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External Hard Drives

Mutant-XMutant-X Posts: 10
in Technical Help (nuts n bolts)

I have run out of disk space on my PC. I want to add an external drive. I want to use the drive for future DAZ assets I purchase.
What external hard drives are recommended?
Is USB 3 fast enough for DAZ to use?
Can DAZ access assets stored across two drives (i.e. C: and D:)?

Comments

  • robertswwwrobertswww Posts: 790

    @Mutant-X Yes, you can have Daz content installed across multiple internal and external drives. USB 3 will work fine, recommend going with external SSD drives.  After you hook them up, just go into the Daz preferences to map them in the Daz Content Directory Manager (CDM) add the new asset location for Daz Studio formats (Daz Preferences --> Content Tab --> Content Directory Manager).

  • LeanaLeana Posts: 11,685

    Mutant-X said:

    Can DAZ access assets stored across two drives (i.e. C: and D:)?

    Yes, as long as you setup both places as content directories in DS preferences.

    Be aware though that Connect (installing content from within DS) and DazCentral both use only one install directory. Daz Install Manager (DIM) gives you the option to setup multiple install directories and chose which one you want to install to.

  • Catherine3678abCatherine3678ab Posts: 8,334
    edited September 2022

    It's not a serious issue but do be aware that the OS tends to put to sleep external hard drives when they haven't been active for awhile, so response time when it needs to wake up and do something can make for a pause now and then. There's allegedly a setting somewhere {I need to find it too} to tell the OS not to do that.

    Post edited by Catherine3678ab on
  • namffuaknamffuak Posts: 4,144

    Catherine3678ab said:

    It's not a serious issue but do be aware that the OS tends to put to sleep external hard drives when they haven't been active for awhile, so response time when it needs to wake up and do something can make for a pause now and then. There's allegedly a setting somewhere {I need to find it too} to tell the OS not to do that.

    It's under advanced settings for power management and defaults to 20 minutes on Win 10 Pro.

    I haven't changed this and I have a lot of USB drives on my three systems. Instead, I run CrystalDiskInfo to monitor the SMART data from all my drives, checking every ten minutes.

  • Catherine3678abCatherine3678ab Posts: 8,334

    namffuak said:

    Catherine3678ab said:

    It's not a serious issue but do be aware that the OS tends to put to sleep external hard drives when they haven't been active for awhile, so response time when it needs to wake up and do something can make for a pause now and then. There's allegedly a setting somewhere {I need to find it too} to tell the OS not to do that.

    It's under advanced settings for power management and defaults to 20 minutes on Win 10 Pro.

    I haven't changed this and I have a lot of USB drives on my three systems. Instead, I run CrystalDiskInfo to monitor the SMART data from all my drives, checking every ten minutes.

    Thank you, there's a slightly different name for everything now. W11. I found some settings to adjust under Power Options but nothing specifying external drives [yet]. 

  • namffuaknamffuak Posts: 4,144

    Catherine3678ab said:

    namffuak said:

    Catherine3678ab said:

    It's not a serious issue but do be aware that the OS tends to put to sleep external hard drives when they haven't been active for awhile, so response time when it needs to wake up and do something can make for a pause now and then. There's allegedly a setting somewhere {I need to find it too} to tell the OS not to do that.

    It's under advanced settings for power management and defaults to 20 minutes on Win 10 Pro.

    I haven't changed this and I have a lot of USB drives on my three systems. Instead, I run CrystalDiskInfo to monitor the SMART data from all my drives, checking every ten minutes.

    Thank you, there's a slightly different name for everything now. W11. I found some settings to adjust under Power Options but nothing specifying external drives [yet]. 

    Control Panel -> Power Options ->  Change Plan Settings -> Advanced Settings -> Hard Disk  -> Turn Off Hard Disk After

    I took the option to change plan settings on the current plan; this appears to apply to ALL hard disks with no activity, not just USB drives.

  • Catherine3678abCatherine3678ab Posts: 8,334

    Okay, then all is good, thanks :-)

  • Jason GalterioJason Galterio Posts: 2,562

    If you use an external drive, force the drive letter to be something further down the A-Z order.

    If you leave Windows to decide the drive letter, it may bounce around requiring you to reassign it in DS repeatedly.

  • namffuaknamffuak Posts: 4,144

    The other thing I've done is set the removal policy for all my USB drives to "quick removal"; this disables write caching and allows the drive to be unplugged without using the 'Safely Remove Hardware' icon. Device Manager -> Disk Drives -> right-click on the drive and select properties.

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