[Vinit Parmar]

Short answer: It seems the Peak Files were being created in response to a faulty or missing Audio Plug-In.

I originated a feature project in Premiere CC last year. Last month, after a Premiere CC update to 2015.3, I was getting peak-file creation that would eat up my desktop memory. This was a re-curring problem and it slowed down all work.

The first problem (eating up desktop memory) was to instruct Premiere CC to save all cache in the external HD containing the source folder as Premiere automatically labels this file Preview Files (audio and video separately). Every time I shut down the computer, all cache was erased on the desktop, prompting Premiere to re-start the process and within hours, 50GB was taken up. Now, all that cache is saved on the external drive. BUT, why was Premiere making 50GB+ of preview!?

The second problem (Peak File creation) was to find the reason for generating the peak files in the first place. I solved the problem thanks to: https://forums.adobe.com/thread/2176939

I hope this helps!

My specs:
OS X 10.11.6 (El Capitan)
Processor = 2.9 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory = 8GB 1600 Mhz DDR3
Internal Start up Disk = 500GB
External HD = 2TB connected via USB3.0 to E-Sata Cable

[Vinit Parmar]

Good points. I will try that. I would love to never work in FCP7 again. In fact, I have CS6 and FCPX but needed to complete an old project lingering in FCP7, and would never consider jumping applications mid-stream in a project.

FYI… I noticed last night at 2AM, while digging into the Applications Folder on El Capitan that my FCP App was 30 GB large! Opening up folders inside this App by right-clicking to Show Contents, I did eventually find the project folder containing the render files. I deleted them. Good riddance.

Thank you!
V