Vegas/Multiple Hard Drives

Jeff Harper · June 5th, 2008, 12:03 PM

Of course not. That was excellent information you provided, thank you very much.

For those interested it took all of 20 minutes to install clone my old raid Raptors drives and install the new Velociraptor. Interestingly even though previously ran 3 raptors in raid 0 for my OS, I'm finding the new single drive actually does seem to load programs faster. No difference with Vegas that I notice, but other apps load almost instantly, whereas before they did hesitate, especially Adobe products. The drive is so quiet I cannot hear it even with my ear next to the case. It is a nice drive, and I can tentatively recommend it. It is actually eerie. I was used to having three of those other drives banging around, this will take some getting used to!

And thanks again Kim for the reminder on defragmenting, very good stuff.

Todd Moore · June 5th, 2008, 06:37 PM

The old Defrag......... I agree most people on here would know to do it regularly however it is amazing how many people never do it and then wonder why they have pc problems let alone slower performance.

This is one of the reasons for my post earlier about using a usb drive. My pc has no drive bays left.
I only have 1 pc and it's used as both work (video) and home pc. Far from ideal I know.
Like most home pc's I have stacks of movies,music,photos and the like then it gets fairly hard to keep it all sorted.
My wife is on the pc when ever I'm not working or it's not doing a long render, so finding the time to defrag gets a bit tricky.

Jeff Harper · June 5th, 2008, 08:00 PM

You are probably right about that Todd. I defrag my OS at least every other day, sometimes I do it twice in one day, so I just couldn't imagine anyone that didn't. Heck after I am done with a project I reformat my work drive (video drive) everytime. It is habit with me.

You know Todd it is funny you should mention the USB thing again. Today I needed a hard drive to transfer some data to share it with someone. I got out an old USB drive enclosure (Adaptec) that has an old IDE drive inside of it. I hadn't used that drive for probably a year or more. I had forgotten what a great drive that was. Worked without a hitch. Obviously it is slow for data transfer, but otherwise it is very solid.

On the other hand, I have several larger much newer USB/Firewire combos that have always been flaky, I can't stand them.

I suppose I have had generally bad luck with externals, hence my bad attitude about them. I think I will shop around for new Adaptec enclosures and take those originals out of their factory case and see what happens!

Todd Moore · June 5th, 2008, 09:21 PM

I'm sure yourself Jeff, probably like a lot of us on this site, have helped many frinds or family who have no idea about computers let alone defragging. God knows what my parents, in-laws,friends would do with out me.
Just this week my parents pc crashed and burned. I said "don't worry ,you have been backing everything up like I showed you haven't you?" No was the answer of course.

I don't usually have to worry about defragging that often because most of my projects are small for the web but I do try and do it once a month. I am about to do it this week because I have a wedding to edit.

I know usb is not the ideal way to go but until I upgrade to a dedicated pc, usb will have to do. I don't even use raid. I just backup to 2 or 3 usb drives.

I must say Jeff. After your earlier post about burning from external usb drives, I have changed my set up to burn from an internal sata.

Jeff Harper · June 5th, 2008, 09:26 PM

If your USB drives are better than mine, I'm sure they are fine. I don't know what it is about the Fantom or LaCie drives, haven't worked out for me.

But see, you mentioned small projects, and that is the answer. If your projects are small, the USB drives will be fine anyway. My problems with them were usually when transferring 100Gb size files and such.

Good luck with your family sounds like you need it!

Todd Moore · June 5th, 2008, 09:51 PM

LOL
With all the times I didn't listen to them when I was younger it's only fair.

John Miller · June 6th, 2008, 10:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeff Harper

You are probably right about that Todd. I defrag my OS at least every other day, sometimes I do it twice in one day, so I just couldn't imagine anyone that didn't. Heck after I am done with a project I reformat my work drive (video drive) everytime. It is habit with me.

With Vista (my default these days), I use the scheduled defragmentation tool that runs every week. It is enabled by default. Indeed, since I installed Vista 18 months ago I haven't even looked to see the level of fragmentation. Manual defragmentation has become as unnecessary as double declutching - useful to know how to do in an emergency but that's about it...

Kim Olsson · June 6th, 2008, 10:22 AM

You shouldn't use scheduled defragmentation tool... How nice is it, if it activates during a rendering or a heavy workflow time...

Even if Vista use minimal resourses when your system i occupied, its sometime to much...

Me myself, defrags only when I go to bed or being away a couple of hours. Then i know it can't interfere me.

