Blackmagic Forum

I am getting a new laptop (Ryzen 5800H, 2x 1TB SSD, 16GB mem, RTX 3060). Probably will upgrade to 32GB mem and 2x 2TB SSD. What would be the best SSD allocation for Resolve.exe, Project Files, Source Media, Destination Media, Cache, Proxies, Optimized media, etc.? Which would be best on the OS dirve? and which on the second drive. Mostly working in FHD, and occasionally in UHD with H.264 source media.
Any suggestion will be most appreciated. I have been working on a desktop with 4 SSD's, but that unfortunately is going away.

Moved to Resolve forum

philC_retired wrote:I am getting a new laptop (Ryzen 5800H, 2x 1TB SSD, 16GB mem, RTX 3060). Probably will upgrade to 32GB mem and 2x 2TB SSD. What would be the best SSD allocation for Resolve.exe, Project Files, Source Media, Destination Media, Cache, Proxies, Optimized media, etc.? Which would be best on the OS dirve? and which on the second drive. Mostly working in FHD, and occasionally in UHD with H.264 source media.
Any suggestion will be most appreciated. I have been working on a desktop with 4 SSD's, but that unfortunately is going away.

With that spec likely you can get away with not needing proxies, optimised media or cache so where you place your media may not matter. Surprised you don’t have NVME drives on a new laptop as these are way faster than SSD. On my Dell I have 2 internal drives but keep all media on the fastest one which is the c drive as it’s NVME.

On my Zbook, I have 3 NVME drives: The OS and software is 500Gb and then 2 x 2TB drives for cache and media respectively. The media one is just for heavy lifting UHD finishing, not for rushes. I have external raids for rushes, HD finishing etc. As John said the NVMEs are blisteringly fast, something like 2500-3000mb/s (or whatever it is). It would take a mighty powerful raid setup to come close. 2TB is a comfortable amount for a 90 minute conform and finish too.

I favor a five drive arrangement for both speed and organization.

System
Databases
Exports
Media
Gallery/Cache/Optimized Media/Proxies

As it's best to work only with internal drives, and as there are no Laptops that can hold five of them, Laptops are not the best choice for this work.

You need a desktop.

Jim Simon wrote:I favor a five drive arrangement for both speed and organization.

System
Databases
Exports
Media
Gallery/Cache/Optimized Media/Proxies

As it's best to work only with internal drives, and as there are no Laptops that can hold five of them, Laptops are not the best choice for this work.

You need a desktop.

Laptops are indeed not ideal for Resolve but not for lack internal drives

Jim Simon wrote:As it's best to work only with internal drives, and as there are no Laptops that can hold five of them, Laptops are not the best choice for this work.

You need a desktop.

The ZBook 17 G5 I use can actually hold 5 drives internally and up to a total of about 10TB currently and that is growing. Although you don't need five drives for the folders you mention. One NMVE is quite fast enough to store Databases, Exports and Gallery/Cache/Optimized Media/Proxies with the system being on your C: drive and media elsewhere. In practice my databases are on the C: drive too, with no performance issues.

Although a fully loaded desktop will always have more power than any laptop I need and prefer to use a laptop for remote and onsite work now. I have no problem finishing and grading with the ZBook up to 4K.

Thanks for the replies.
My 2x 1TB SSD are NVMe, not SATA
Yes, a big fat desktop with multiple drives is nice, but I'm losing access to the one I've been using.
Laptop will be the newly releasing Lenovo Legion 5 Pro Gen 6 with 16" QHD display and can drive 3 external displays.