Disk Setup Recommendation (1xssd,1x7200rpm,1x5400rpm)

@Hi!
Any recommendation on how I should set up my disks for Premiere?
I currently have one ssd, one 1TB 7200rpm black western digital and one 2TB 5400rpm green western digital hard drive.
I tried following this guide Generic Guideline for Disk Setup but would greatly appreciate a confirmation.
Follow up question, would adding a second 640GB 5400rpm hard drive for a total of 2 green western digital drives help anything? If not then I will just leave the 640GB disk as an external and not take it apart.
Thank you for your time.
-owbert

Don't use green drives. Get another 7200 RPM drive and use the green drive for backups only.

Similar Messages

Need advice on Hardware & Disk Setup for Premiere Pro CS6

I am about to purchase a Mac Pro and after reading threads on hardware requirements & different disk setups I am still a little unsure which way to go. If someone could point me in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.
Firstly this system will be used primarily for the following tasks: Editing AVCHD media (Sony HDR-XR550) and burning to disk with light editing, Creating Web Videos from AVCHD Media, editing images in Ps & Lr. This is strictly a hobby for me and I will also use the machice for some light AutoCad work.
The current system specs are as follows:
3.33GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon processor, 16GB (4x4GB) RAM, Bay 1: 1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s, Bay 2: 512GB SSD, Bay 3: 1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s, Bay 4: 1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s, ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB, Two 18x SuperDrives.
My questions are:
1.     Reading the thread on Generic Guidelines for Disk Setup I plan to use the 4 Disk setup described. If I only have 1 SSD, should I make it C: D: E: or F:? My priority would be the editing speed rather than the exporting speed.
2.     If I can stretch my budget to include another SSD then again, should I make it C: D: E: or F:?
Thanks in advance for any advice.

Hi Harm (& Jim),
After much deliberation I agree with you and Jim. I am not sure what I was thinking!
I have decided to build my own machine based around your reccomendations in previous posts. Could you please look over the system specifications and offer any suggestions or comments?
Chassis
Lian Li PC-A77
$ 375.00
PSU
Corsair CMPSU-850AX Professional Series Gold AX850 PSU
$ 210.00
Motherboard
Asus P9x79 WS Motherboard
$ 469.00
CPU
Intel Core i7 3930K 3.2GHz CPU
$ 615.00
CPU cooler
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO Universal CPU Cooler
$ 40.00
RAM
G.Skill Ripjaws X F3-12800CL10Q-32GBXL 32GB (4x8GB) DDR3
$ 285.00
GPU
Gigabyte GV-N66TOC-2GD NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti 2048M
$ 319.00
Disk
SAMSUNG MMSASSD840P128 SAMSUNG 840 PRO SERIES 128GB SSD
$ 135.00
Disk
(3 of) Western Digital WD VelociRaptor 1TB 10,000RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s Hard Drives
Owned
Disk
(2 of) Western Digital WD Black WD2002FAEX 3.5" 2TB SATA 6.0Gb/s Hard Drives
$ 320.00
Burner
LG BH16NS40.AYBU10B LGE OEM BH16NS40 BLK BluRay Burner, 14xBD-R Read/ Write, 16xDVD+-R Read/ Write, SATA, Silt Play, M-Disc Support [BH16NS40.AYBU10B]
$ 88.00
TOTAL BUILD COST in Australian Dollars
$ 2856.00
I have a few questions if you would be kind enough to help.
Is the RAM specified compatible with the rest of my system?
Do you think the GPU is over spec? Could you recommend an alternative if so?
What would be the optimal disk configuration with the proposed disks? I would consider another WD Black if it would make a significant difference.
Do you have any other suggestions where this system could be improved whilst keeping the budget around the same value?
Many thanks,
Rich

