JTMusicVA
I'm a crazy optimizer - if I can optimize something for not a lot of money, I'm there, dude!!
SOOO... my question is... well, a couple of questions.....
First, what exactly is the Picture Cache?
Second, would it be worth getting a SSD and dedicating it to the Picture Cache? Would that speed things up and help eliminate dropouts at all?
If I were to dedicate a drive (HD or SSD) to the Picture Cache, does it need to be large?
Thanks for answers & advice....
JT
Hi JT,
Here's my opinion for what it's worth.
Answer to question 1: Picture cache is just a folder that stores the wave forms of all your projects. Ever see when you record, the wave file appears after a second or 2? It's caching what you see to that folder. For example, after a while, you can delete the contents of the picture cache. It won't harm a thing. However, if you have any projects on your system that have those files associated with them, when you load the project, it will need to re-draw all the wave forms before you can see them. Depending on how many waves you have as well as how long they are will determine how long it will take to redraw them. I dump my picture cache every 2 weeks or so or after huge projects that have been finished and are no longer on my machine.
Answer to question 2: No, picture cache only holds wave form draws and only messes with your system for a second or two after a recorded wave file is done. It only becomes a bit of a processor to your hard drive when you dump the contents of the picture cache and then open a project on your system that had those files associated with it as it will need to redraw them all like I said above. You can even be selective in the files you delete from there as most times, they are labeled. For example..
If you had a song on your machine called "Today", you would see a bunch of files in your picture cache that would also say "Today" on them. So if you were still working on that project and you wanted to delete picture cache files, you could remove all the ones that didn't say "Today" and you'd be ok. If you delete them, when you load up "Today" to work on it, the files will all redraw and you'll notice your hard drive working pretty hard to do that. But it will only be the first time you open the project (or any project in Sonar that say, someone sends to you.) and you'll never see that again unless you dump the picture cache files.
Answer to question 3: No, I think it would be senseless myself. Do as Scott recommends and you'll be fine man, honest.
C Drive for your programs, plugs and OS
D Drive for all your audio projects as well as the drive Sonar will record into and store wave files into per your selections in Sonar options pointing it to your D Drive.
E Drive for samples of say, Kontakt, drum modules and anything else that has huge libraries. This would be a great place to put an SSD drive, but the problem is, you'd need a big one because sample libraries are huge. To be honest, unless you can afford a huge SSD drive, you'll be fine with a good "made for recording" 7200 RPM drive. However, if you get a smaller SSD drive, it would be awesome as your audio (D Drive) as well, but you of course won't be able to store much on it. So you'll be playing an archiving game of copy and paste. I personally don't see the need. With a fast enough cpu, good hardware and enough ram, you shouldn't have any problems at all. Good luck and I hope this helps.
-Danny