Trasferring your Daz Library to an external hard drive
Johnny Rico
Posts: 64
in New Users
Hi, I have a pretty decent computer to run my Daz software but it has a relatively small solid state drive and I am running out of room for my Daz files. Is there someone who could provide me with the step by step process for successfully moving your Daz file library from your computer hard drive to an external hard drive?
Thanks :)
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Comments
How did you install? Manually, or with the Install Manager?
I believe I installed all my files with install manager.
It may then be simplest ton uninstall and reinstall to the new location - the manifest files that are used for updating point to the absolute location of the files, so moving the folder would break that feature (without a careful batch edit).
That sounds like a plan. Once I install them to a new location, do you know how I would "point" my DAZ software to the new libary location?
You do that by going to Edit > Preferences > Content Library > Content Directory Manager and listing the new path under BOTH DAZ Studio Formats AND Poser Formats. That will allow the content to be seen in the Content Library pane.
Perfect! I'll give it a try. Thank you for your help Richard and JimmyC :)
OK, so I used DAZ install manager to uninstall content from my SSD and then re-installed the content via install manager to my external hard drive.
I then went to my Content Directory Manager and set a new path pointing to where the content was downloaded (for both DAZ and Poser format).
The result is that some things are showing and accessible, but a great deal are showing content with an orange triangle (see picture). When I try to access this content, I get a message stating "could not open file (referring to where the data used to be on the SSD) File does not exist.
I tried reimporting the metadata but that did not resolve the issue. Does anyone know how to resolve this?
Thanks for your help :)
Are you sure you set the new path to the folder where you downloaded your content? That's not right, it should be set to where you installed your content. The downloads aren't your content files, they're .zip archives containing your content files — D|S can't recognise this file type, and can't look inside them to see the content files.
Note that you're getting those "can't find file" errors because DIM has put entries into the content database saying it's installed something. D|S reads this database and shows you what's been installed. The database doesn't tell D|S where it's been installed, until you try to load something into your scene. If D|S isn't looking for content in the same place DIM installed it, you get that error.
Sorry for the miscommunication. I did set my pathway to where I had installed the content (not downloaded the content) - but your comments gave me an idea. Although I had set the path correctly to where I had installed the content on the external hard drive, I had not removed the old pathways from the content directory manager (both the old and new pathways were there) - so I went back into the content directory manager and removed the old pathways completely. This seemed to resolve my issue.
Thank you so much for your help! Your comments helped lead me in the proper direction to resolve this issue. :)
That's very interesting.
I have set up alternative directory paths for my content, depending on whether I'm connected to my network, or using an external USB drive out in the field, and I have never gotten that error.
One thing I make sure to do after I've connected to my content library (whether USB or network) is to re-run the 'Re-Import Metadata' function, from the 'Content DB Maintenance...' menu, which keeps the Content Management Service (CMS) up-to-date. It's a pain in the never-mind-precisely-where to do it every time, but it does help keep things tidy....