New Disk Setup - 4 SSDs, 3 HDs - what {not} to RAID

I am building a new machine (a first for me & with 2 years of savings) and will finally have a powerful machine to work (using a 2009 Macbook Pro for 4 years).
I have purchased the following:
Samsung 840 Pro SSD- 256GB - 2 nos. (seq. read/write 500+)
Samsung 840 (nonPro) - 128GB - 2 nos. (seq. read ~500 but write only ~125)
Seagate 7200rpm HD - 2TB - 3 nos.
And my plan is to use
C: > Samsung 840 Pro 256GB : OS and Applications
D: > Samsung 840 Pro 256GB: Previews and Renders
E: > Samsung 840 128GB x 2 RAID-0 : Footage
F: > Seagate 2TB x 2 RAID-0 HDD : Exports and General Personal Files (like Docs, Music)
G: > Seagate 2TB : Dedicated solely as Backup Drive for crictical data at a given time (taking manual backups on old external drives).
Can someone please give me feedback on this setup and recommendations on which to use for what all.
Let me know any input or suggestion you may have like maybe a totally different setup (like all SSDs independent and 3xHDDs as RAID-0).
I am also particularly looking for suggestions of which ports on my MoBo to connect these to.
I am using a ASUS P9X79 Pro so have 8 Ports - 2xSATA3 Intel, 2xSATA3 Marvell, 4xSATA2.
And fyi I am using an Intel i7 3930K, Gigabyte GTX770 4GB and 64GB RAM.
I posted this question 1 week ago along with PC build (http://forums.adobe.com/message/5464227).
I got valuable suggestions on the build part (like cooling and upgrading RAM) but am still looking for more inputs on disk setup.
Thanks for your time.

I don't like RAID 0. It's just a bad idea for anything that you can't lose. Fine for things like cache and previews, though. But you don't have enough drives to go around for that. The idea is to get the five basic drives in place first - OS/Projects/Cache/Media/Exports - and only once those are in place should you consider making a RAID of any kind. After those five, you had two left, both smaller SSDs, but not the same model, so it made more sense to get that data security for the Projects, which left one drive. AE Global Cache is a good use for SSDs.
The non-Pro 840's may be slower by comparison, but their write performance isn't critical used in the suggested way (and they'll still write faster than a hard drive).

Disk Setup for CS4

Hello All,
Looking for some recommendations on disk setup for CS4. Some quick specs. XP Pro 64 bit,Intel i7 extreme, 12GB DDR3 RAM, and 8 Velociraptor 300 GB Drives.
I orginally had it setup as a single Array (RAID 5 with online spare) with two partitions ( One for OS and program files, and one for storage and Scratch and Page file)on the array. I wasnt getting very good performance so I decided to wipe and reconfigure.
Would I be better off with 2 arrays? One array of 2 drives RAID 0(600 GB) for OS, Program Files, and Scratch Space. and the second array of 6 drives at RAID 5 (1.3 TB) for storage?
Or maybe even go with a single drive for OS and Program Files (300 GB). A single drive for Scratch Space (300 GB). and then the 6 Drives in RAID 5 for storage?
Also where would be the best loacation for the paging file?
Thanks in advance for the help

The speed of a 7-disk raid5 is far higher than a single disk. The speed degradation from a 7-disk to 6-disk raid may not outbalance the addition of a single disk for scratch.
I am seriously considering to move 2 single disks to my raid array, so I end up with 2 x 7 disks in a Raid30.

How do you change the default User in Windows 7 on a non-RAIDed 4 disk setup?

Hi.
I have installed Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit on Darling my new machine, which has a four-disk setup without RAID, like this:
SSD OCZ -OS, Programs (C:)
WD 2002FEAX - Media Projects (D:)
WD 1002FAEX - Pagefile, Media Cache (E:)
WD 1002FAEX - Previews, Exports (F:)
This setup, and because it’s unRAIDed (four separate disks), created the User file in the OS disk, right under the Programs (x86) folder, which at times causes files, which are not programs, to automatically be saved in the User file that's in the Programs disk, when in fact Programs disk is NOT meant for storage.
Further, I cannot save stuff in My Documents because that directory leads the files (that I am saving) to the User folder in the OS disk, forcing me to navigate out of there and into an alternative disk, which is time consuming, more so than if i had a directory leading to D disk.
So, I am wondering, can anyone help me change my directory to establish the default User folder in any folder other than C?
Or, if can someone refer me to Windows 7 tutorials, resourses, that are a tad more than Dummy level.
I have heard that changing around the directory as such can mess with the OS, and though not at Dummy level, I’m quite new to PC and profusely insecure about making changes to Darling at all.
Thanks.

Hi folks.
I would like to update you about what happened regarding my wish to move the User location to another hard disk. Heeding your warning, i did NOT attempt that, but rather, moved the location of the My Documents folder in my Library, from its default place on (SSD) disk C:/ (which is the default location because that's where i installed Windows 7,) to another disk - D:/ called "Media Projects".
Here is how my directory looked before i made the change, my three hard disks were outside the Library directory that's on my SSD (Programs disk):
(I did that by right-clicking the My Documents folder in the left column of a browser window, to access the Location tab.)
What this did is, it put driver D:/ under Documents, which is under Library, see picture, which now enables saving documents quickly, by going from my Library directly to my D drive, however it eliminated the "My Documents" folder/possibility all together from the left-column list of folders in the Windows Explorer browser pane.
I am now trying to do the same with Music, Pictures, and Videos, i.e. to move them to D drive, but am unable to do so because right-clicking those icons in the directory does not produce the Location tab in Properties panel, and nor does right-clicking inside the files themselves.
Similarly, right-clicking Downloads, which i also want to have residing in my D drive, does NOT produce a Location tab in properties pane, though it does seem possible to change the directory manually...see picture.....but am wary....
I am still monitoring my new system, and will see if and how this change effects my system's performance.
Thanks.

