Which files do you recommend saving into a second drive?
 

Hello,


Currently I have 2 hard drives (Two Nvme M2 drives)

I want to know which files or type of files do you recommend saving into a second hard drive?


I mean, sample libraries, sound FX, RAW audios, videos, PT sessions, bounces, etc.


In order to have a good workflow and helping the main (system) hard drive.
And of course, without compromising Pro Tools session's stability.



I'm on Windows 10 Pro (21H1)
PT 2021.10

i7 10700k
64GB RAM
RTX 3070




Thank you

Re: Which files do you recommend saving into a second drive?
 

I suspect the most important stuff here likely simple sessions file management.... wherever possible make sure your audio content is in the session folder. Not doing that will leads to tears. If video content will fit/work there I'd do that as well unless the workflow (e.g. sharing video assets between sessions) meant it made more sense elsewhere.... (but I know next to nothing about video). Bounces I personally send back to the session folder, if I was working with clients I imagine I'd might set up top level folders for each client and bounce to bounce folders in the top level folder. But whatever... the most important thing is consistency in how you store and use stuff, and if you work with others, even casually sharing sessions, then make sure there is consistency across the team. Again stuff of tears.

I don't understand "helping the main system drive". The system/C: drive is there to work for you, the Windows OS and Pro Tools outside of audio and video work is putting insignificant load (for a SSD/PCIe/NVMe drive) on the C: drive. If there is lots of load on the C: drive outside of audio and video then something else is severely broken with your system (like it's thrashing/paging to that drive) and however you have laid out stuff on the drives you would be dead in the water until you fix the underlying issue.

Looks like a nice setup Windows PC, please make sure you do *every* optimization possible for this system, including all the relevant BIOS settings. And since you mention samples and videos and... make sure you have enough memory for all this. Make sure disk cache is actually turned on i.e. set to a size not "normal" and look at the disk cache meter in Pro Tools to make sure sessions are being fully cached.

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You give no information about what you are doing or how large your session or sample librarie are or how much space you have on these drives. Or what problem you are trying to solve (e.g. session startup time, VI sample load time, AAE errors etc.). And you mention video... that's potentially an open ended can of worms especially with implications on size.

The bottom line is for almost all users you can put you sessions and samples all on the same drive. So arrange stuff to optimize other thing, space, ease of administration and use etc. Disk cache is super effective, you could run a lot of stuff with that on a wet noodle slow HDD... but please don't. Disk Cache combined with a PCIe/NVMe SSD is just has super high performance.

So KISS put everything on one drive if it will fit. Maybe the other drive contains a hot backups of the whole first drive, or backups of sessions (only one of multiple separate backups you'll need, and the others should be on removable media and/or the cloud). If not everything will fit on one drive I'd be tempted to leave samples on the C: drive if they will fit just because I don't even need to think where things got put, and run sessions on the other. And depending on how you do external backups it might be easier to have sessions on the second non-boot drive... but only you know enough about your environment to think that through.

What I'd not normally do is RAID or concatenate the drives. These things are high performance already and very reliable, more complex setups tend to have a higher failure rate caused by administrator/user errors. Now trying to solve a specific problem that more I/O performance might fix sure I'd look at RAID, but you are very very unlikely to need that. Modern PCIe/NVMe SSD storage is so fast that the software has become the bottleneck...

Re: Which files do you recommend saving into a second drive?
 

Thank you Darryl,


Yes, with "helping the system drive" I was meaning to lightening the load to that drive, not filling it with many files and leaving it exclusively for software (and/or even games), therefore, making the second drive the one that works reading virtual instruments, videos, libraries, etc.


My drives are "new" so they aren't suffering issues... I just want an advice on file management.


About the disk cache being "not normal", how much do you recommend me?

Currently I have it at "Normal", but have the options from 256MB to 60GB.




Talking about what I do: I compose music and edit audio for commercial videos, so everyday I use PT with a video, sometimes short videos and sometimes larger videos (up to 3 hour videos).
So I need several Virtual Instruments loaded, plugins and a video track.
I have the NI Komplete 12 Ultimate instruments, so their libraries are big.
Also I have several Sound FX libraries.


My two NVME drives are 2TB, but the first is already at 60% of its capacity (because of Komplete), and I'm starting to get more videos, so I don't want a 90% drive working everyday, that's why I just bought the second drive.


Yes, I don't want a RAID system either...




Thank you

Re: Which files do you recommend saving into a second drive?
 

You can guess the size of the audio in your sessions and set the disk cache to that, then look at the disk cache meter as sessions load. The reference guide has an explanation of that meter. Now does this really help you or not… if you are not having any AAE errors it may not, if you ever see an error, make sure you are giving Pro Tools time to load the session—ideally fully cached with the meter turning green.

Sounds like you mostly have a disk space issue, but with those drives and disk cache you should have the flexibility to put stuff wherever you want for space/convenience/workflow/backup reasons without worrying about drive performance.

Now if VI performance or startup times are issues you might switch between streaming and caching samples if the VIs support that, or increase/decrease their memory size. But basically on modern systems I would just install stuff in the easiest/most convince them way for you and then see how it goes. The old rules about dedicated audio drives are thankfully long gone (but you might still go that way if convenient for you).

Re: Which files do you recommend saving into a second drive?
 

Perfect, thank you for your time Darryl


So I'm going to start saving new sessions in the new drive, and move my sound fx libraries to the new one too.
All my VI are going to remain intact for now, they are working fine.


And definitely I'm going to check the Disk Cache
I think this is a good reference:
https://www.macprovideo.com/article/...-cache-feature

Re: Which files do you recommend saving into a second drive?
 

Just be aware that article is out of date, the separate timeline cache meter was removed in Pro Tools 11/combined into one meter.

Re: Which files do you recommend saving into a second drive?
 

Just a couple of notes: Beware that if you start shuffling stuff around, you risk that applications and plugins lose track of files that they need. Say you open a sampler plugin and all samples are gone because they have been moved, and you'll have to re-link the two. Same goes for music video etc.
On the disk cache: enough is enough. If you see that the meter Darryl talked about, if it's half full it's OK. Doesn't matter if you increase the buffer. So it depends on session size. I keep mine at 3gb, cause I usually work with small sessions. 20-40 tracks. Also, you can turn it off, PT won't stop working, but it would be working off disk, not having all session files stored in ram cache. (Btw, that's what 'Normal' really means; off.)

Re: Which files do you recommend saving into a second drive?
 

I haven't followed this thread closely, but if I understand correctly, you have a 2tb disk that's 60% full, and a new empty one. I can't see you've mesured the speed of the two, and how they are connected. The speed might be different and that may influence how you should manage them.

If all your files are now on a fast internal disk, you might consider just using the new one for backup. And room for an extra partition for temprorary/extra stuff.

I'd be very careful shuffling stuff around without a backup.

And you should mesure the speed of the two.