Premiere Pro disk setup for iMac

[AndrewCollar]

I've got a few questions that I hope you guys can help me out with. I'm going to reinstall Premiere on a newly restarted iMac. These are my specs:

Processor: 3.5 GHz Intel Core i5

Memory: 8 GB 2400 MHz DDR4

Graphics: Radeon Pro 575 4GB

I also have a WD My Cloud EX2 Ultra 2-Bay 8TB Hard Drive

How should I set up Premiere Pro as far as the disk setup goes? If someone can give me a blueprint for where to route certain files (cache, etc.) to make the workflow simpler and more organized, that would be ideal.

Also: should I keep Premiere Pro on my desktop, but store the files on my Cloud drive? Or should I move Premiere Pro off of the desktop and onto the Cloud Drive, and then route everything to different files on the drive?

Thank you in advance,

Andrew

[R Neil Haugen]

Premiere should be on the system drive, period.

It's good to use fast newer internal SSDs as much as possible. Especially for project files and cache/cache database files, media,  and preview files.

m.2/NVMe drives are frequently excellent and have enough throughput for say project files and all cache and media files.

It's nice to have exports to a different drive than the media is on.

Neil

[AndrewCollar]

is there a way to go about it that doesn’t require using  new internal SSD? I’m not savvy enough to install one on my iMac unfortunately. Also, should I set up separate folders for cache and database files, etc?

[R Neil Haugen]

Jim laid out an ideal setup.

An NLE is constantly accessing AND writing to either disc or RAM an insane amount of data. Splitting that load up to avoid choke points is a major concern. An internal NVMe drive can hsndle several parts of Jim's list because of extremely high sustained read/write and access speed.

External connections  ... USB-C can be okay with say Samsung T5 SSDs, for one or two parts. That's roughly the same as a Thunderbolt I think on the Mac.

Neil

[excited_Genie16B8]

An internal NVMe drive can hsndle several parts of Jim's list because of extremely high sustained read/write and access speed.

That's true, but I still recommend the five drive setup as a minimum for organizational purposes as well as speed.

[PECourtejoie]

Jim, where can one find current numbers/bench results that corroborate that recommendation, given the fact that most drives nowadays are SSDs, and sometimes M2 NVMe ones?

I can understand that for spinning hard drives, but with today's SSDs, I wonder if it is still as important as it once was (speed-wise, not organization-wise, of course)

I am genuinely interested as motherboards with several M2 slots usually cost more, where the disc themselves have a relatively similar cost if split between lower capacity ones.

[excited_Genie16B8]

I wonder if it is still as important as it once was (speed-wise, not organization-wise, of course)

I still make the five drive recommendation for both speed and organization.  The System, Project and Cache drive can all be SSDs and you likely won't see any speed improvement separating out those function to separate drives, so there the recommendation is purely for organizational reasons.

While you can use SSD's for Media and Exports, depending on the workload, that can quickly become pretty pricey or even impossible.  There are no 12 TB SSD's for example, and creating an SSD RAID that size would cost far more than a spinner.

[excited_Genie16B8]

Here's what I recommend as the ideal starting point.

System drive

Project drive, holding project files, audio files and still images

Cache and Scratch drive

Media and Proxies

Exports

All drives should be internal.  Use networked and removable drives only for backup and archiving.

[Peru Bob]

moved from Premiere Pro to Hardware Forum

[Warren Heaton]

If it fits your budget, replace your WD My Cloud EX2 Ultra 2-Bay 8TB Hard Drive with an external SSDs in a Thunderbolt enclosure.

That said, if you're cutting 1080p Apple ProRes, your WD My Cloud EX2 Ultra 2-Bay 8TB Hard Drive will be fine.  For 2160p, you may need to switch to using the Proxy workflow.