PC build and Disk Setup for a Pro-Wannabe

Hi All,
I know everyone asks these questions and I thought I will not but, when you spend more than $3000 it feels their is no "Harm" in asking the question (but hopefully their will be Harm somewhere in the comments).
So, after waiting for the Mac Pro update for 2 years (just to fool myself that I may buy it), I have decided to move from the Mac OS to Windows after 4 years. I was only using a Macbook Pro to edit and feel now have the suitable experience to begin working on an actual machine.
If you ask my budget, I didn't have any so I went on a buying frenzy with my credit cards and will hopfully be driven to work harder to pay it off .
Here are the parts I have bought:
CPU - Intel 3930K (duh! I don't see a point in waiting for the 4th Gen)
Mobo - ASUS P9X79 Pro
RAM - GSkillz 32GB (8GBx4) @ 1600MHz 9-9-9 (as 3930K is limited to 1600MHz and 1.5V)
Will buy this same set around end of this year to make it 64GB if I feel AE would eat it.
Cabinet - CoolerMaster Storm Stryker (was buying HAF-XM but could not resist the looks of this).
PSU - Seasonic 860W Platinum Plus (Thought 1k is overkill and 750 not future proof, pricey though)
Storage (I thought I will get 1 cheap SSD and 1 Hybrid but then I read all the threads and went crazy)
Samsung 840 Pro SSD- 256GB - 2 nos.
Samsung 840 (nonPro) - 128GB - 2 nos.
Seagate 7200rpm HD - 2TB - 3 nos.
Monitor (just fyi) - Dell U2412 (planning to buy ASUS PA '13 or Dell Ultra '13 24" after few months)
.. finally GPU - Not bought yet
I ordered the ASUS GTX 680 4G as 780 was too costly
but then I read the actual successor to 680 is 770. So I cancelled my 680 but the seller still has not confirmed, just hoping they cancel. Then it turns out 770-4G is not yet sold in my country (am not from the US) so I may import from US (surprisingly importing from Amazon with duties costs the same as probable street price in my country). So I will mot probably buy a..
Gigabyte GTX 770 4G
So, Question 1> Any comments on the component list?
As I plan to build this on my own, have not thought of overclocking as I am not a geek and feel I should first get comfortable. Fair thought?
And hence I have not bought any additional Fans or Coolers.
And now for the Question 2> disk setup! Can you please fill the blanks or suggest alternatives.
This is what I have planned:
C: > Samsung 840 Pro 256GB : OS and _____ ??
D: > Samsung 840 Pro 256GB: Previews and Renders and/or ____ ??
E: > Samsung 840 128GB x 2 RAID-0 : Footage and ___ ?? (the 128GB version has slowest write speed so assigned it to footage)
F: > Seagate 2TB x 2 RAID-0 HDD : Exports and General Personal Files (like Docs, Music)
G: > Seagate 2TB : Dedicated solely as Backup Drive for crictical data at any time (which for me can be on any drive, that is why no RAID3/5 I feel)
And I plan to use my old external USB2/Firewire/USB3 external drives (500GB/1TB) for manual backups.
I can buy 1 or 2 more 2TBs (not SSDs) if it is really critical for some configuration but not anything more.
Usage: I shoot only DSLR footage and use PPro and AE CS6. I have till now been using a 2009 17" Macbook Pro with an SSD. And could have been spotted sometimes using a Class 6 SD Card on a USB 2 card reader being used as the Media drive (Ouch!). I feel (a) now I have the skill to justify this as many times I end up not implementing an idea in AE as my machine just won't budge and (b) I plan to buy the BlackMagic Pocket Camera to learn capabilities of RAW media. Like many I do hope to make an indie in the next 2 or 3 years but I hope I can employ services of a professional who should at least give me respect when he looks at my machine
If you have made it till here, thanks for your time. Waiting for your comments.
Cheers!
Ps: And yes I am planning to subscribe to CC as its cheap for a CS6 owner. And then after 1 year will judge if I will continue with CC once upgrade pricing goes (hopefully yes as I wait for an extensively GPU using AE version soon).

