Media Cache File Location?

[danielb81037208]

Hey,

This is question applies to both Pr & Ae. 

In Edit > Preferences > Media & Disk Cache, you're given the option where you would like to store media cache files. For years I've been told to keep them in a seperate drive from your OS drive.

So I've always used my D drive which happens to be a 1TB SSD and is usually where I store my footage and project files. Now I'm noticing a disclaimer which states "For improved performance, choose a SSD seperate from your footage" 

So which one is it, OS SSD or D drive SSD? Thanks!

[Conrad C · Accepted solution]

My opinion (because it’s possible that someone needs to correct me) is that the faster and larger the storage, the less it matters.

The advice to store various components (system, project file, footage, cache files…) on different volumes was absolutely critical with hard drives because they were so slow. Having data move over separate parallel streams helped a lot.

SSDs make that less necessary but again, it depends on how fast they are. With SATA SSDs, limited to 500MB/sec or so, splitting files across multiple drives should still make a noticeable difference. With NVMe SSDs, which can be 1000–3000+MB/sec over a connection that can handle that, it should be less necessary because it’s more likely they can handle multiple large data streams simultaneously.

SSD size matters too. Larger SSDs tend to be faster because the controller has more lanes to the storage chips, resulting in parallel data flows, which is the benefit we get from multiple volumes.

So that’s the spectrum: Hard drives or SATA SSDs require splitting video projects and cache files across drives, but NVMe SSDs (especially high capacity) might not, depending on the typical complexity of your projects which is another variable.

If your D drive is a large fast NVMe SSD and you have no complaints so far, I think it’s OK to put everything on it. But if you do see lags like dropped frames it would be worth trying to split them across drives, with the media cache files on the faster SSD.

[danielb81037208]

Thank you!

However,

My D drive is SATA, while my OS drive is NVMe however it's only 500GB.

Would I be better off relocating my Media Cache files to my OS drive? 

[Richard van den Boogaard]

My Temp drive is only 256 GB (M.2), my OS/Apps drive is 500GB, but my Data drive is 4TB. All SSD. It pays off to invest in separate drives. I regularly empty out my Temp drive. Yes, it means I have to render out stuff again, but performance improvements are that significant.

I would advise against the use of your Apps/OS drive for Temp purposes. That is, if you must, you can, but if that drive fills up due to Temp drives being written to it, your whole system's performance may suffer. Instead, find out if you have another slot available for either a regular SSD or M.2 drive and invest in that.

[danielb81037208]

So to be clear, I shouldn't store cache files on my SSD D drive? I have 1TB of storage, why is it such a sin to store cache on the same drive as my footage? There's plenty of free space. 

I actually own an external Samsung 500 SSD drive, should I use that for cache files? And if so should I invest in a 3.1 USB transfer cable or is USB 2.0 fine for cache files? Thank you!

[Richard van den Boogaard]

I never said that. Of course you can. As per Conrad_C's suggestion, if you have enough space (read: lanes) available, it will work just fine. However, you can benefit from extra performance improvements by dedicating a separate SSD drive to just temp files. The less traffic occurs in a single point in your system, the better your overall performance will be.

I would advise against the use of external drives (via whatever connection) for Temp storage. It's a recipe for disaster. Just find an available slot inside your machine.

[Conrad C]

I agree with the distinction that BrandedChannels made: You could store temp files on your OS drive, but only if you are sure there is so much space on it that the growing temp files will not overrun all free space, since they can grow a lot rather quickly with some projects.

Things got easier for me with Premiere Pro/After Effects when a 1TB SSD got freed up after I replaced it with an upgrade. Now I had an unused 1TB SSD. I completely erased it and assigned it as a dedicated cache drive for video apps and a scratch disk for Photoshop. Depending on the work, sometimes a surprising proportion of it will fill up, an amount I would not have wanted clogging up my system volume. It’s nice to be able to let those media cache files run free, instead of worrying about whether it’s time to purge some.

[Conrad C]

Sorry, forgot to answer this part…

danielb81037208 wrote:

should I invest in a 3.1 USB transfer cable or is USB 2.0 fine for cache files

Media cache files are especially sensitive to speed. The nature of media cache files is to speed up playback responsiveness of complex timelines or compressed originals, so they have got to move as fast as…well, as fast as you can afford 🙂 . 

I don’t think any of us would recommend USB 2.0 (0.48 gigabits/sec) for cache files. USB 3.2 Gen 1 (5 gigabits/sec, this was originally USB 3.0/3.1 Gen 1) is many times faster, and USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gb/sec) is double that. I could not afford Thunderbolt 3 (40Gb/sec), so I specified a 10Gb/sec USB 3.2 Gen 2 enclosure and cable.

Another factor is that if you only use USB 2 or 5Gb/sec USB 3, you will bottleneck a good NVMe drive. SATA SSDs can run at full speed over 5Gb/sec, but for example if you have an NVMe drive that can go past 3000MB/sec, 5Gb/sec USB 3 will choke it at around 600MB/sec or 20% of its potential.

[danielb81037208]

I can't thank you guys enough!

I'm thinking about investing into a 970 EVO Plus. Is 250GB enough or should I got for 500/1TB?

[danielb81037208]

Also, would I see better peformance if I stored my project files & footage on my 1TB SATA SSD and used a 250GB NVMe for cache files. Or I invested in a 1-2TB NVMe and stored project files, footage AND cache files on that? 

Would love to get your opinion, as I'm still pretty new to all this. Thanks!

[R Neil Haugen]

The first option should work and be mildly less expensive than the second one. Which would also work. I found quite a nice performance uptake when going to the Nvme for cache files.

