Placing the Disk Cache Folder

< Previous | Contents | Manuals Home | Boris FX | Next >

‌Placing the Disk Cache Folder

The disk cache consists of files that reside in a folder whose location you must specify. Disk caching is off by default, as the best location depends on the details of your particular machine's configuration, and disk caching may or may not be a good idea on your machine.

Carefully consider the following factors to determine the possible location of the disk cache folder:

 DO use SSD or RAID drives

 unless you commonly work with compressed "movie" files (such as RED or MP4) that take a long time to decode per frame, do NOT use conventional rotating hard drives

 DO use disk drives internal to your machine, ie connected via SATA or equivalent.

 DO use disk drives connected via Thunderbolt

 do NOT use disk drives attached via USB

 do NOT use disk drives attached via a network (Ethernet or SAN)

 DO create a new folder just for the disk cache (it will contain many large files)

 DO use D:/DiskCache or /Volumes/FASTRAID/DiskCache for example

 do NOT use D: and do NOT use /Volumes/FASTRAID etc

 do NOT use a folder on a partition formatted as FAT-32 (the maximum allowable file size is too small)

 DO ensure you have full read/write permissions for the disk cache folder

 do NOT allow the disk cache folder to be included in your regular backups (This folder will be very large and frequently changing. If you back it up, your backup size will explode. If the file is lost, it is easily regenerated from the original shot.)

 DO be aware that the large files written for disk caching may result in life- limiting "wear" on SSD drives, as determined by how many different shots you open per day and their sizes etc.

 we recommend NOT using your main system SSD as a disk cache. Using a secondary SSD drive will balance the performance and life of the drives.

To turn disk caching on, open the SynthEyes preferences (Edit/Edit Preferences), and look at the Folder Presets group box, at the bottom right of the preferences dialog. Change the drop-down selector to Disk Cache, then click Set and select the desired folder to use (see below).

To turn disk caching off, use the same process as to set the Disk Cache folder, but click the Clear instead. This does not delete the folder or any file within it.

< Previous | Contents | Manuals Home | Boris FX | Next >