Regarding question #1, build list, and question #2 drive setup:
everything looks great except...
add a good cpu cooler; lots of good choices out there including but not limited to: budget: Cooler Master 212 EVO, high-performance air: Noctua NH-D14, simple liquid: Corsair H110, full water cooling: many options (full water cooling is a pain to plan and build, but ooooohhh so quiet!)
RAM: suggest go for 64GB at the onset rather than trying to add RAM later
definitely plan on overclocking - 4 Ghz is a walk in the park and very safe since you aren't totally comfortable with overclocking, and the performance gain is rather significant for renders, etc.
One SSD is plenty to get started - 256GB would be good for OS, programs, as well as providing some room for AE and photoshop caching
2 drives in RAID 0 would work pretty well for all projects, media, etc. If you really want to spend more in the drive area up the RAID to a 3 or 4 drive RAID
Suggest putting your backup drive in a hot-swap tray so you can remove it and provide off-site backup capability
Regards,
Jim

Error (23317) The operation Change properties of virtual machine is not permitted on a virtual machine that has shared virtual hard disks. Recommended Action The operation Change properties of virtual machine is not permitted on a virtual machine that h

Experts !
Error (23317)
The operation Change properties of virtual machine is not permitted on a virtual machine that has shared virtual hard disks.
Recommended Action
The operation Change properties of virtual machine is not permitted on a virtual machine that has shared virtual hard disks.
Is this limitation by design? If we have a shared VHDX between two VMs, then I am not able to change the VM properties from SCVMM.
SCVMM 2012 R2 with Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V.
Appreciate any help !
Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.
InsideVirtualization.com

Hello,
that is a VMM issue.
If you did not deploy your virtual cluster from a VMM service template, VMM doesn't recognize the configuration.
Until MS got it fixed, you could use the workaround from system center central:
http://www.systemcentercentral.com/tag/shared-vhdx/
This posting is provided >AS IS< with no warranties.

Disk setup help

NOTE: I've seen the Tweakers page on disk setup which was helpful but I guess a quick clarification of my setup below would be nice.
I'm currently editing on an 2011 iMac with an added internal SSD for the OS and Program and wanted to know how best to use my other drives.
WORKFLOW: I edit AVCHD footage mostly and use warp stabilizer effect a TON. Also, all my footage is 60p but edited on a 24p timeline. Oh and I don't usually render stuff. Each project (event) has about 50gb of footage and when it's done, I offload it and start a new one in the same way.
DRIVES I CURRENTLY OWN: I have essentially 4 drives.
1) Internal 128GB SSD
2) External Samsung 840 Pro SSD connected via Thunderbolt adapter
3&4) Two external 2TB HDDs in RAID0 (4TB total) connected to a La Cie Thunderbolt adapter.
Tweakers page suggests putting media cache on the SSD. Okay then. I'm all for that.
Proposed SETUP:
So should I do something like this?:
OS, Program = Internal SSD
Media, Project files, EXPORTS = 4TB RAID0 (I'm okay with the risk of exports being on the RAID0 because the files are quickly burned to disc and uploaded online)
Media Cache, Preview (again, I don't really have previews I don't think so maybe I should put exports here??) = Samsung 840 Pro SSD (128gb)
What do you think? And where should I put my auto-saves? I'd put it on the RAID0 too but then if that drive fails I'd have no back up of my project file which is what happened to me this summer with my old HDD.
Thanks!

Is one of these setups better than another and why?
For Media Cache Files & Database...
1) Have it on a separate fast SSD as suggested before.
2) Have it on the fast internal SSD since I have TONS of extra Space. This SSD gets that fastest read/write speeds.
3) Have it on the fast exteranl SSD that holds the media/project files since I have lots of extra space on there too and Premiere allows one to "save media cache files next to media files when possible" so that makes it easy to clean when I'm done with that project.
QUESTION 1: Originally I had planned on #1, but I already have drives #1 and #2 so is their any real advantage to #1 and if so, why?
QUESTION 2: And of the options #2 and #3, which one is best and why?

