Guidelines for Disk Usage
 

For years, I have never stored or directed Premiere to use discs correctly. Probably why my computer has never ran it's best. I have been reading the threads on storage as much as I can. I've learned a lot from Harm's posts too. Question, I have a total of 5 drives, one being my operator system. How do I split Media, Projects, Cache, Previews and Exports? I'm looking at a chart but I'm a bit confused.

Thanks!
Art

Re: Guidelines for Disk Usage
 

Art,

The dilemma is, how is your backup organized? With tapeless media backup is more important than ever. If you have a solid backup workflow, I would suggest the following:

C: OS & programs, single disk.
D: Media & projects, two disks in raid0, only if you have a good backup policy.
E: Media cache, previews & exports, two disks in raid0.

If your backup policy is not yet covered adequately, I would break out the D: drive to two separate disks and setup your configuration like this:

C: OS & programs, single disk.
D: Media, single disk.
E: Projects & exports, single disk.
F: Media cache & previews, two disks in raid0.

The reasoning behind it is that the data on the raid0 F: drive are easily recreated after a disk failure. Nothing important is lost. For the rest it is a matter of distributing the load as much as possible.

Hope this helps.

Re: Guidelines for Disk Usage
 

Thanks Harm,
This spells it out simple for me. I do not have a good back up plan other than backing up on one of the 5 discs and plan B is an external firewire HD.

I have never tried a RAID any number set up. Too chicken in my old age I guess.( Unless someone on this list can tell me a simple way to build a RAID 0 from the two drives I have cuz I have had good success following instruction from you guys)

My Operating drive is a fast Velociraptor but it's small at 300 gig with only 50 gig left. The other 4 are 2T WD.

I just re-install Windows so now is the time to set this up correctly. Thanks for the help!

Art

Re: Guidelines for Disk Usage
 

Art,

I have an old system, about three years old, and you always wonder how much stuff you collect in the course of these years. It is similar to moving into a new house and finding a nice clean garage, but come back several years later and you realize why people invented 'garage-sales'. Same with a computer.

I have a 150 GB Velociraptor as a boot disk in that system and have installed Adobe Master Collection CS5, CS5.5, CS6, numerous plug-ins for all versions, like Minnetonka Surcode, Color Finesse, Magic Bullet Suite, all Pixelan plug-ins, etc. In addition I have the complete PPBM5 and PPBM6 websites installed, Sonic Fire, three internet browsers, accounting software, benchmarking and testing software and I only use around 80 GB on the boot disk, despite all the pollution.

If you use more than 200 GB, it is time for serious spring cleaning.

Re: Guidelines for Disk Usage
 

Harm,
Tell me about it! I only have CS4 Master and CS5 and a bunch of Digital Juice Products but that's it! I didn't think I had room for Sonic Pro...wonder if Digital Juice can be installed on the non operating system drive? Those files are huge.

Art

Re: Guidelines for Disk Usage
 

Art,

I have around 60 GB of Sonic Fire sound and 70 GB of stock footage all stored on a dedicated disk.
In your case I think you can store all your Digital Juice files on the E: drive if you follow my second suggestion.