Installing Daz Studio On A Secondary Drive
Xenomorphine
Posts: 2,421
Have had to obtain a new system and that means reinstalling Daz Studio and all of its content. However, this is the first time I'll be using one with a solid-state drive - which I'll restricting for the purpose of a boot drive, with a secondary conventional hard drive for installing stuff like DS, games and so on.
So, assuming I tell DS to install on the other drive, when I have the Daz Connect feature, in the Smart Content panel, install my products, will it automatically do so to whichever drive DS has already been installed upon? Or do I have to fiddle around in options to select an installation path for it to do so?
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There is a default install path to C:\ drive. You can change this before you install any content in the Content Directory Manager.
Actually, the default for DIM is the Public documents folder and the defaults for DS is the user's Docuemnts folder. if those are moved to another drive before isntalling DS then DS will use that location (as will other applications). You can move them by finding the folders under C:/Users/, right-clicking, selecting proeprties, going to the Location tab, and clicking the Move button.
Connect doesn't install to your DS folder anyway. The installation of the Daz Studio application and the installation of the content are separate. The DS application will still need to know where the Content is located via the Content directory manager.
Oh, hell... Hope that doesn't screw anything else up which relies on C: being the default location for that particular folder in future.
If you mean moving the Documents folder it shouldn't - the path isn't hard-coded anyway, since the user name will vary, so I would expect almost everything to get the actual path used from the system and therefore to cope with the move.
Doesn't seem to be a 'move' option in the 'location' tab. :/
oops no thgere isn't for the Public folders, there is for your own Documents folder though
Heh! Well, which does DS use? I don't want to fill up my OS drive with the thousands of assets I've bought for that, over time. :) Want to keep everything on the storage drive.
On initial installation I manually pointed DAZ|Studio to a (user created) folder on a secondary drive, with the content (via manual zips) on a tertiary drive. New version updates always find Studio for a successful uninstall -> install that remembers where the content is. No Windows default locations used (by me).
This has worked great, but I don't use DIM or Connect so can't comment on how those might be affected.
Yeah, I rely completely on Connect. :( Need to know how best to go about it, so that it'll auto-install everything to a storage drive.
In Studio, on the Content tab option menu (the little box with the triangle and lines) select 'Content Directory Maintenance' and define your Studio directories. I don't do defaults - here's my list. As you can see, everything is on my D: drive. Not shown is the fact that my DAZ Software is also on the D: drive. DIM knows that my download directory is F:\dim-downloads, my content installation directories are D:\S4stuff\gen5 (for studio content) and D:\tutorials (for tutorials); and that my software goes in D:\bits-32 and D:\bits-64. And, of course, D:\S4Stuff\connect is where Studio installs products downloaded by connect.
The 'mydata' directory is where I save my things - characters, presets, props, scenes - anything I create. The 3rd-part directory is for manual installs from rendo, sharecg, or any other site I grab things from.
DS puts new files and Connect in locations in the user's documents folder, but DIM uses the Public Documents folder and so would need updating with a custom path.
So, if I move the user 'Documents' folder to the storage drive, that'll sort Connect? Whereas I should be able to alter the settings of DIM and redirect it to a custom folder on the storage drive, to deal with things which need that?
No, if you move it after isntalling DS will still use the old path and you will have to change it in the Content Directory Manager. DS gets the current location when it is first run (or possibly when it is isntalled, but I think it's first run) and won't then change it without being told to. But for future reference and for applications you haven't yet installed yes, moving it will control the default locations they use.
Oh, haven't installed DS yet! If what I mentioned is done before it's installed, that should do it?
Yes, the DIM path will still be on C: but Connect and the folder used for saves won't be.
There isn't any way for the DIM path to go to a D: drive, too?
There are only two or three things I have which need it, but I'd rather have them available than not.
Click the gear icon (top right) in DIM to get to the settings. Use the 'Downloads' tab to select what you want to show as downloadable and what directory to download to - as you can see from my 'dim downloads' image, I download to F:\dazdim-to-install.
Then use the 'Installation' tab to define where you want things installed - my 'dim installation' image shows what I use. Note the D:/bits-32 and D:/bits-64 directories for software - if you ever want both 32-bit and 64-bit studio installed on the same machine these two paths MUST be different.
My 'gen5' path is a leftover - at one point I had over a dozen directories based on content generation (gen5 was Genesis) or usage. As can be seen, I simplified this long ago.
If you have 'Show Details' checked on the main DIM installation tab you'll see a dropdown box that can be used to select which installation directory to use.
If I have this right...
1: Select 'move' for the location of the user sub-folder of 'documents' to the requested drive, before installing Daz Studio.
2: Install DS.
3: Go to the content library, rejig the 'Content Directory Maintenance' stuff into my own user-defined new folders of choice.
4: Install DIM, select settings and modify where that downloads to, in a similar manner, as per Namffuak's example.
Those of us who want to have DS install everything, both though Connect and DIM, should be able to rest assured that everything then installs on the storage drive(s) of our choice, as opposed to using up space on the OS drive?
I went a slightly different route when I moved my existing library to a second drive. This should also work with a new directory without having to move your document folder
install Daz and dim as you would normally
Open DIM- go to the settings cog > installation > you will see a list of directories listed there. create a new directory under the "default one" (this is where you want to install your stuff to eg D:daz/MyLibrary)
Go into Daz studio > edit > preferences > 5th tab across is labelled content or something like that > click content directory manager button > daz studio formats > add the new directory (D:daz/MyLibrary) > right click and move it to the top of the list
Restart daz
Click the content library tab (where you normally choose your installed products) > click options button (three horizontal line with down arrow) select content db maintenance > reimport metadata
you're done.
Yes, manually changing things is fine (and necessary for DIM) - I was just suggesting moving the Documents (and other user-content folders) because it requires no user-intervention after that, for things that get written to the Documents folder, and because it works for almost all applications.
None of the DS related locations need to be on the C drive (not even Connect). The only issue is that Content Directory Manager and DIM need to know the path to content and DIM needs to know the path to the DS installation as well as the download path and content installation path.
For example, my DS installtion is on the D: drive and my content library and Connect folders are on my H: drive
With the new computers the c drive is only about 500 gigabytes, I beleave there should be a patch to make it easier to put Daz on to a second hard drive.
My new com puter has about 500 gb c drive and a 2 tb secondary one, I can't change the drives around because I am paying the computer off with a 3 year plan, but I can't wait that long to be able to use all of my Daz stuff.
I love Daz.
Cheers.
Not sure what you want.
It is your content that requires large volumes. And in Daz Studio you can point your content to any drive that you prefer.
And if using DIM you can install on any drive that you prefer.
And any drive could e.g. be an external drive connected with USB.
Yeah, it is frustrating that small, single drives seem to come with new computers these days. I got a great Black Friday deal on a new rig that I will be setting up tomorrow, but unfortunately it came with a single drive. Luckily I have a couple of new external 4T drives that I can use, but wish it had come with more storage internally since that would be better for data speeds I would guess. Thanks for this thread, I found it helpful
If the system has additional drive bays, power, and data connectors just add drives. There are adapters that allow two SSD drives to be installed in one standard 3.5 inch drive bay.