Laptop upgrade - low budget disk setup

Hi,
I have read many great posts in this forum about this topic (especially about disk setup byHarm Millaard ). However, I feel a bit overwhelmed with all the data. My laptop is quite old and weak (maybe too weak) for Premiere Pro/After Effects in terms of usability. Before I start investing in new PC, I would like to give my current one a try. I am wondering if proper disk setup (scratch disk) would make a difference.
My budget would allow me to choose one of the below options:
a)one external ~128 GB SSD drive (USB 3 or eSATA),
b)one 7200 rpm external HDD (USB 3 or eSATA), eventually TWO
c)other disk setup suggestions within such budget?
d)other non-disk setup suggestions?
I produce 1080p videos, up to ~5 minutes duration.
My current laptop specs:
Dell Studio 1555
Processor: Core 2 Duo 2,4 GHz
RAM: 4GB
1 HDD: 500 GB 7200 rpm 16 mb cache sata
1 external 1TB 5200 rpm HDD USB 3 (I use it for backup at the moment)
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4570 512 MB
eSATA
USB 3 (will use a epxress card with USB 3)
Thanks in advance,
Kamil

....when I first started...trying to edit HD content with PPro CS4, I had a laptop like yours. At the time, I didnt know ANYTHING and foolishly BELIEVED the "minimum requirements" listed by Adobe to use PPro. I wound up pulling my hair out as NOTHING would work...EVERYTHING froze up. Then, I started reading HERE on this forum posts by Harm Millard, Bill Gherke, and others about what REALLY was needed to run this professional level software.Temporarily, I discovered I could " transcode" the highly compressed ORIGINAL clips into another codec that the laptop could edit. This is something you can try with the free Cineform codec, available at GoPro website.
However, your machine is TERMINAL....a remnant of the past...you need to take it to a FIRING RANGE and yell PULL as you throw it into the air and witness its destruction via a loud shotgun blast !!! What you want is to edit NATIVELY the original footage in an easy manner. PPro has since improved GREATLY...now, its entirely 64 bit and has MANY improvements that have improved performance SIGNIFICANTLY.
You are going to need an i7 machine that is hyperthreaded,that runs over 3 Ghz, that has 32 GB system memory,that has a good NVidia graphics card,7xx series,or, better. Then,fast storage is a great help with performance. Using ONE quality SSD for OS, programs and pagefile is a MUST. Windows 8.1 is BEST because it does NOT have the memory limit of Windows 7 Home premium of 16GB, and HAS better support for USB 3 devices. Just get a new machine ...you can do FINE with a Haswell laptop with memory maxxed out and Crucial M550 SSDs in it,( 2 drive bays)...AND the 7xx series, ( or better), mobile NVidia GPU.
Or, build a new Haswell E based desktop machine....the mid- level CPU is affordable with great 6 core performance.

Free disk space recommendation

Hi,
I have a question about free disk space recommendation. My system now has <25% free space at ASP3, I can't see any problems until now, but I think that I can some troubles in the future depending on DB growth, it isn't?
Have you any tip about this? Are there any recommendation in IBM i5 redbooks?
Thank you!
Best Regards,
André Honma

Generally you do not want to go much higher than 70 to 80% utilization.
This is because the system may need the free space for system operations, temporary storage and to allow for spikes in storage that may occur when processing heavy workloads, such as temporary work space or for transient files, journal receivers, system logs and spool entries (QSPL as opposed to SAP's own spooling).
Certain systems functions, such as dedicated physical file reorganizations, have specific minimum requirements with respect to the need for free space.
At this point, you are at 75% utilization which puts you right in the middle of the range where you really want to examine what is going on.
Usually when you hit 90% or above you will start to get messages from the OS about high storage.
You can free up space in several ways.   Only keep journal receivers for as long as you need them.   Once they are detached and saved offline (tape/remote jounals etc) they can be deleted.   You need to have a strategy in place for this, however.   Our shop archives a full save on a weekly basis, and all journal receivers up to that point (with a small margin retained for visibility) are deleted.
In addition, we use Datamirror's High Availability product which scrapes the journal receivers to mirror the production system on a hot backup.   The receivers must remain on the system until they are replicated (this is also true for other High Availability products).   This is usually near real-time, but it can be an issue if you do not manage it properly. (Given our weekly archive strategy, this is not an overriding consideration for us, but it may be important for those with a different strategy.)
SAP uses the reuse deleted records feature of DB2, but sometimes excessive amounts of deleted records build up due to spikes, especially in files like VBDATA and related files, or after purging older transaction history or deleting old clients.   You can periodically reorganize physical files to reclaim deleted space.
You can also use RCLSTG (Reclaim storage) and RCLSPLSTG (Reclaim Spool Storage) to reclaim some temporary space.
However, RCLSTG should only be used if there is a specific need for it, as outlined in IBM's technical note: <a href="http://www-912.ibm.com/s_dir/slkbase.NSF/0/9373303619fb4b89862565c2007d4bcf?OpenDocument&ExpandSection=1">Overview of the RCLSTG Command</a>
Periodic IPLs will also reclaim space, including spool space as if RCLSPLSTG had been run..
If you have other libraries on your system, you can also see if they are being managed wisely using the same ideas as you would use for your SAP libraries.
Within SAP itself there are tools to manage tables that are within the scope of you various SIDs and clients.    When SAP purges data, however, it only does a soft delete via DB2 SQL, and a physical file reorg as noted above may be required to reclaim space at the OS level.
As the previous respondent noted, you should keep track of the growth of your system and then take whatever steps are necessary to bring storage down or increase storage.
You may also want to consider your storage strategy.   We had been using full mirroring, and we were able to increase our effective storage by going to RAID-5, and therefore put off the need to buy more disk for a time.
Good luck.
Brian
Message was edited by:
        Brian Sammond

