Benefit to using Multiple SSDs and how to configure

[mhump]

I am working on Pr/Ae from a laptop with the following hardware:

Intel i7-10750H

32GB Ram

1TB SSD

iGPU = Intel UHD

dGPU = NVidia GTX 1650 Ti

I'm trying to improve render times, especially with some Ae graphics and noise/grain removal.  The SSD in my computer is 1TB, and I have an extra 512 SSD that I'm not currently using.  Both are M.2 NVMe, and my laptop has a second M.2 slot.  I haven't added in the Second SSD because I'm not strapped for space (yet).

My question is, will adding in the second SSD for use as work/scratch disks help performance/rendering times?  If so, where are all the settings I need to make to get the most out of it?

Again, my only goal at this point is improving performance, not necessarily to free up space.

Thanks

-M

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi M,

Hope I can help lend some advice to speeding up your rendering and exporting times. By rendering, I assume you mean exporting. You wish to have the fastest exporting option possible with the least amount of potential bottlenecks.

You didn't mention the footage you are editing with. May I assume it is a H.264 variant? If so, your CPU is on the weaker side of system requirments, meaning it's probably OK for HD, but it may struggle for 4K workflows where an 8th or 9th gen CPU would be preferable. Your CPU does have Quick Sync, which has an advantage of hardware acceleration for decoding (playback) and for endoding (export). Faster exports in the CPU department? You need a new CPU on the Intel side. If you do not cut H.264/HEVC, you can use AMD CPUs.  

Multiple hard drives are actually the preferred setup and is the norm. It is odd to me that many editors operate completely from the boot drive. That is incorrect editing protocol. More drives equal better performance. After the OS drive, I'd set one as my media drive for all my media to be stored and accessed from. You can add drives for video preview files and media cache, with the latter helping speed up performance for playback.

Your bottleneck is this noise reduction issue and involving After Effects. Red flags! Do it in Premiere Pro with some GPU accelerated noise reduction plug-in, like Magic Bullet Denoiser and you can get this done way faster.

If you render as you go, checking playback along the way, you can harness these render files for your export, but the export has to be one of the smart rendering codecs, like a ProRes variant (I use ProRes LT) with "Using Previews" checked off. Plus, you need to setup your Sequence Setings using Editing Mode > Custom and changing all the settings to ProRes to pull this off. It's worth it in the end as you have a ProRes master that exports (renders) faster than lightning since you are only copying files into a new container rather than creating these files in H.264 format from scratch at export time. 

Let me know if you have questions about your hardware, workflow, or smart rendering - which I think is the fastest way possible to export. Race me!

Cheers,
Kevin

[mhump]

Kevin,

Thanks for all the information - that is very helpful.  I've been looking at Neat Video and Magic Bullet, but want to make sure the improvements (both quality and performance) are with the money before I purchase.  Not to mention, asses my need seeing how this is a hobby.

If I can have only two physical disks, should I move all Media, preview files and media cache to the second (non O/S) disk? (I.e., Media on the second one, but leave preview/cache files on the first)

I've seen a few articles about exporting in Ae first when using noise removal using DNxHD/R, then re-importing the rendered clip into Pr for further processing, etc... and final output.  Is there any concern for loss of quality to the clip with this workflow?

thanks again,

-Matt

[Michael Grenadier]

kevin, not sure I agree with you about working on noise reduction in premiere.  My only experience is with the neat video plugin on an underpowered machine but...  aftereffects was much more responsive as you adjusted parameters than premiere...  not talking about rendering time but figuring out the sweet spot for noise reduction involves a lot of tweaking at least with my limited knowledge.   Now that I'm working on a much higher powered windows machine that may be different.  Haven't had to do any noise reduction since the new machine arrived.