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Bedivere
Why Do Witches Burn?
Joined: 25 Jul 2008
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Location: The Hermitage |
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Bedivere
Why Do Witches Burn?
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 Sat Mar 12, 2016 12:09 am |
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I have a 1Tb drive in my desktop workstation that contains my media libraries (and yes, it is automatically backed up.)
There is only about 350gb of free space left on this drive. How far can I go before I really need to add another drive?
I've always heard that you should leave some free space on a drive for it to work best, but not sure how much this applies to a drive used solely for media storage.
The OS and all applications are on a separate drive.
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jcocci
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Joined: 16 Jul 2009
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jcocci
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Sat Mar 12, 2016 10:12 am |
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Well if you truly do mean that there is 350gb of free space left you have nothing to worry about seeing that is basically just under half the space left. Especially if the sis just a storage drive you can run it down pretty low before you'd want to get another drive.
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NacMacFeegle
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Joined: 16 Jan 2014
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In my desktop I have two 1 TB drives + a solid state drive for my OS. Both of the 1 TB drives have less than 100 GB of free space left, and both work just fine. I'm considering in investing in a 3 TB or more external network drive and another 1 TB drive so that I never again have to worry about space, and can do a better job of backing everything up.
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Bedivere
Why Do Witches Burn?
Joined: 25 Jul 2008
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Location: The Hermitage |
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Bedivere
Why Do Witches Burn?
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Sat Mar 12, 2016 11:51 am |
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Thanks for the input!
I realize this isn't an issue right now - just trying to think ahead. The drive is ~65% full. I know in the old days when there was just one drive the thought was that you wanted to leave about 25% free for paging files, temp files, etc. but wasn't sure how that worked for a drive that is only for media storage.
I just bought a new camera that will produce 50% larger files than my old one so that space will begin to fill up a little faster.
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Backpacker Joe
Blind Hiker
Joined: 16 Dec 2001
Posts: 23956 | TRs | Pics
Location: Cle Elum |
My laptop has a 512 solid state drive with OS 10 on it. I have a 1TB internal drive and a 4TB external drive hooked up. I constantly have to watch that Im not filling up the SS drive with my OS on it.
"If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide."
— Abraham Lincoln
"If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide."
— Abraham Lincoln
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NacMacFeegle
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Joined: 16 Jan 2014
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Location: United States |
I made the mistake of installing my OS onto a 120 GB SSD instead of springing for a larger one, and ever since I've had to be incredibly careful not to fill it up, and moving to a larger one would be a huge pain in the neck. That said, having your OS on a dedicated SSD drive is wonderful; it's so much faster that I have a little trouble using other computers that use a traditional HDD for their OS.
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Josh Journey
a.k.a Josh Lewis
Joined: 01 Nov 2007
Posts: 4836 | TRs | Pics
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| NacMacFeegle wrote: | | I made the mistake of installing my OS onto a 120 GB SSD instead of springing for a larger one |
I did this a few months ago also with a 120GB SSD. However I don't consider it a mistake as long as you have another hard drive to store your media in. I'm pretty sure I can have a 500GB HDD as the slave and the 120GB SSD as the master. This way I don't have to pay a lot for a big drive and get the performance that I want.  Got my SSD for $32.
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mike
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Joined: 09 Jul 2004
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mike
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Sat Mar 12, 2016 2:08 pm |
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| NacMacFeegle wrote: | | and moving to a larger one would be a huge pain in the neck. |
Not really. Just make a clone on a 512gb drive. A minor PITA.
Then use the old 120gb ssd for your scratch files or whatever files that would benefit from fast access. I have a 120gb ssd with all my topo data folders with plenty of room left over for temp/scratch files. I run my CAD files I'm currently working on off this secondary disk too.
All of my backups are on spin-up disks (4) and I recently purchased a WD MyCloud which is really a NAS box which is set for auto backups of my media. That way I can access it anywhere without leaving the computer running.