Disk setup dilemma. HELP!

Hello there,
Currently, I have 3 x 2TB HDD, 1 x 1TB HDD in my Mac Pro and here is my disk setup :
1 x 1TB 7200rpm HDD = OS and Applications
3 x 2TB HDD 7200rpm (RAID 0) = Everything else (Media, Projects, Exports, Previews, Media Cache)
From what I've heard and read, it is better to dedicated drives for certain files.
I'm planning to buy a 512gb SSD for my OS and applications (going to put this SSD in my 2nd optical drive's free bay). So I wonder which disk setup is the best for doing intensive editing in Premiere Pro and animations + effects in After Effects (currently using CS5.5 but planning to upgrade to CS6).
Here is my 2 setup that I have in mind :
Setup 1
1 x 512gb SSD = OS and Applications
3 x 2TB HDD (RAID 0) = Media, Projects, Previews, Exports
1 x 1TB HDD = Media Cache
Setup 2
1 x 1TB HDD = OS and Applications
3 x 2TB HDD (RAID 0) = Media, Projects, Previews, Exports
1 x 512gb (or 256gb) SSD = Media Cache
Setup 3
1 x 512gb SSD = OS and Applications
2 x 2TB HDD (RAID 0) = Media, Projects
1 x 2TB HDD = Previews, Exports
1 x 1TB HDD = Media Cache
Setup 4
1 x 1TB HDD = OS and Applications
2 x 2TB HDD (RAID 0) = Media, Projects
1 x 2TB HDD = Previews, Exports
1 x 512gb (or 256gb) SSD = Media Cache
Some say that I should also have a dedicated drive for exports as well. But if I use 1 drive for both exports and previews, it's still okay in terms of the read/write workflow isn't it?
So, which setup is the best for performance for editing and rendering in Premiere Pro and After Effects? Or if you have other suggestions, please do tell me as well. Please do help me because I'm starting a new project soon and need to set everything as soon as possible. Many thanks!
*NOTE : I have a 4TB external HDD for backups*
Regards,
Ash

Ash,
You state neither your processor(s) type or RAM here, however it is pretty likely that with the aresanal of drives that you have you will not bee too bottlenecked in the drive area. And too, various tweaks to how you configure your drives will probably not make that measurable of a difference. Certainly putting more drive power in the areas that you want to perform best could also be considered a personal choice in a sense. If you rarely export, don't put much in that area. If you export frequently, assign more / faster drive(s) to that task.
That being said, here's how I would start out if I were mounting your drives in a PC, assuming that your big SSD has decent write performance (at least 200 MB/s):
SSD - OS, programs, media cache, media cache DB
1TB - exports
3x2TB RAID 0 - everything else
I've got to qualify too that I have no clue how Apple deals with RAM and disk caching, but Windows 7/8 does a pretty good job of using spare RAM (not tied up by programs) for disk caching so that RAID 0 arrays can multi-task pretty well on simultaneous reads and writes. And, when you are doing big reads, RAID 0 really does provide quite a bit more kick than single rotating drives, even 7200 rpm models.
Regards,
Jim

Rebuilding my disk setup

One year ago I started a topic here to ask for a proper disk setup and I ended up with the following configuration:
- 1 x Samsung 128GB SSD840 Pro for OS and appz
- 2 x Western Digital Caviar Black 1 TB in RAID0 for scratch
- 1 x Western Digital Caviar Black 1 TB for projects and media
- 1 x Western Digital Caviar Black 1 TB for exporting
It was good but not fully satisfying. Exporting was fast but preview wasn't smooth and RAID HDDs were working very, very loud. Few weeks ago I had to take off one of RAID HDDs and I believe that now Premiere works and renders faster than previously. Should I stay in this new configuration of try something else with RAID? Maybe I did something wrong before?

