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Managing a Large Library and Using it With Multiple Machines...

onimushaonimusha Posts: 199
in Technical Help (nuts n bolts)

So my library is about 1.5gb at this point. Right now I run it on a mechanical internal drive and DAZ studio is runs off my system SSD.

This seems to be very slow. Every time I switch to a different app like a browser, and then return to DAZ, it needs to wait for the drive to spin up again. This ends up causing a lot of hiccups and is slowing down my work flow.

Is there away around this? Would it help if DAZ and my library were on the same drive? Would it help if I put my library on an SSD? In the process of buying a new desktop machine  and I want to configure this new rig to use DAZ more efficiently.

On a side note, also wondering what the best way to deal with using DAZ on different machines with the same library (switching from laptop to my desktop). I really don't want to put my library on some kind of cloud for a variety of reasons (such as lack of security for my original content), but would also like to avoid having to manually install new content into two separate libraries. I also do not want to use DAZ's manager options and need to keep installing everything manually.

Thanks!

Comments

  • LeanaLeana Posts: 11,806

    My content is installed on an external drive so I can use it on both desktop and laptop. I don't use both at the same time though.

  • onimushaonimusha Posts: 199

    I don't either, but that sounds like a practical solution.

     

  • OmnifluxOmniflux Posts: 383
    edited June 2022

    Having DS and your content library on the same drive will not necessarily solve the delay you are seeing (moving DS to the mechanical drive with your content library will not help).

    Moving your content library to an SSD, either your system SSD or a separate one will help. So would configuring Windows not to put your mechanical drives to sleep, or getting a mechanical drive that spins up faster.

     

    When I first moved my content from a mechanical drive to an SSD, it helped with loading time. Later, I outgrew the SSD and moved my content back to mechanical drives, but the drives were newer and I did not notice a slow down in loading content.

     

     

    Your (reasonable) options for sharing content between two systems without using a cloud service are

    1. an external drive as noted by Leana
    2. sharing a drive (or directory) from one of your systems on your network
    3. adding a network attached storage system to your network

    The downside to the first is having to move the drive between systems (and only one system can access at a time)

    The downsides to the second are

    • The system sharing the drive must be on for the other system to access it
    • Slower access (loading and saving) speed if your network (not Internet) connection between the two systems is not fast
    • You need to ensure PostgreSQL is running on the sharing system if you want to access metadata (smart content) on the second system + extra setup steps

    The downsides to the third are

    • Slower access (loading and saving) speed if your network (not Internet) connection between the NAS and systems is not fast
    • The NAS cannot run PostgreSQL (easily) and so one of the computers must run it for it to be available to both + extra setup steps

     

    If you will not be using both systems simultaneously, I recommend an external SSD over the networking options (although only for simplicity), and configuring DS (and DIM/Central if you ever decide to use them) to store both your content library and the CMS Cluster Directory on the external drive.

    Post edited by Omniflux on
  • PerttiAPerttiA Posts: 10,024

    onimusha said:

    This seems to be very slow. Every time I switch to a different app like a browser, and then return to DAZ, it needs to wait for the drive to spin up again. This ends up causing a lot of hiccups and is slowing down my work flow.

    Configure your windows power options to keep everything running all the time when the computer is on, no more waiting for the drive to spin up.

    I have 14 drives attached, out of which six are external USB drives with spinning HD's. No hickups or slowdowns with any of them.

  • frank0314frank0314 Posts: 14,247

    We bought a duel docking station and got SSD's and put all of my wife's content and all our projects on them so we can sitch between 3 different computers and its pretty fast.

  • onimushaonimusha Posts: 199

    This is all great advice. Thank you so much for the thorough and well thought out suggestions.

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