Storage Optimisation

[Gavandre]

Hello people!

Can you advice me on how you utilise my memory setup please. I have got two NVME m.2 500gb each and one Seagate Barracuda 4tb. Where should I install Windows, Adobe apps, scratch disks, save project files, render sequences, store my texture library?

Kind regards!

 

[Alex Glawion]

I'd put the OS and Apps on one nvme SSD and your project files on the other. The HDD you can use for archiving and backing up your inactive projects. That's how I do it.

 

[Gavandre]

Where would I need to store cache files? scratch disks? next to the project file or somewhere else?

 

[Alex Glawion]

Well in an optimal configuration you'd have a third nvme SSD that houses all your caches and scratch files. That way you get the most performance out of your drive setup. I wouldn't put anything having to do with your active work on the HDD, as HDDs are so much slower and will severely bottleneck your performance.

With your 2 drive setup, put the scratch/cache on your project file drive.

 

[magneto]

On this very Topic, I wondered is it faster to Render M.2-A to M.2-B or is it the same diff to Render the Project to the same Drive? I suppose at least you could balance the wear with the former.
I would test this out myself - but still await exciting package from Amazon!

 

[Alex Glawion]

Only if the read/write performance of a single drive is the bottleneck will using two drives be faster. One for reading of your project, one for writing your output file.

The thing is, nvme ssds are so fast, especially in sequential performance, that you would need some crazy footage like RED RAW or EXR IMG Sequences to really get anywhere near the max seq perf of an nvme SSD (or have blended a dozen layers of different footage). So in 99% of the cases you probably won't see any speedup by using 2 fast nvme drives.

This was a different thing altogether back when you were just using SATA SSDs or even HDDs, but nowadays, with pcie4 nvme ssds, this should be a non-issue in 99% of the cases.

Even with large footage, the CPU or GPU becomes the bottleneck much quicker in de- and encoding than the reading of the footage does.

 

[Andrey]

Only if the read/write performance of a single drive is the bottleneck will using two drives be faster. One for reading of your project, one for writing your output file.

The thing is, nvme ssds are so fast, especially in sequential performance, that you would need some crazy footage like RED RAW or EXR IMG Sequences to really get anywhere near the max seq perf of an nvme SSD (or have blended a dozen layers of different footage). So in 99% of the cases you probably won't see any speedup by using 2 fast nvme drives.

This was a different thing altogether back when you were just using SATA SSDs or even HDDs, but nowadays, with pcie4 nvme ssds, this should be a non-issue in 99% of the cases.

Even with large footage, the CPU or GPU becomes the bottleneck much quicker in de- and encoding than the reading of the footage does.

Oh, now its clear. Thanks