Do you have an available PCIe x2 slot? If you do like I now have get a Plextor M6e PCIe SSD And forget RAID these PCIe boards get 700 MB/sec read speeds and well over 500 MB/s write times as seen below
Many benchmarks do not show the same with real live applications. But with our PPBM7 Disk I/O write time benchmark score of 66 seconds or 562 MB/second, you can see below the Plextor is a magnificent SSD. If you can go that way try loading your project and media on it or just use it for export and see which method gives you the best performance with your media/workflow.

Discussion regarding hard disk setup

Hello all and a Merry Christmas. I am running the Adobe CS6 suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, After Effects and Audition), Avid Media Composer 6 and Davinci Resolve Lite 9 on my system. I have been reading various hard disk setup including the one that Ham has posted. Uptil now I have been using just one hard disk for everything. I know that is bad. I never had the money. But now I do. Here is how I think it should be like and it is very similar to the 3 disk setup mentioned by Ham.
500GB 7200 RPM for C: (OS, Programs, Pagefiles, Misc stuff like documents, etc)
1TB 7200 RPM for D: (Media Projects and Files)
500GB 7200 RPM for E: (Exports, Previews and Cache)
I can't afford a raid drive because I'd want a Raid 5 and that is considerably out of my budget. I'll get one as soon as I can. Now I have a desktop. I was thinking of having the media drive to be external with a good enclosure with a heat sink and a fan. I have an eSata port, USB 3.0 and USB 2.0. I'll keep the other drives internally and keep the media drive external because of the heat issues. Is this the right path or should I have all the drives internally? I do have a good and an airy casing. Its the HAF 922 with liquid cooling (Corsair H60) for the CPU. Please help me out. Thanking you guys in advance.

Imagine a very popular nightclub, that opens at 10 PM and long rows of people are waiting to come in.
If that nightclub only has a single door that can be used by single person only at one time, used for both entry and exit, you can imagine the waiting for people outside can be long or people inside waiting to exit. The first thing to do is make another door, one for entry only and one for exit only. That reduces the queues. The next thing to do is create multiple doors, let's say two on the North side, one for entry and one for exit, plus two doors on the South side, again one for entry and one for exit.
I imagine you get the drift. Well, each door is like a physical SATA connection, traffic can only go in one direction at a time and the people or data on eather side of the door or SATA connection have to wait. That is a simple reason why more disks are better for the multitude of tasks that need to be performed during editing. The more doors or SATA connections, the less waiting there is and the more enjoyable it is.
The C: drive for OS & programs and pagefile is mostly used for reading and housekeeping, the staff only entrance.
Other drive(s) or doors are used for projects, media, media cache, previews and exports. The slower the drive, the narrower the door, the faster the disk, the wider the door. How to organize access to the drives depends on your editing style and material, just like the number of doors in the nightclub depend on the number of visitors and their visiting patterns.
If you do smallish projects with rather easy codecs and limited or no multicam editing, the system requirements are not very hard, but if you do large and complex projects with difficult codecs and lost of multicam editing, you need a much sturdier system. A small nightclub out in the country requires less doors than a huge nightclub in a big city that caters to movie stars, celebrities and other VIP's, especially if they use the latest and greatest in presentation technology (of course with corresponding prices).
I keep coming back to this nightclub, because I think the analogy works quite well to explain that there is not one answer that suites all needs. Basically it boils down to available budget and the circumstances you are in. Now, with a 500 GB disk available, I assume your system is not the latest. I would keep it simple, forget a SSD for the moment as a boot disk, it may be overkill in your current system, and get as many 1+ TB Seagate 7200.14 or WD Caviar Blacks as your budget allows (up to 5). When you buy a new system in the future, you can take these disks along to the new system.

Hard Disk Setup for Video Editing

Dear Forum.
My name is Tom Woods and I was hoping that you may be able to advise me or point me in the right direction, in regards to the question below....
: ) Im not sure if you are in this area or not, my apologies to you if this is the case.. Here goes..
I'm thinking of getting Adobe Production Premium installed where ill be using Photoshop, After Effects, and Premier Pro, and need some advice on my current Disk Setup to maximize performance to work with editing HD 1080i video.
My question is;
"Which of my internal 'Disks', do I assign the following processes to, these processes are;
Photoshop: SCRATCH DISK
After Effects: DISK CACHE
Premier Pro: SCRATCH DISK Captured Video / SCRATCH DISK Captured Audio / SCRATCH DISK Video Previews / SCRATCH DISK Audio Previews
Premier Pro: MEDIA CACHE FILES / DATABASE
And finally the recorded Video 'parts' ready for editing, and the 'previews', and then the 'saved project file'.
My current Disk setup is:
C: SSD - 90GB (quite full)
D: SSD - still considering size to purchase
E: SSD - still considering size to purchase
F: HDD - 500 GB (currently used for all Video Parts and all work)
*Also, for drives D & E, what 'SIZE' in GB would they need to be for assigning the Scratch, Cache and other files mentioned above? (when i purchase them)*
If you can help me out with this it would be totally amazing, im really stuck and finding internet advice very unclear..
I appreciate you will be busy but I thought I would try here first for some help! Thank you so much for reading this so far...
My Best regards to you
Timmy