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NacMacFeegle
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Joined: 16 Jan 2014
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| mike wrote: | | NacMacFeegle wrote: | | and moving to a larger one would be a huge pain in the neck. |
Not really. Just make a clone on a 512gb drive. A minor PITA. |
I've already done it once, I started out with just a single 1TB HDD with a partition for the OS and later moved to the SSD. I just found the cloning processes annoying is all (finding the right program to do it with was the worst part), and haven't been eager to repeat it. Also, I haven't wanted to spend any more money on my PC since I upgraded my RAM last fall. Being able to have my OS on a larger SSD, and then using the 120gb for fast access files is definitely attractive. I'll do it someday, but the 120gb drive will be enough for awhile if I'm careful.
| mike wrote: | | and I recently purchased a WD MyCloud which is really a NAS box which is set for auto backups of my media. That way I can access it anywhere without leaving the computer running. |
I've had plans to do this for awhile, it's just my budget that's holding me back. Currently I only have an external WD Slim USB drive for my backup photo storage.
| Josh Lewis wrote: | | cool.gif Got my SSD for $32. |
Nice! That's about half the price mine was.
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mike
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Joined: 09 Jul 2004
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mike
Member
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Sat Mar 12, 2016 8:08 pm |
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| NacMacFeegle wrote: | | I just found the cloning processes annoying is all (finding the right program to do it with was the worst part), and haven't been eager to repeat it. |
It is kinda scary. I now have a 2-slot toaster. Put the two drives in the slots, hit the button and walk away.
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puzzlr
Mid Fork Rocks
Joined: 13 Feb 2007
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Location: Stuck in the middle |
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puzzlr
Mid Fork Rocks
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Sun Mar 13, 2016 12:36 am |
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| Bedivere wrote: | | I've always heard that you should leave some free space on a drive for it to work best |
One of the reasons for this was that it reduced file fragmentation. Remember all the "defrag" utilities we used to run (especially on Windows)? Generally those are not needed anymore because of file layout algorithm improvements in modem file systems and hard drive controllers that read ahead and buffer far more than they used to. I think Windows still does some degrag work automatically in the background.
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Cyclopath
Faster than light
Joined: 20 Mar 2012
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Location: Seattle |
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Cyclopath
Faster than light
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Sun Mar 13, 2016 9:56 am |
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What OS are you using? They work differently. Some of them will create hidden files in folders full of media to help navigate the folders more quickly. Obviously that takes up some capacity.
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tigermn
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Joined: 10 Jul 2007
Posts: 9242 | TRs | Pics
Location: There... |
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tigermn
Member
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Sun Mar 13, 2016 10:28 am |
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| NacMacFeegle wrote: | | I made the mistake of installing my OS onto a 120 GB SSD instead of springing for a larger one, and ever since I've had to be incredibly careful not to fill it up, and moving to a larger one would be a huge pain in the neck. That said, having your OS on a dedicated SSD drive is wonderful; it's so much faster that I have a little trouble using other computers that use a traditional HDD for their OS. |
I think most SSD drives contain software to image everything over to the new drive. Shouldn't be too hard to get a bigger drive. At least that is what a guy at work said when he went to an SSD drive from a regular drive. Said it was easy.
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contour5
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Joined: 16 Jul 2003
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contour5
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Sun Mar 13, 2016 4:04 pm |
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| Quote: | | I've always heard that you should leave some free space on a drive for it to work best |
Used to be recommended that you leave the last 10 or 20% of the drive blank, on a mac, back in the digital stone age of SCSI and ATA drives.
Apparently the drive needs space for the gigantic invisible directory files that it writes to keep track of itself. The directory files survive low level formatting and increase in size as files are erased or overwritten. At some point the drive may start choking on its own guts if the directories no longer leave enough wide open prairie for caching and swapping temporary files.
So, perhaps free space is less critical on a drive that is mostly read/playback oriented, as opposed to a drive where files are constantly added, tossed out, overwritten, etc.
I try to err on the side of caution. I partition all my drives with a space for an OS and one or two storage partitions. The OS partitions range in size from 100 gigs on a 320 gig drive, to 300 gigs on a 2Tb drive. I usually start rearranging things when my partitions get down to 20% capacity. When all the storage partitions are redlining, it's time to add another drive.
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