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M
manuels65919685
Participating Frequently
December 30, 2019
Question

Boost AE performance

  • December 30, 2019
  • 2 replies
  • 776 views

Hi. I’m trying to figure out where to spend money on my setup to get the most bang for my buck. Currently I m using a MBP i9 32RAM 500GB Nvme / 4GB Pro Vega 20. In the future, I’m planning to edit BRAW and ProRes HQ Footage in AE, PrPro and Resolve. I am using a lot of VFX, colour grading etc. for my projects. The size for both codecs is around 270 MB/s at 4k Res 60fps. Total footage size is usually around 350 to 400GB. At the moment I store everything (Caches,Footage and Media Files) on my internal Nvme, wich is also running my OS. Now I know that this is pretty suboptimal and after doing some research, I would set up my configuration this way: 500GB Internal Nvme: OS, Apps 500 GB SSD: Disk Cache 500 GB Nvme: Footage, Projekt Files I'm planning to store my footage and the Project Files on a fast external Nvme like the X5 (Samsung). The Disk Cache on a regular SSD like the T5 (Samsung). Is the X5 to overkill to store my footage on? Is that high amount of speed even used or beneficial compared to a regular SSD (T5 Samsung). Does it make any noticeable difference? Because if not, I would get a regular SSD instead of a Nvme wich is more than double the price. Is a regular SSD fast enough for Disk Cache? If I m on the go and don’t want to carry two external HD´s with me (OS/Programs - internal and footage, caches, etc. on a single external), would a nvme be better then a regular ssd in this case?

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2 replies

R
Community Expert
Rick GerardCommunity Expert
Community Expert
December 30, 2019

When you use external drives it is critical that you buy real Thunderbolt 3 cables. The transfer speed with cheap cables that look like the real thing can be as slow as 12 Mbps while a good Thunderbolt 3 cable runs at a constant 40 Gbps. Cheap Thunderbolt or USBC cables run at 10 to 20 Gbps, and for a lot of work that is pretty hard to see but a cheap cable or a cheap drive enclosure can completely kill your productivity. Spend the money and get good cables and good adaptors and enclosures.

 

Other than that, Mylenium said what needs to be said. Obsessing about components when you already have a pretty well-equiped machine is pretty much a waste of time. 

M
manuels65919685Author
Participating Frequently
December 31, 2019

Thanks Rick,

I am using the cable wich came with the Samsung X5. I guess the quality should be okay. I just want to make sure to get the most out of my system. Since i have read to seperate footage and caches from the operating system to get a better performance in Ae/Pr, I was wondering about a more optimal setup for my device.

R
Community Expert
Rick GerardCommunity Expert
Community Expert
December 31, 2019

The Samsung cable is NOT a Thunderbolt 3 Cable. You are losing transfer speed. I suggest you download the Black Magic Speed test to make sure. 

Mylenium
Mylenium
Legend
December 30, 2019

Long and short: Likely completely irrelevant. This is the old gag of AE having tons of limitations when it comes to performance and those shortcomings/ bottlenecks far outweighing any performance gains you can achieve with hardware. It's more likely you'll hit one of those ceilings before even getting to a point where the differences in file I/O speed might become significantly apparent. Premiere is of course a different beast and strictly linear reads may benefit from faster setups, but there's one thing to consider: As long as you are talking about a notebook, we are basically talking about limited PCI transfer bandwidth since the lanes often double as the general system bus for all things USB, SATA, Thunderbolt and whatnot. So even if you were to install an NVMe, it might never be able to play out its advantages due to PCI collisions and wait cycles.

 

Mylenium

M
manuels65919685Author
Participating Frequently
December 31, 2019

Thanks for your response Mylenium, 

so if i got it right, im good with a SSD for footage and Caches? Since I am using premiere as well, I wont benefit from a Nvme either because of the limitation of my Macbook connection, right? I am pretty nooby in this area so please excuse me if i am asking to much basic stuff. 

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