How to Transfer Daz Content
3Diva
Posts: 11,974
I need help! I'm starting to realize that this art form requires quite a lot of hard drive space. When I first installed Daz Studio I installed it to my SSD - being new to 3D art I didn't know how much space it actually takes up and now that I've been using Daz for about 7 months (and accumulating a LOT of freebies and doing hundreds and hundreds of renders), I'm starting to see my SSD fill up. Is there a way to move Daz files, my content, and my renders off of my SSD and onto another drive?
I'm not as worried so much about moving the renders as I am about moving the content (though I would like to know how to tell Daz to save my renders to a different hard drive). The most vital thing I need to figure out is how to move my CONTENT to an alternate hard drive. I don't want to "break" anything, create error messages with file paths, or create problems with Daz. How can I move my content without creating problems? And without having to uninstall and reinstall everything (as I have just about dial-up speed internet and it takes AGES to install Daz content).
I've already created an alternate install path (to a hard drive with more space) for my Install Manager and am having all my new content downloaded there. And I've added that base directory to Daz and it works well. I see all my new content there and it loads fine. However Is there a way to move some of my old installed content to that base directory as well (without creating pathing issues in Daz)?
Any help you guys can give me would be much appreciated. My SSD is really starting to fill up and it's getting to be a serious situation.
TLDR: 1) How to move my content to another hard drive without creating pathing issues in Daz (and without having to uninstall and then reinstall everything)? and 2) How to tell Daz to save my renders to a less full hard drive?
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Comments
I run my content libraries off a peripheral drive and it seems to work all right. But then, I also install things manually, so I know where they are being put.
Quite a lot of people run their content off peripheral drives though, so I gather that DIM can be directed to put content on one. I don't know about Connect, but I suspect that it may be an option there as well. Mind you; anything I say must be taken with a grain of salt becuse I Do Not use smart content or metadata. I just use my content library lists.
In any case, rebuilding content libraries is a hassle and a half, and once you start you will need to follow through to the bitter end. But once you have things where you want them, for regular content lists, telling Studio where it now lives is a fairly easy process. You need to go to the content manager and build new DAZ and Poser content lists pointing the program to where things now are. And then hit either apply or Accept, or whatever and it will be there for you to pick from in your content lists. Smart content and metadata may require additional hoop-jumping. But I wouldn't know.
1) If you have custom categories, tags, or metadata, Export User Data before moving anything
2) In DS go to Edit > Preferences > Content Library > Content Directory Manager and add the new path under both DS formats and Poser formats. If you use Connect, which only allows one path, make sure you're not logged in when changing that path
3) Close DS and move the content folder (e.g. My Library or My Daz 3D Library) to the new location (if the root folder name is different make sure you move only what's underneath the root folder).
4) Launch DS and remove the old paths in Contrent Directory Manager
5) From the context menu in the Content Library Pane, Content DB Maintenance > Reset Database, then Content DB Maintenance > Re-Import Metadata
If you use DIM:
1) Settings > Downloads to change the path to download files to
2) Settings > Installation , click the + sign in the lower left to add a content install path, make sure to switch the Current path to your new path.
3) Now the tricky part: the ManifestFiles folder has a .dsx file for each zip installed with DIM which includes the path it was installed to in a line which reads:
<UserInstallPath VALUE="C:/blahblahblah"/>
You'll want to use a text editor which can do a global replace across multiple files, like Notepad++ Edit the install path in each .dsx file
For saving renders: if you save to a folder, you can just change the path the next time you save one. If you save to a library, I'm afraid I don't recall where you set those.
First, I would copy all of the files where you want them and then make sure they work. Then, and only then, you can delete them from the old drive once you know everything is working correctly. When you copy your files over to their new home, open up DIM and tell it you want to work offline so it is quicker. Click on the gear in the top right corner. That should open a dialog box with some setup options. Click on the Installation tab and point DIM there so it knows where to install things to. Close DIM.
After that, open up DAZ Studio. Click on the Edit tab and click on Preferences down near the bottom. That should open a dialog box you can use to tell DS where the files are. In that Preferences dialog box, click on the Content Library tab. That opens another dialog box where you can map your directory inside DS and let CMS know where to look for files. Click on the button near the bottom of the dialog box that says Content Directory Manager. Make sure to take out the old link. You could rename the old directory something DS doesn't know about if you want to make sure it isn't grabbing stuff from there if it can't find the new directory. It should be fairly easy to figure out how to map the directories once you are in there.
Once you know everything is working as it should, then you can delete the old directories.
I'm assuming you are saving to a library. I don't know where to set those. However, here are instructions to change it to save to a folder:
Good luck, Diva, and feel free to PM me if you run into any problems.
Oh thank you!! I just tested this and it worked great! Thank you, L'Adair! :D
One problem down and done! :D I appreciate your help!
hahah Yeah, I figure it will probably be a bit of a hastle. lol Thank you for the help!
