Maya, It is not disc speed or fragmentation because I am not using any of the VSL instruments. I am using VE Pro with my old Kontakt template. 4 instances. One each with one Kontakt with one section of the orch. I put a short section in a loop and it played fine over my built-in audio BUT it played fine (as loop) with my Mobile I/O ULN 2 also.
The dropouts happen (most of the time) just as I start my timeline running in Logic Pro. The dropouts are not like small dropouts. These are up to a second or more long. As I said, it is like a demo restriction with audio just dropping out for a second.
In one case I noticed that there was no VU movement in VE Pro during a dropout.
Mac Pro 2 x 3.2 GHz Quad Core Zeon, 10 G ram
System 10.5.8
Logic Pro 9.0.2
Kontakt 4.0.12755
Mobile I/O 5.2 (with latest and correct firmware)
VE Pro v4.0 build 4686
I always boot my computer and then load VE Pro first. If I don't do that VE Pro does not work correctly. I can modify the current (Kontakt) instruments when they are in VE Pro but I cannot load any new instruments or VE Pro will freeze with spinning beachball.
I have 4 instances of VE Pro running in the server. One each with one instance of Kontakt.