Pro Tools installation, OS drive or Data drive?

[kol12]

Hi, kinda new to Pro Tools.

Where's the best place to install Pro Tools? I can imagine Pro Tools deals with lots of large data like project data, recordings, vst's etc. Can file location for these sort of things be set to separate data drives? Does Pro Tools have to be installed on an OS drive or can it be installed on a dedicated drive? I would be installing it on my home computer but don't want huge amounts of Pro Tools data being stored on my OS drive (ssd 250gb)

Thanks.

[Darryl Ramm]

Open up the Pro Tools Installation documentation and follow the instructions there. The Pro Tools installer will install Pro Tools where it needs to be on the OS Drive. Don't try to change that or you will break things.

Your sessions and content in them belong on a dedicated audio spec drive, VI samples live on the boot drive or yet more separate sample drive(s) (not the audio/session drive). Again all described in documentation you should be reading.

Nowadays with very fast (PCIe based) SSDs frequently all this (boot/system, audio/sessions and VI samples) can all be on a single SSD.

[kol12]

Thanks!

[kol12]

I quote this from the Pro Tools Reference guide:

"Pro Tools software files (such as the application and plug-ins files) should be located on your startup drive (the drive that contains your operating system and other system-related files).

Data files (such as session files, audio files and video files) can be located on any compatible internal or external drive."

Does that mean the only ongoing Pro Tools associated files on the OS drive will be Plug-ins?

Why do Plug-ins need to be installed on the OS drive? I suppose most plugins allow you install the plug-in and set where the sound library is stored.

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by kol12

I quote this from the Pro Tools Reference guide:

"Pro Tools software files (such as the application and plug-ins files) should be located on your startup drive (the drive that contains your operating system and other system-related files).

Data files (such as session files, audio files and video files) can be located on any compatible internal or external drive."

Does that mean the only ongoing Pro Tools associated files on the OS drive will be Plug-ins?

Why do Plug-ins need to be installed on the OS drive? I suppose most plugins allow you install the plug-in and set where the sound library is stored.

Always install the programs themselves where the installer wants to put them on the system drive. Especially plugins as they need to be installed in certain folders on the system drive so PT or any other daw you're running can find and use them. As to sample libraries those can be installed or moved to any drive you want them. Most will give you an option on install as to where to install the sample content. If you do for some reason end up with the sample content on your system drive you can always move that to an external drive; you'll just have to tell the plugin where they were moved to.