NICE! Thank you so much for the step by step instructions - I think that is going to be a big help. :D Thank you!
*goes off to make coffee so I can try and tackle this with a clearer/more awake head* lol
Great advice! Thank you! :D I'll keep all the old files in place until I can figure out if the new paths are working correctly. :)
Is DIM the same as the Install Manager or is that something else? (I'm sorry if that's a stupid question - I haven't had coffee yet and I'm half asleep lol).
Yes, DIM is Install Manager.
Oh ok. I thought that was the case. Cool, I think I already got that part set up (with creating the alternate install path). :) So that's good!
I'm going to need an external drive soon myself (I've deleted everything else on my pc that I can to free up space but umm... I keep adding stuff lol. I'm taking notes. Any advice on what to get? I have no idea what I should even be looking for. And good luck Diva let us know how it goes!
I had to buy an external drive to hold my massive photoshop files for clients. I sometimes have clients, many months later, that say "you know that art work you did for me? Could you make some changes and resend the files?" MONTHS later! lol So I basically have to keep all client files for at least 6 months - and that takes up a lot of space. I thought about it for ages before finally deciding to get a 2 terabyte external drive. It's a Seagate and it's been working fantastic for my needs. I can recommend that, as it works really well for me. :)
I have three external drives, all from Fantom Drives. I've not had any trouble with any of them. They are "old" with the oldest being 256GB, and the newest, (at least 3 years old,) is 2TB.Mind you, even the 256GB was considered a "large" drive when I purchased it. I always recommend you buy the largest capacity drive you can afford at the time. You'll run out of room faster than you think possible. At least, that has been my experience. Then again, I'm something of a digital hoarder...
I tend to hoard digitally as well. You never know when you are going to need that particular item you just deleted lol
I have a Toshiba Canvio 3 TB external hard drive. Mine is an older one. Looking at Amazon, they have come down in price and it looks like the newer ones are slimmer and cheaper at just around $100 for the 3 TB drives. I don't know about the newer ones, but I haven't had any problems with mine which is about 2 or 3 years old now. Keep in mind that external hard drives are also going to take up one of the cord slots on your surge protector as they usually all come with their own power source.
I have my external devices plugged into a power strip with surge-protection/circuit breaker, and that power strip is then plugged into my main UPS/Surge Protector. It's really handy, too, when I want to shut everything down. I just turn off the power strip.
Same here. I've been storing my contents to an external drive and my runtime library into a different external drive. My choice of brand is Western Digital - in fact just bought a 4TB one from Amazon 2 months ago as my 3 TB one is almost reaching its max capacity. WD 4TB Berry My Passport Ultra Portable External Hard Drive at $139 is a great deal.
One other thing that might be gobbling up your precious SSD space — when DIM downloads an item from the DAZ site and installs it, by default the downloaded .zip installer is also saved "just in case". This allows DIM to uninstall/reinstall without needing to redownload. There's a tickbox somewhere that turns this behaviour on or off. If you don't turn this off (or if you want it left on but forget to reset DIM's default installer storage location) then DIM will continue to fill up your SSD with the .zip installers completely independently of where the installed content files are going.
Good luck with your transfer; not long ago I got a 4TB external drive (not just for DAZ goodies) because the 2TB drive I got a few years ago was running out of room...
Oh wow! I didn't know that. Thank you! I dug around the Install Manager and couldn't find it. Do you know where it's at? :)
I did find that you need to change both the "install path" as well as the "download path" which was under two different tabs. So hopefully that will help. I couldn't find the tickbox you where talking about though.
On the 'Ready to Install' tab of DIM, at the bottom is a checkbox for 'Delete Package Once Installed'. Package here means the zip file.
External drives can fail. Secure off site storage of all project files provides added insurance.
Oh great! Thank you, nattaruk! :)
Is there a way to find the old/already installed zip files and delete them?
Edit - I think I found it, I see a lot of zip files under: users > "me" > documents -I think those are probably it.
I think so, on my PC DIM stores the zips in "Public Documents/Daz3d/InstallManager/Downloads", which I think is adjustable with the 'download directory' setting. Anyway, they can just be deleted once you've found them.
Whoa! I found them there too! lol Looks like I have two places that they are being downloaded.
Thank you for your help, nattaruk! I really appreciate it! :)
Any drive can fail. Save your vitals on multiple drives. My Windows is set to backup my render libraries and saves every night. A cloud save can certainly be nice and provide even more insurance, but what are the odds of multiple drives failing at once? Maybe if you live in Southern Cal and are worried about a fire or something. Though you can always take the cloud with you...provided you have internet access.
Any drive WILL fail. It's all a matter of time. Backup utilities and additional drives are a good thing.
Something that was said ages ago...it's not a question of it will fail, but one of when.