Where to save Premiere Pro projects-hard drive? cloud?

[Dennis Dean]

I have my system configured so that everything I need is kept in a single project folder on my iMac’s internal drive. I keep a drive plugged in dedicated to Time Machine backups.

I also keep extra drives attached to my iMac and once a project is underway, I simply drag the project folder to an external drive and that becomes an on-site backup. I do that until the project is final. Then I make sure it’s on two external drives before taking it off my internal drive.

Off-site backups are always great in case of major disasters… fire, flood, etc. I currently do not have an off-site backup but that’s next on my list.

So I can take any project folder – transfer it to any computer – and pick up editing where I left off, if needed. It’s all there. I might have to let it recreate some media files, transitions etc. but it’s complete and in a single package. Just open it and edit it.

Hope that helps.

Not sure if I will use iCloud or something else for off-site. Off-site also qualifies if you take one of the backup drives out of the building with you… and leave one in the building.

[Neil Orman]

This is very helpful, thanks so much Dennis. I’ll try to adopt many if not all of these practices. I seem to remember the helpdesk people at my employer saying they didn’t like Time Machine for some reason. Not sure why, but we are largely a PC place with a small minority of Mac users. So if I’m remembering that right, maybe they just didn’t know Time Machine as well. I’ve heard Apple people recommend it several times, versus my much less regular and thorough backup methods. So I’ll definitely try to start using Time Machine. I’ve flirted with disaster a few times myself! Just one question occurs, on all these extra hard-drives you mention, for different (and sensible) purposes. I’ve been using the G-drive hard-drive below for my video multimedia files. But it’s pretty pricey at $400 or so. Is this the type of drive you or others recommend for these types of uses, like Time Machine or ‘on-site’ backups? Or are there others you like for these purposes?

Thanks so much again.

Neil

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1661635-REG/sandisk_professional_sdps11a_004t_gbanb_g_drive_ssd_4tb.html?sts=pi

[Stephen Eckelberry]

I share hard drives and projects with others, so I create a PREMIERE folder for each project on the hard drive that has the media. I have a hard drive set aside for Dropbox – I use the desktop app, and all my autosaves go there. If I hand someone a hard drive, I will copy over the projects to my another drive.

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Neil,

Like you I’ve got a 1 TB drive on my Mac Mini.

As useless as it is as a “Cloud” storage only, I use the Adobe Creative Cloud to store all my PPro Project and Auto-Save files on (This will be synced to Cloud, but not able to be Cloud only).

Then I have separate Media folder on the main drive (outside Adobe Creative Cloud), or running on an external SSD drive (I like the Samsung T7, who have just dropped the price on their 2 TB drives).
For long term storage I used a mix, or both, HDD and BluRay.

For some of my After Effects projects I use Microsoft OneDrive, as it allows me to “Free up Space” and have the files in Cloud only – this is particularly good for library of client logos, branding and other files, that I will need on/off over time – Google Drive and DropBox should give you same functionality. (Why Adobe Cloud cannot exist in Cloud only, is a mystery – sorry, I keep banging on about, but I don’t think that Adobe care much for the size of our local drives…😉)

I operate across both Mac and HP, with most of my plug-ins being on the PC.
(Only reason for having the Mac, is that several clients are moving over to FCPX)

But like others, it is ridiculous that Time Machine does not work with iCloud Drive. And, a mystery too as to why Apple with all their brilliant people cannot find a way to make that happen.

Atb
Mads

[Neil Orman]

Lots of interesting and helpful points, thanks so much, Mads and Stephen.

Mads, that’s very interesting about Time Machine not working with iCloud drive. I’m wondering if that’s why my helpdesk colleagues advised against Time Machine at one point. Do you think that’s why? That’s a great tip on that Samsung SSD T7 drive too, which seems like it might offer a big potential savings if I need to purchase more external drives soon, over the G-drive I’ve been using.

Stephen, one thing I wanted to ask, to you or others, relates to how you direct your autosave files to save in a specific location. You just set that in PPro preferences right? Are the autosave files the only ones you worry about directing to a specific place like that? What about media cache files? To this point, I’ve just been letting those save to their default location, which seems to be in the PPro projects folder on my internal drive.

Your practice makes a lot of sense, on creating one PPro folder for each project, that has all the media but also all the project and other files. So the Dropbox desktop app allows you to save your autosave files there? I wasn’t totally clear what you meant when you said you have ‘a hard drive set aside for Dropbox.’ Could you please just clarify that?

I’ think I’ve been able to not worry about where I’m directing files to save, or back up, because virtually all my work is for my employer. I’m not really needing to share PPro project or other files with others, like many others probably are. But learning about these practices is a great help, as I know this isn’t sustainable. Thanks again to you both, Stephen and Mads!

Neil

[Ann Bens]

https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro-discussions/faq-when-to-use-quot-save-a-copy-quot-or-quot-save-as-quot-and-when-to-simply-use-quot-save-quot/m-p/11071284