Multiple Runtimes or larger drive?
TATSU 3D
Posts: 224
Hey everyone,
As my runtime grows larger, it is quickly reaching the maximum capacity of the drive it's stored on. Is it better to move all files to a single larger drive or just to get a second drive and store new files there, having two runtime directories?
My thinking is that a larger drive will take longer to search, but also multiple runtimes may cause issues and conflicts?
Any help or advice greatly appreciated!
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2025 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
Personally I keep one content folder for every project, when I switch the project I simply switch the content folder. Then I keep all the projects in backup and only the current project to the system ssd. This is fast, avoids confilcts, and keeps projects backed up.
Dealing with a large content folder where you keep everything is looking for troubles in my opinion.
I keep a runtime for each Category (I am a poser user, but you did use the term runtime) I have Male, female, kids, toons animals and creatures categories for figures and plants, trees, architecture, environement, vehicle and misc for props
Multiple runtimes isn't an issue. What may become an issue is finding your content across multiple folders. I tried splitting my library for a while and I quickly found that I couldn't find what Iwas looking for when I wanted to add something to a scene.
I just ran into this myself. I looked at the largest products and quickly realized I could easily split out shaders and shader presets to a new library and billboad products to their own library. So I created two new directories on different drives, fired up DIM and added them. Then I did keyword searches in DIM, un-installed the products and re-installed to the new directories. Then I went into Studio directory management and added the new directories. No problems so far.
I don't see how this would be an issue. Either your using Smart Content, which wouldn't care, or your catagorizing your content, where you only have to find it once. I have 2 directories, one for DIM and one for everything else. The only thing slowing me down is the directory structure and finding it once, Not the different Runtimes.
Gus
For a long time I seperated my directories by stuff from Daz, installed by DIM, and stuff from other websites, manually installed. It quickly became annoying to find stuff.
I then split things up by figure generation and some other factors and that helped but I have a lot of stuff and most isn't in smart content.
Do you use 'Content Library Pane' to organize your stuff? I do the same as you but, I do it in the 'Content Library Pane'. It doesn't matter where it is on the disk.
The only reason I seperated my stuff the way you started out is that I wanted DIM to keep my content up to date. The other directory I TRIED to clean up.
Gus
I have not used Carrara in a while and it's not on my laptop so someone else will have to let you know. Maybe ask on the Carrara forums.
For DS it's easy here are the steps, hope it helps you.
I have about 30 runtime folders; I split them into stuff from various sites, but also split into props (including various environments and scenes); people, clothes, dforce clothes, hair, deforce hair, and many others.
I changed them about last year/earlier this to better suit my needs, which caused it to get to the 30.
My advice, make runtimes for what makes sense: per project, per store, per catagory, per generation, per gender, for textures, shaders, lighting - whatever works for you.
I loathe connect, and ignore it; I use DIM for Daz products as it is simpler, but I also manually copy items into custom folders when it suits me - usually for a project, or because I use em more; and sometimes because I change the product and want to keep the original.
F2 brings up preferences. Goto the content section > Content Directory Manager > Daz Studio Formats > click on the plus - here you can add as many content folders as you like, and they don't have to be on the same drive. They do all need to follow the same conventions, which when using DIM is simple as it will install content in the appropriate folders. Tell what folders it 'can see'; select products and install the which area you wish.
I'd opt to "compress the Daz3D items folder", first... It is a non-destructive "compacting", not actual "compression". (Eg, its not like a zip-folder/file)
Daz items have a LOT of small files that don't fill-up whole "sectors" on your hard drive. But each file consumes a whole sector, at the minimum. The compacting will stuff all the small files into individual sectors, filling them up, instead of wasting all that empty space.
EG, a sector is normally about 4096 Bytes large. Many files are only 200 bytes large. (Like the ones that launch products, which is just a "link", in a text file.) Each one of those consumes 4096 bytes on your hard drive, even though each file is only 200 bytes long. (There is ONE for each product, but may be many per product.) Windows will cram 20 of those files into one single sector and create a sub-sector index that tells windows where to find those files. So, they normally consumed 20x4096=81,920 bytes on your hard drive, but now, all 20 of them will only consume 4000 bytes, as that is the default sector size. That will ultimately result in a compression of about 60-40% in those folders.)
NOTE: Larger files don't compact well, as they consume whole sectors, except for the last bit of data that can't fit into a whole sector. Daz has more "small files", than it has for "large files". Again, this is not "Zip compression", it is sector-compression AKA: Compacting.
This option is found by going to your "file explorer", and locating the folder where your daz items are stored. Select the "Properties" option after clicking on the folder with your right-mouse button. At the bottom, in the "Attributes" section, select the "Advanced" button. Then, at the bottom of that new page, select, "Compress contents to save disk space", and be sure to select "Yes, compress folders and sub-folders".
Your data will not be "zipped", so it will all still be fast loading and can be edited and located with any text editor. Windows just points to the file data with an extended file-index, since multiple files are sharing one whole sector.
Though, most of the daz files can actually be zip-compressed (using zlib compression), to save even more space. Most are just raw text files. The compressed ones are just zipped text files, without the file-extension inside the zip-file, and the file extension of the zip-file renamed to match the files original file-extension. Raw text compresses nice, because it doesn't use all 256 bytes of data, in most cases. However, that is something that should be left to an automated system to manage. Doing that by hand will take forever. I am not sure why Daz doesn't do this, by default, when it installs files.
Your next best option would be to get a decent HDD, and just move everything there. Though, you can create a sym-link, which will allow you to move a single folder to another drive, and windows will treat it as if it is still on the other drive. That makes for less complicated installs and uninstalls, later-on. EG, you simply move the folder to another drive and create a sym-link (virtual linked folder) in the daz folder, which points to the new location. You can install files through that link, or directly on the other drive. But don't tell Daz to look for the folder on the other drive. It will think you have duplicates of everything. (Because it will see both locations as two individual locations, at that point. Though, they are both the same locations and files.)