Blackmagic Forum

Could this be a good idea?

What if I store my database on Google Drive local folder and use the same database on two computers (never together, one at once).

Do you guys think it would be possible ? I could work in my studio and do something at home on my laptop to shorten post production times... Media would be on the same external hard drive.

Thanks

Possibly if say you live in a Google Fiber neighborhood with a 1Gbit connection and pay monthly for 1TB+ of Google Drive space. Pretty much any other scenario I would say the waiting time to upload and download big files (are you shooting 4K?) will be such a headache.

robbie75vr wrote: Media would be on the same external hard drive.

That I carry with me when I change computer...

Using a physical external drive would be better as you have direct access to it without having to worry about slow internet speeds, especially if you can make sure that both computers give it the same drive letter when it's plugged in

I have the same question as OP and I think the responses have missed his points (or don't understand how Google Drive works).

Google Drive isn't a "network drive". It doesn't require the network to write or read. It's basically a folder like any other local folder. Google's tool monitors that folder for changes and syncs them to the cloud after they have been written.

Secondly, I don't think OP intends on storing all his media in Google Drive, just the database, which should be small. A 1Gbit connection isn't required.

OP - have you had success using this setup?

I did, and would never do it again.
I've used google drive for a while trusting the crazy fast internet we have, and had a lot of original footage (braw) corrupted. Turns out, bites flying in the air is not as reliable as bites flowing through a cable, and causes problems when you are editing in da vinci. I had to contact Blackmagic support (they couldn't do anything) and had to pay a lot to get footage recovered. Always use an external hard drive for editing. You can still use google drive for backups but I wouldn't trust it.

I have edited via google drive using tiny 1080 h.264 files before, what a nightmare and a stupid mistake haha. I definitely don't recommend that. I can't imagine it for BRAW. I'm still in the process of trying to figure out how to upload my BRAW to the Drive though simply as a backup. (If anyone knows any ways to compress down BRAW any further in a lossless way, let me know!) I always edit from an external drive though, very fast especially if you invest in SSD's.

I'm not sure why so many of the respondents have seemingly missed the point of the question.

Using a google drive folder for the PROJECT doesn't require ANY network traffic whatsoever. GD simply syncs to a cloud replica in the background that can then be sync'd with another computer. Read/writes are always done on the local file system.

That being said, I'm having a hell of a time getting Resolve to even so much as load a database located in such a folder, let alone cleanly edit the timeline without hanging - sometimes for 5min or more - before responding again.

Anyone have any insight on this?

drtdsjlp wrote:I did, and would never do it again.
I've used google drive for a while trusting the crazy fast internet we have, and had a lot of original footage (braw) corrupted. Turns out, bites flying in the air is not as reliable as bites flowing through a cable, and causes problems when you are editing in da vinci. I had to contact Blackmagic support (they couldn't do anything) and had to pay a lot to get footage recovered. Always use an external hard drive for editing. You can still use google drive for backups but I wouldn't trust it.

1. He said DATABASE. He is not putting the footage on Google Drive. The Disk Database is a completely different thing.

2. Who puts thier footage on Google Drive and doesn't keep a local backup...

... and why would anyone put anything, other than small proxies, on a cloud storage service; unless they're using some higher-end Avid infrastructure with stupendous internet connections?

The kind of internet connection you need ot make this work doens't make sense for most people. You're better off just buying a 4TB NVMe drive and putting it in a USB 3.2 Gen 2 or Thunderbolt Case and carrying that around with you... Hell, you can even put the disk database there, if you can ensure drive letter consistency across the machines.

In any case, this is probable the most unfortunate aspect of using Resolve Studio. It's really not convenient if you aren't using it on a single machine.

You can always try to make the project server work for you, though that depends on your internet connection.

Consider Resilio Sync or Resilio Connect.

truthimaging wrote:Anyone have any insight on this?

Just don't do it. Sync folders like One Drive, Dropbox etc. are good ways to move things around, but whether database or media, always take files out of such folders before use in Resolve.

Jim Simon wrote:

truthimaging wrote:Anyone have any insight on this?

Just don't do it. Sync folders like One Drive, Dropbox etc. are good ways to move things around, but whether database or media, always take files out of such folders before use in Resolve.

Agree. Not a great place to house files that are kept open and constantly written to by other applications. Recipe for file corruption.

They do version files, though, so it should be relatively easy to revert the database should that happen. But, you will lose work doing that.

Not worth the trouble, IMVHO.

Please note that the database FAQs explicitly discourage this due to potential data loss:

Please note that accessing disk databases simultaneously using more than one software (including file-syncing services like DropBox) may compromise the integrity of the underlying project and configuration data.

The only way I can think of for this to work relatively safely with google drive (for the reasons the others have pointed out), is to just store a database VERSION on it, every day.

So put simply, you'd have your first database in Google Drive, you change computers, you DOWNLOAD the database to that computer, load it in resolve, work, then EXPORT it again, and upload it to Google Drive (maybe keeping the older version for safety reasons) and repeat every time you change computers.
That way Resolve still accesses the database locally, which is better, but you always have the most recent database available, wherever you need it.

The thing is, I can't find a reason for this. If you do it this way, you could always just export the individual project (.drp) and open that every time, instead of lugging around a database with previous work.

peterjackson wrote:Consider Resilio Sync or Resilio Connect.

Can you elaborate? Why Resilio vs. other file sync'ing services? Do you have a working implementation? How are you set up?

A lot of maybes, hearsay, and misreading of the original post here.

While I haven't specifically tried Google Drive for Resolve, I have had my main work Resolve DB synced via Resilio for years without any issue or biblical corruption of data. Regularly walk out the door with laptop ready to continue work.

I have project folders (After Effects, audio projects, graphics, etc) stored and syncing in Google Drive. So far only issue is Illustrator complaining that a file has been edited externally when trying to save. I would be cautious with Drive and OneDrive as (for me) they have been the most flaky in the past.

Another option I am trialing is Chronosync (Mac only) for a "non-live" and more controlled file sync between devices. Slightly less convenient but less likely to break as files aren't monitored persistently. Most issues come from these tools trying to sync when an app like Resolve locks and/or generates temp files.

Each syncing product works differently and can cause problems but they also change over time. So best thing is to approach it sheepishly and test it out for a while with sufficient fallbacks and backups (and be mindful of any deadlines).

Don't treat any sync as a backup; treat it as another risk! Something like Arq backup can save your hide.