[BScout]

Originally Posted by Dizzi45Z

Or accidentally having duplicates of files? I think it is an obvious answer that most people would prefer the accident of duplicates over not having the files at all.

When we have shared storage, etc. it's more than a duplicate file issue. Different departments can be working on the same audio -- if a fix is made by one user that only happened to their local files instead of referencing the shared batch, it can be a massive problem to untangle at a later stage. And though you may look at basic band/song recording, dialogue mics/production mic recordings can be massive for a feature production. I can't even remember if you can cancel out of a copy over of audio files.

Originally Posted by Dizzi45Z

For cases where people are wanting to have files referenced rather than copied, it is likely a case where the project stays on the same computer. This means the preference only needs to be changed once.

Nope. There are departments (sound effect editors, foley, dialogue, adr, etc.) In addition there are mix assistants. For mixes, I'll often have one or two assistants assembling mix sessions pulling together recordings into templates, routing, etc before I get the session that then re-references local files.

Originally Posted by Dizzi45Z

In the case of people needing the files to always exist on their portable hard drive wherever they go, they will be dealing with multiple Pro Tools setups meaning that they would have to check that preference on many computer setups.

I always tell new users/clients to bring files only using Save Copy in (with copy audio files checked.)
Even when working on recording dates, at breaks, I do a Save Copy to a backup portable.
It's the cleanest/securest way to make sure the whole session is transferred. Every user should learn to do that if/when they move complete projects.