Neil

[danielb81037208]

This is the setup I'm going with (My motherboard only supports 2x NVMe slots) 

500GB NVMe: OS + Programs

1TB NVMe: Footage + Project files

1TB SATA: Cache files + Scratch

Is this fine? Or should I swap anything? Thank you.

[Richard van den Boogaard]

You may need to swap data and cache drives. NVMe drives are typically faster than sata and you benefit more from faster access to cache/temp files than loading in data.

With the change towards BRAW and 4.6/6K footage, I added another 4TB sata SSD to my system. 1TB meant that I could not do more than 2 projects at the same time. However, I now have to deliberately empty my M.2 cache drive (250GB) more frequently. Perhaps will start to look for expansion in that area as well.

[Conrad C]

I second that…swap what you’ll put on the SATA and NVMe drives. Remember what I mentioned earlier that media cache files are especially speed sensitive; they should be on the NVMe. In contrast, a project file is small and not constantly written/read to, and original footage gets read in once and then (I think typically) cached. But media cache files are always and constantly read/written for previewing on demand.

Once you apply edits to footage (or if it’s automatically conformed by Premiere Pro), the original file is not what you want played back but the version you applied edits to, and that temporary rendering of edits in the media cache. So that is the drive that gets hit all the time as you work.

I am not sure if 500GB is enough, but it is big enough to try for a while to see if it’s enough based on the type of work that you do. The bigger the frame sizes, the more tracks/layers there are, and the more effects are applied, the bigger the media cache will be. Media cache files are kept between sessions so that your computer doesn’t have to waste time and CPU rebuilding them every day when you open the application again in the morning. That benefit is why the media cache can get large, and in turn why it should ideally be a drive that has a lot of free space. You can purge the media cache, but you only want to do that to get rid of old or corrupted cache files, since the point of them is to speed up your current work.

[denniscallan]

WARNING: do not move Media Cache out of its default location! It belongs in the user/system library/app support/adobe/common

If you use the browse feature in pp preferences to move it elsewhere, e.g. to an external ssd drive as some recommend, and which I did, playback might become jerky.  And then, you cannot move the media cache back into the library!  You are stuck!  The only solution then it to set up a new user account, then bring all your files and data into it. This will re-establish the PP default settings, but is a pain to set up.

Just don't move that Media Cache to begin with.

[R Neil Haugen]

My media cache is on a second Nvme SSD on the motherboard. And used for all video apps cache, Pr, Ae, Au, Resolve.

And works very well. Plenty of space and ... crucial factor! ... very high speed.

External drives oft cannot sustain the speed needed, especially if anything else like project or media files are on that drive.

[Michael Grenadier]

I'm with Neil on this.  I bought an entry level macstudio about 3 months ago with a 500 gig internal ssd.   I bought a 1 tb external ssd which is "permanently" attached where all my caches live and a few other important folders.  Hasn't been an issue and I don't have to worry about suddenly finding my start-up drive filling up when I'm not paying attention...   

[Conrad C]

The problems you are seeing could be specific to a certain system configuration. I have been assigning my Media Cache to an external SSD for many months, and have no problems with Premiere Pro performance on my Mac.

It hasn’t always been like this. There was a period not long ago when Premiere Pro and After Effects would often reset the Media Cache path without warning, and I would realize it only when noticing the amount of free space decreasing quickly on my system volume. But at some point Adobe seems to have fixed that problem, because the Media Cache on external storage has been stable and reliable for a while now.

What I have left at the default path on my system volume is the Media Cache database, which is a separate setting from the Media Cache files themselves.

[denniscallan]

That is nice you three are having no problems. I wish I could say the same. I have the new MacPro 2023 M2ultra, but somehow PP got corrupted when I started moving around the Media Cache and other preference folders...jerky playback. I have the new user set up on the same machine and am leaving the folders at their default locations...running smoothly now.

[Michael Grenadier]

what kind of drive did you move it to?  gotta say this forum is a great resource and thanks for posting your issues.   Might be useful to figure how out your setup differs from ours...

[denniscallan]

I had moved it to a 4TB ssd, connected with thunderbolt 3

[Conrad C]

what kind of drive did you move it to?

By @Michael Grenadier

Not sure if you were asking me, but I will guess others in this thread use Premiere Pro and After Effects much more intensively than I do. Given that, my Media Cache volume is a budget Samsung SATA SSD that I put in a 10Gbps USB 3 external enclosure that probably cost US$15. So even that low-end setup is enough to run the Media Cache reliably and take a load off my internal storage. It connects to my M1 Pro MacBook Pro through a Thunderbolt hub. (If I used Premiere Pro and After Effects all day every day, I might have gotten a nice fast 2000+MB/sec NVME SSD connected through Thunderbolt.)

[Richard van den Boogaard]

This is not true. In fact, using separate drives for apps, data and temp files will help improve the performance substantially, as a single drive is not occupied by multiple tasks.

[Richard van den Boogaard]

I second most of what Conrad_C suggested here.

In my personal experience, I have chosen to separate out OS/Apps, Data and Temp on separate SSD drives. My Temp drive is even a hyperfast M.2 memory drive (akin to speeds of RAM). If you can afford, you may decide to invest in such a drive as well. It is well worth it.

[R Neil Haugen]

It's all a matter of speed ... internal SATA connections to standard SSD or spinners typically benefit from keeping multiple drives goin ... having a separate system drive, cache drive, project drive, media drive, export drive.

Some internal SSDs are fast enough for sustained work that in practice, you may get by running a couple parts on one drive. You would need to test on your machine.

Nvme drives, especially larger ones, are fast enough to typically handle several parts of the process. And if you've a 10GbE setup to a RAID, then ... you may well be able to have everything on that one volume.

It's about practical speed of data management in real-time operation on your machine.

Neil