Best Media Computer Practices
Best Media computer practices:
- Back up your computer – EVERY DAY
- Take the time up front to run virus and Malware scans and delete all contamination
- Clean your Desktop – (WILL DRASTICALLY IMPROVE OVERALL SPEED)
- In your documents folder, create a DESKTOP ALIAS folder
- Place a shortcut or alias of that folder on your desktop
- MOVE EVERYTHING EXCEPT shortcuts/aliases into the DESKTOP ALIAS folder
- If you can expand the RAM, go to a vendor like Crucial.com.
- Use their app to determine how much and what type. The app will even recommend the type.
- 16 GB of RAM at a minimum is your target. 32/64 GB are recommended.
- Order & upgrade using the linked How-to DIY.
- Limit active tasks – IOW – let your machine focus on the Media task at hand – Photoshop, Audition, Premiere, etc.
- Limit the applications open at any one time
- limit your browser windows open
- In any Adobe Cloud App. Top Menu bar Title of Application Preferences
- Memory – Allocate the majority of RAM to be used by the APP.
- Recommendation: if running Premiere (for example) and you are only using your browser then allocate all but 4GB of RAM to the Adobe applications
- Media and Disk Cache: route these to a folder on your fastest drive – that may be an external drive or your boot drive (The drive that houses your OS)
- Delete and clean the existing cache
- Clear your DOWNLOADS folder if possible – at a minimum clean the folder of useless files. Move the files you desire to keep to the Documents folder
- Remove unnecessary Program Files – UNINSTALL
- Use an external drive with the fastest transfer buss possible
- USB-3 – USB-C
- Firewire 800
- ESATA
- Update your software – objective is to assure that the efficiencies of the latest version are being exploited
- Time investment solution:
- Backup your drive
- Zero your drive – erase using a hard drive app, replacing all data with 0’s. (this maps the bad sectors on a Mac)
- Reinstall your OS and all apps from scratch
- Memory – Allocate the majority of RAM to be used by the APP.