have an annoying hiss in my signal chain but I take care of it in post and theorize it’s more to do with things like the quality of audio cables I’m using, Their proximity to power cables and PSUs and the shitty (and old) mixer I use to feed all my gear though than the actual audio interface I have chased the hiss before and that’s my preliminary thoughts on it…In reality the only issue with having the issue is that it just creates a little more time in post processing clean up work…It would be nice and more efficient to cut that time off since every project has a deadline and some companies I’ve worked for (one in particular has given me ridiculously unreasonable deadlines like we want no less than 2GB of one shots in 2 weeks (may seem small but when you add up a bunch of sounds that are sometimes 1 second (often shorter for drums) and usually no longer than 5 maybe 10 for ‘effects’ and ‘ambient’ stuff) it takes a LOT of samples to fill 1GB nevermind 2.
But anyways do you guys see any good reason for me to upgrade the audio interface at this point?
Absolutely not. The Saffire PRO 24 is a perfectly fine audio interface.
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