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Laptop Hard Drive space almost full

OlderkatOlderkat Posts: 38
in Technical Help (nuts n bolts)

My laptop is telling the hard drive is almost full (1 TB) I'm thinking of purchasing an external Hard drive (4 TB) can I use Daz Studio and files on this new drive and how would I transfer it or would I have to load everything onto the drive from scratch?

Comments

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 100,968

    Better to have the application on the C: drive (you'd have to reinstall it after a disc replacement anyway), but all the data can go on an external drive (with a speed penalty - be aware that a lot of externals coem formatted with a system that is compatible with many systems but slow, if you ar not expecting to switch OS it may be sensible to reformat forst - it made a noticeable difference to the drive I use for DIM downloads). Daz Studio and the Content Management System don't care where your files are, as long as they are in the correct relative place in the content directory. Install Manager and Daz Central do log the exact location, in the manifest files, so to be sure everything works you may want to do an in-place renistall (if using Install Manager and you kept the zips) or edit the files to update the path.

  • TimberWolfTimberWolf Posts: 288

    I obviously don't know your budget or what particular laptop you have but if you're using it for rendering I'm guessing it's a higher end one. On the assumption that you can swap the hard drive, that's what I would be tempted to do. The price difference between a decent external 4TB mechanical drive  - something from Western Digital for example - and an internal 4TB SSD from another well regarded company is not huge. 

    It would mean a lot of hassle - reinstalling the OS, all of your applications and data, but at the end of it you'd have something that will not fail because of a worn bearing, heat and a myriad of other things that plague mechanical drives. You'd also have a spare 1TB drive (SSD?) you could put in a cheap enclosure as a backup.

    If you're just doing the odd render here and there then, sure, the cheapest and easiest option is the external HD. If you're using it more regularly and rendering is your laptop's primary task then I'd put a larger SSD in it. You probably don't want to hear my opinions on whether or not laptops should be used for rendering though!

  • OlderkatOlderkat Posts: 38

    Thanks all for the info.

  • PerttiAPerttiA Posts: 10,024

    In general, one should never store files one doesn't want to loose on C-drive. That drive should only be used for the OS and programs.

    Reason; When a drive fails, it is usually the drive holding the OS, the problem being corrupted OS files/registry. Sometimes the files can still be accessed by connecting the drive to a working computer, but when that doesn't work, trying to recover the 'important' files amongst the millions of less important, temporary files and files deleted ages ago, is searching for the needle in the haystack

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