Try find a third defragmentation tool which can defragment immovable system files like page files, the event logs, the Registry hives and the hibernation files, all of which normally cannot be defragmented.

If you jumping around with alot of different applications this is vital, that if you want your softwares to run smoothly...

Its not either healthy that the defragmetation tool is being used while your working. Because if the tool, defragment your files that you are currently working with/on, there can be damage on your sectors. And how do you think your Harddrive Head will feel, when being overloaded. This can make its lifetime much shorter because of the rotation with no pauses and heatpoblems...

John Miller · June 6th, 2008, 10:38 AM

I agree about the interference.

My scheduled defrag is set for 1:00am every Wednesday morning. If I happen to be renderering overnight on a Tuesday/Wednesday, I can suspend the defragmentation.

On my current system, I haven't needed a third-party tool since my system partitions are sufficiently large enough. On older systems, I have needed to and use the free PageDefrag tool from MS that runs at boot time and, hence, can deal with paging files, registry hives etc:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s.../bb897426.aspx

In my experience, certain antivirus packages are far more intrusive, non-configurable and resource hungry. e.g., NIS. I couldn't suspend it at all and it would frequently interfere (at least once an hour, consuming most of the CPU time). Even with a valid subscription remaining, I finally ditched it for a freeware package that permits full control.

Arne Pursell · June 11th, 2008, 04:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jerome Cloninger

I have this current setup:

C: System & Program drive
D: DVD Burner (Soon to replace the DVD Burners with Blu-ray Burners)
E: DVD Burner
F: Capture Drive (1TB) (also contains music library)
G: Render Drive (200GB)
H: Author Drive (250GB)
I: "Scratch" Drive (250GB) I use this for all program's temporary access folders.. ie: Adobe Scratch Drive, Vegas Temp working folder (set in preferences) and etc.

The workflow is great and am always going from one drive to another NEVER working the next step to the same drive. All drives are SATA II. Also have indexing turned off on all drives and only C: drive is configured for Virus Scanner (but completely disabled for editing/rendering times.)

Hi I have a question for the Vegas gurus out there;

I have a dual-boot but old laptop Clevo M590k aka Alienware MaLX with two sataII internals and 2 external USB drives. I asked this before, but noone has replied to my post..how does Vegas distribute the Mt2 files? I try to keep them separated (i.e. import from external USB 2, process on vista 64, render to other internal sata2 drive) but's it's not clear if the mt2 clips are imported into the operating system drive (i.e. where vegas is also running) or whether they're imported on the fly. Point being I would also like to keep all of above separate to cut down on seek\write\read times, as my render times with a measly turion single-core are around 4-10x original clip size with just a few titles.

Any advice would be appreciated. I don't know how to post a sig yet, so specs below...yes I know I need a new laptop or better yet a dual CPU server (preferably a dual quad-core opteron Barcelona) in small format...but that will be another thread...

Kind regards, Arne

M590k aka MaLX or Sager 5960
Turion ML-44 2.4 ghz single core. Dual 7900 Geforce Go GTX 512 Mb SLI
2 Gb RAM
2 x HDD 7200 rpm SATA II , 100 & 120 GB
1 x external USB 250 GB
1 x external USB 500 GB
19 inch screen 1680 x 1050 with 290 nits
3dmark06 circa 6180
PC mark etc...

Jerome Cloninger · June 11th, 2008, 05:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arne Pursell

how does Vegas distribute the Mt2 files?...................but's it's not clear if the mt2 clips are imported into the operating system drive (i.e. where vegas is also running) or whether they're imported on the fly.

Vegas imports/captures to the drive and directory you select in the preferences. If you set to capture to drive H, then that is where those files will be worked on from....

June 5th, 2008, 12:03 PM	#31
Jeff Harper Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 8,425	Of course not. That was excellent information you provided, thank you very much. For those interested it took all of 20 minutes to install clone my old raid Raptors drives and install the new Velociraptor. Interestingly even though previously ran 3 raptors in raid 0 for my OS, I'm finding the new single drive actually does seem to load programs faster. No difference with Vegas that I notice, but other apps load almost instantly, whereas before they did hesitate, especially Adobe products. The drive is so quiet I cannot hear it even with my ear next to the case. It is a nice drive, and I can tentatively recommend it. It is actually eerie. I was used to having three of those other drives banging around, this will take some getting used to! And thanks again Kim for the reminder on defragmenting, very good stuff.