Tom,
Let's start with the terminology. Once you understand that, things will become a lot easier.
MEDIA: Name for all the raw material you shot, whether video or pictures or audio recordings. It does not matter whether this was captured from tape based video cameras, or imported from card or disk based cameras.
MEDIA CACHE: When Media are imported into a project, PR automatically creates three kind of files that are stored in the location you set up in the Preferences. They are .IMS files or indexed files, .CFA or conformed audio files and last .PEK files, that display the audio waveform in the timeline.
MEDIA CACHE DATABASE: Also automatically created by PR and contains pointers to the files in the Media Cache.
Note that occasionally the Media Cache and Media Cache Database can become corrupted and in that case it is a good idea to Clean the Media Cache from Preferences. When opening a project indexing, conforming and generation of PEK files is automatically done. Just be a bit patient for that process to finish.
PREVIEWS: Also called RENDER files. When you render a timeline to turn the red bar into a green bar for preview purposes, PR stores .XMP files in the PRV directory location you have set in the Project Settings.
Media files are typically very large and require a good sustained sequential read speed. Once ingested (imported or captured) they remain unchanged, because PR is a non-destructive editor. On the one hand this makes a SSD an ideal type of disk, because it is only reading the media files and not writing, but the size may be the limiting factor.
Media cache files are typically small and many, so here sustained R/W transfer rates are important, making it less than ideal to put them on a SSD, because the major drawback of SSD's is their limited and finite number of writes.
Now Tom, to your specific situation:
C: SSD for OS & programs.
D: HDD for media and projects (because of the size of the media and frequent changes in projects).
E: SSD for static page-file and exports.
F: SSD for media cache and previews, although a HDD may give you better life expectancy but also slower performance.
Maybe this article can be helpful as well, because it shows the impact of codecs on your system: Adobe Forums: What PC to build? An update...
You may have to get additional HDD's for raid configuations, if you edit 4K material or 422 material, because it is all about transfer rates.
To give you a rough indications of what you can expect from your drives, I suggest you get HD Tune Pro to test for yourself, but here are some indicative figures:
SSD: R around 450 MB/s, W around 300 MB/s, depending on the brand/model in steady state with SATA 6G. SATA 3G is far slower. Sandforce controllers may top out around 250 MB/s W.
HDD: R around 150 MB/s, W around 140 MB/s

New Disk setup help

I"d like to ask your help, or suggetions.I read the forum lots of conversations about disk setup, but Im not sure this is a good choice.I planned this setup:I have lga2011 platform.
C : OCZ revodrive X2 160GB - OS ( I already have )
D : 2* 1TB Samsung SpinpointF3 7200rpm HD103SJ RAID 0 - Media cache, previews, pagefile
( I already have )
E : 4* 1TB 7200rpm RAID 3 for media, project files - WD RE4 1 TB ( WD1003FBYX) or
                                                                                 - Saegate Barracuda ST1000DM003 or
                                                                                 - Samsung SP F3
    I dont have yet, HItachi too expensive for me.
F : Corsair Force 3 240GB SSD - AE CS6 Global Preformance cache ( I already have it)
G : Samsung 830 128GB SSD - Exports ( I dont have yet)
+ a RAID controller.I looked out Areca 1182ix/12, but Im afraid its too expensive for this setup.
- Do you know other type RAID controller which good for this config?
- What do you think about drive E, what is the good choice?
- Same question about drive G ?
Any advice would help!Thanks in advance.

+ a RAID controller.I looked out Areca 1182ix/12, but Im afraid its too expensive for this setup.
Is that a typo and did you mean the 1882ix/12? With a plethora of disks in your configuration, maybe the 8-port version would suffice and save some $$.
For the E: drive I think the RE4 is a good choice. The Samsung F3 is a good second IMO.
For the G: drive the Samsung is a good choice, much more affordable than the Corsair Performance Pro and almost as fast. I would suggest a 256 GB version to have some more space however.

Disk Setup Recommendation (1xssd,1x7200rpm,1x5400rpm)

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