Optimal Hard Drive Configuration

[Ann Bens]

Golden rule:
OS and programs on C, nothing else
Never partition (video) drives.

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Adobe Certified Expert Premiere Pro
Adobe Community Professional

[Jonny Webb]

Maybe one of the experts around here (at creative cow) could write an article on PPro (&AE) on a budget PC (min specs obviously), and all about optimization / getting the most out of your system. I know many people who’d appreciate that, especially those with a budget of 3 beans and some pocket fluff…

what i’ve found so far, for Win7x64 (with NO other software)…
changing the pagefile *size* = no gain, increased risk
moving pagefile to different drive (not partition) = a little gain
changing visual effects (system properties) = a little gain
other tweaks (stopping services) = negligable gain

using 2 primary drives in RAID 0 (via bios) = big gain

Partitioning:
1) C-drive for OS and programs
2) D-drive for Projects (as in Save Project to D-drive)
3) E-drive for scratch files
This means in PPro goto Edit-Preferences-Media and change Cache Files & database to E-drive. However i’ve read in many forums people have problems with “write XMP id to files…” once cache is moved. Im looking into this more.

Note: Other physical drives are for source files, outputs, backups, etc.

[Jonny Webb]

When setting up RAID 0…
set Data Stripping = 128k for video (& large file) processing.

Thanks Ann, but as more people do it than not (at least those that comment in forums), i’d really want to see data & benchmarks before giving up on partitions.

[Ann Bens]

https://forums.adobe.com/community/premiere/hardware_forum

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Adobe Certified Expert Premiere Pro
Adobe Community Professional

[Jonny Webb]

I dont trust the Adobe forums anymore, not because there are so many forum squatters with such fragile egos, but because many of the regulars talk outside their field. They may be experts on specific products, but their IT knowledge is often flawed to the point of dangerous. Numerous times i’ve checked there for a hardware question, only to receive an incorrect answer.

(oh and also the Adobe forums are *still* down!)

[Tom Daigon]

After recently purchasing an HP Z820, I had one of the most knowledgeable people I know (Eric Bowen from ADK) give it a “tune up”, which basically means he configured the system for optimal use with CS6.

The Os and Apps are on the C driver.

The cache, preview and projects files for ALL apps are on the fastest drive in my system which is my raid array. This is the Dulce DQg2 16TB drive. It has a read and write time of approx. 1000 MB/sec.

I have noticed the system is “peppier” when working in CS6.

Tom Daigon
PrP / After Effects Editor
http://www.hdshotsandcuts.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxPrG3WUyz8
(Best viewed at 1080P and full screen)
HP Z820 Dual 2687
64GB ram
Dulce DQg2 16TB raid

[John Young]

Jonny,
1)-https://forums.adobe.com/thread/662972#.UGyyzXsdTnc.email This should answer your question, at least it did for me.

2)- I do not share your opinion on Adobe forums, but I guess you can take or leave this advice if you want.

3)- I guess I do not have any performance benchmark results to offer, but my thinking is that if performance (i.e. speed) is what you are after partitioning doesn’t make a lot of logical sense (could be wrong though, I am not an expert by any stretch). A 7200rpm drive, even if it is partitioned can only spin 7200rpm. So if you are reading from one partition and writing to the other partition, you are still are doing it all on the same drive. One 7200rpm drive for 2 processes. Where as reading from one 7200rpm drive, and writing to another 7200rpm drive would give you twice as much performance (speed). 1 process for each 7200rpm drive. Am I wrong on this?

[Chris Borjis]

as long as your at least doing a RAID 0 you should be doing quite well.

You should also get an NVidia card for GPU mercury transmit acceleration.
It makes a BIG difference.

I have a Raid 5 via fiber and a quadro 4000.
Very fast and no complaints.

[Petros Kolyvas]

Just to address the “partitioning” comment. This may come off as ornery, but it’s not meant to be.

The ONLY (yes, that is all-caps) reason to ever use the words “Partition” and “Performance” in a conversation about NLE and/or DAW workstations, when discussing spinning disk drives is if you intend to partition disks in order to “short stroke” them.

Understanding the physical nature of a spinning disk is essential to understanding what’s going on with your system. A set of flat, circular platters rotate at high speed (7200 RPM or more if you have the right disks). These disks actually have tracks – many many of them.

A head (or actuator) moves across these platters to read and write data. The farther and more frequently a head has to move between the tracks containing the data a particular operation requires the “slower” the drive becomes. Partitioning a single spinning disk in the hopes of gaining performance across the entire disk surface is a way to ENSURE the disk will slow down more quickly over time.

On the other hand, using a partition to short stroke a spinning disk by using only the fastest outer edge of each platter, will work, provided you don’t create a volume or filesystem on the unused space. This will reduce the available space, but also ensure that the maximum distance between tracks of data is dramatically reduced and in situations where read and write operations are not at all sequential (say like reading 10 audio/video tracks or jumping between them), short stroking can dramatically improve IOPS.

And you don’t have to take my word for it a search will net you the performance information you speak of.

Some References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_partitioning#Disadvantages_of_multiple_partitions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_disk_drive_performance_characteristics#Short_stroking
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOPS

—
There is no intuitive interface, not even the nipple. It’s all learned. – Bruce Ediger

[Jonny Webb]

Thanks all, for all the replies.

I’ve been convinced about the benefits of partitioning ever since hard drives have existed, (for many technical reasons), but wondered what the optimum config was for video editing.
After lots of recent research, and comments here such as ‘short stroking’ (thanks Petros) i see that partitioning is still the way to go.

So i’ll stay with my small c-drive for os and programs. And i’ll have everything else on d-drive, projects, data, etc.
I’ve not found any evidence that moving scratch files/cache/previews/etc anywhere else is in any way beneficial…

If anyone knows about moving cache, i’d sure like to know…
(just a reminder – this thread is for people who do not have unlimited money to throw at their system)