June 5th, 2008, 06:37 PM	#32
Todd Moore Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Alstonville Australia Posts: 42	The old Defrag......... I agree most people on here would know to do it regularly however it is amazing how many people never do it and then wonder why they have pc problems let alone slower performance. This is one of the reasons for my post earlier about using a usb drive. My pc has no drive bays left. I only have 1 pc and it's used as both work (video) and home pc. Far from ideal I know. Like most home pc's I have stacks of movies,music,photos and the like then it gets fairly hard to keep it all sorted. My wife is on the pc when ever I'm not working or it's not doing a long render, so finding the time to defrag gets a bit tricky.

June 5th, 2008, 08:00 PM	#33
Jeff Harper Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 8,425	You are probably right about that Todd. I defrag my OS at least every other day, sometimes I do it twice in one day, so I just couldn't imagine anyone that didn't. Heck after I am done with a project I reformat my work drive (video drive) everytime. It is habit with me. You know Todd it is funny you should mention the USB thing again. Today I needed a hard drive to transfer some data to share it with someone. I got out an old USB drive enclosure (Adaptec) that has an old IDE drive inside of it. I hadn't used that drive for probably a year or more. I had forgotten what a great drive that was. Worked without a hitch. Obviously it is slow for data transfer, but otherwise it is very solid. On the other hand, I have several larger much newer USB/Firewire combos that have always been flaky, I can't stand them. I suppose I have had generally bad luck with externals, hence my bad attitude about them. I think I will shop around for new Adaptec enclosures and take those originals out of their factory case and see what happens!

June 5th, 2008, 09:21 PM	#34
Todd Moore Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Alstonville Australia Posts: 42	I'm sure yourself Jeff, probably like a lot of us on this site, have helped many frinds or family who have no idea about computers let alone defragging. God knows what my parents, in-laws,friends would do with out me. Just this week my parents pc crashed and burned. I said "don't worry ,you have been backing everything up like I showed you haven't you?" No was the answer of course. I don't usually have to worry about defragging that often because most of my projects are small for the web but I do try and do it once a month. I am about to do it this week because I have a wedding to edit. I know usb is not the ideal way to go but until I upgrade to a dedicated pc, usb will have to do. I don't even use raid. I just backup to 2 or 3 usb drives. I must say Jeff. After your earlier post about burning from external usb drives, I have changed my set up to burn from an internal sata.

June 5th, 2008, 09:26 PM	#35
Jeff Harper Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 8,425	If your USB drives are better than mine, I'm sure they are fine. I don't know what it is about the Fantom or LaCie drives, haven't worked out for me. But see, you mentioned small projects, and that is the answer. If your projects are small, the USB drives will be fine anyway. My problems with them were usually when transferring 100Gb size files and such. Good luck with your family sounds like you need it!

June 5th, 2008, 09:51 PM	#36
Todd Moore Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Alstonville Australia Posts: 42	LOL With all the times I didn't listen to them when I was younger it's only fair.

June 6th, 2008, 10:22 AM	#38
Kim Olsson Major Player Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Sweden Posts: 263	You shouldn't use scheduled defragmentation tool... How nice is it, if it activates during a rendering or a heavy workflow time... Even if Vista use minimal resourses when your system i occupied, its sometime to much... Me myself, defrags only when I go to bed or being away a couple of hours. Then i know it can't interfere me. Try find a third defragmentation tool which can defragment immovable system files like page files, the event logs, the Registry hives and the hibernation files, all of which normally cannot be defragmented. If you jumping around with alot of different applications this is vital, that if you want your softwares to run smoothly... Its not either healthy that the defragmetation tool is being used while your working. Because if the tool, defragment your files that you are currently working with/on, there can be damage on your sectors. And how do you think your Harddrive Head will feel, when being overloaded. This can make its lifetime much shorter because of the rotation with no pauses and heatpoblems...

June 6th, 2008, 10:38 AM	#39
John Miller Major Player Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Hillsborough, NC, USA Posts: 968	I agree about the interference. My scheduled defrag is set for 1:00am every Wednesday morning. If I happen to be renderering overnight on a Tuesday/Wednesday, I can suspend the defragmentation. On my current system, I haven't needed a third-party tool since my system partitions are sufficiently large enough. On older systems, I have needed to and use the free PageDefrag tool from MS that runs at boot time and, hence, can deal with paging files, registry hives etc: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s.../bb897426.aspx In my experience, certain antivirus packages are far more intrusive, non-configurable and resource hungry. e.g., NIS. I couldn't suspend it at all and it would frequently interfere (at least once an hour, consuming most of the CPU time). Even with a valid subscription remaining, I finally ditched it for a freeware package that permits full control.