Vegas/Multiple Hard Drives
 

I have to apologize for this--I asked this several months ago, got an answer, and now I don't remember it and can't find the original thread, so I need to ask it again. For keeps!:

I have a computer with two hard drives; I use Vegas. How do I switch to the other drive for creating new files/projects? Is it an XP thing or Vegas? I want to utilize the other drive but can't seem to access it for creating and saving new editing projects.

Thanks!
(feeling humble)

When you go to file - Save As or File - Render, it should just be a matter of browsing to the other drive.

If you mean capturing, open the capture app and in the preferences you can add and remove different drives.

Assuming your drives are labeled C & D, keep your OS and programs on drive C and all Vegas-related media on drive D.
It's not a good idea to do any editing (including rendering) from drive C as this will slow the process down considerably.
BTW, the same rule applies to the various folders (temp, render, etc.) that you can assign in Vegas and DVD Architect.

Thank you both greatly!

I have this current setup:

C: System & Program drive
D: DVD Burner (Soon to replace the DVD Burners with Blu-ray Burners)
E: DVD Burner
F: Capture Drive (1TB) (also contains music library)
G: Render Drive (200GB)
H: Author Drive (250GB)
I: "Scratch" Drive (250GB) I use this for all program's temporary access folders.. ie: Adobe Scratch Drive, Vegas Temp working folder (set in preferences) and etc.

The workflow is great and am always going from one drive to another NEVER working the next step to the same drive. All drives are SATA II. Also have indexing turned off on all drives and only C: drive is configured for Virus Scanner (but completely disabled for editing/rendering times.)

Jerome, have you always had a scratch drive? I've got an area on my render drive that is always for scratch, but curious to know if you have noticed any additional speed value by having a scratch drive set aside.

Question???????

I use separate Sata drives but was wondering if I wanted to use a 1Terra USB drive, where should I use it. Would it be best to use it for the destination when I render?

Todd, I personally wouldn't render to USB drives, because burning DVDs later from information on that drive wouldn't be nearly certain to give you a perfect DVD. I would render to an internal drive or and e-sata drive to reduce the chances for errors in the burning process.

USB drives are best for storage. Using it as you suggested would work, but wouldn't be ideal.

I do this all the time and have yet to have any glitches with DVD's. What sort of issues might give me non-perfect DVD's from USB external drives?

Last wedding I did, I put everything (ended up 300gb) on a USB external drive. (Actually its both Firewire and USB, but I was using USB). I didn't notice any problems in editing, rendering, or burning.

Jeff...... Are you saying there would be no problems using a USB hard drive for rendering?
I guess if I had problems burning from it, I could always copy it back to a SATA drive for burning?

Todd, USB will likely work fine for you most all of the time, I wouldn't worry about it, go ahead and use your USB if you want. Read below to see why I said what I said.

Andy, did I say USB wouldn't work? No I did not. If you are going to choose a drive for burning and if you had choices and I repeat IF you have choices, I wouldn't RECOMMEND it. I find USB and Firewire inefficient and slow. Everyone cannot afford e-sata and fast 1Tb internal drives, however, and I am aware of that.

I have encountered, over the years, enough issues with Firewire and USB drives that I do not recommend them except for storage.

The man asked for opinions and I simply gave mine.

I can say that one wedding project that was located on a USB drive did not burn properly last year. I do not know conclusively it was the USB issue, but when I moved the project to an internal drive there were no more glitches. It could have been anything that cause the bad burn, I know. On the other hand, I can't take chances. I am too busy.

I have at any given time have 4-10 weddings in process and I cannot afford mistakes, as I do not have time to watch every DVD I burn. I had a project a few weeks ago where I had to copy 50 DVDs. I am not going to risk my time and money unecessarily on a relatively flaky format like USB.

I have owned many USB anf Firewire drives. I found them troublesome and slow. If you do not do much volume there is no need to have the large enterprise-class internal drives or e-sata drives, I suppose.

I currently have USB drives and they are for archiving old projects. Hence I recommended what I do.

I was transfering files from one USB drive to another (about 50GB worth of Data) while my employee was waiting the other day and something froze up, stopped the transfer cold. Again, USB is fine for storage, but for moving files around I don't care for it. I never have those kind of issue with e-sata, but that is just my experience.

Before I became as busy as I am now these issues were not a big deal, and I was perfectly happy with USB, most of the time. USB is a fine, economical solution for those that want it. If you're using it and you're happy, that's great!

I need to add that a friend of mine who produces literally hundreds of videos per year from his Mac studio uses mainly USB drives, he's got dozens of them. Even he, though is tired of them and with each new system he is going with mujltiple TB internals.

Jeff,

no problems mate and thanks for the detailed clarification of your thoughts - we all learn from each other on here and that's was the intention of my question - no critisism implied or intended. Thanks for taking the time in your busy schedule to reply.

Hey DSE! I have just recently started doing this. Somehow during my recent upgrade, I ended up with another drive and thought to do this. Photoshop seems to run smoother since doing it. Vegas runs much faster... wait, its probably my new processor and memory that is making all that run faster. :)


Seriously, I don't know how much better it works, but it should do nothing but improve operations. Its like having your windows paging file on a seperate drive.

Hope you are doing well!

Jerome, I have a somewhat dumb question. You list four hard drives...are they divided between internal and external? Do you have a customized built computer for this purpose?