Solved What and where are the files used in Vegas Pro?

To be honest, this question has been bothering me since earlier Vegas days.  The natural corollary question to this would be “where should they be?”  But I realize that “where” question depends upon each individual system’s storage layout.  So, I’ll describe my system in detail in a later post.

To figure out where files go, I need to understand what various files and types, Vegas actually uses/develops/caches/temps/renders/previews/proxies/projects and more I haven’t stumbled upon yet. Could we start with a full inventory of Vegas files and where they are placed by the bare bones default install and operation.

Then could we discuss the best places to actually put these files (in general) for enhanced performance abilities and to avoid the unnecessary loading up of the “system drive” (usually C: on most systems.)
I think this all falls into the “workflow” category and I would love to hear how others work with simpler editing strategies.

Thanks, folks!

1. Never put Data files on your C-Drive, if you have more than one drive in your computer.
Most Desktop computers today, should come with the default C-Drive and a secondary D-Drive.
The C-Drive should just be used for installing Windows and all your Programs.
The D-Drive is where you should put all your Data files and folders, like Documents, Images, Music and Video.

2. The Vegas temporary files cache lives on your C-Drive

3. The biggest determining factor for performance will be related to what type of Drives you have in your computer.
3.5 inch Hard Drives are the slowest, but also best for storing large files.
SATA 2.5 inch SSDs (Solid State Drives) are the next best - no moving parts and have Read speeds up to 560 MB/s and Write speeds up to 530 Mb/s.
M.2 NVMe SSDs are the best type of drives and can read/write at blazingly fast speeds - up to 3,500 MB/s read speed and up to 3,300 write speeds.
The newest NVME PCIe 4.0 versions of M.2 Drives can read/write up to 7,000/5,000 MB/s.

4. What most professional video editors do today is first place all their project files onto a conventional slower Hard Drive - this will stay here forever.
Then a copy of all the files is moved onto a temporary "scratch" drive (like an M.2 drive) while they are editing.
This means your videos will be read/write very fast while editing, which will reduce video lag to basically zero.
Once the project has been completed and fully rendered, you would then make sure any files that were changed, are moved back to the Hard Drive for long term storage.

5. Another step that can be done before you start editing, is to create Proxy versions of any large 4K video files, that are difficult to play back in real time while editing.
Proxy video files are typically much larger in file size, because they have been uncompressed.

Regards
Derek
 

Thank you for your response. I understand the various types and performances of storage devices as you have outlined. But we really didn't get to the heart of my question.
In the course of a typical Vegas editing session, what are the various files that Vegas creates? There seem to be many types. Caches, temp, VEG, project, backups, proxies, etc. etc. Once I have a comprehensive list then I can decide where best to locate these files (assuming I have any control over that).

And what about the actual media files. Once selected, does Vegas bring selected media files into its own cache or? Because media files in my world can be very large (4GB x 20 files) and that would take another huge chunk of prime storage real-estate. I would want to allocate for that.

Are there cache type files that Vegas uses and then erases on exit? Do I need to insure space for those?

What's the best practice to wrap it all up? If I have project media scattered about, can I have Vegas put it all away in one place? If I have only used very small portions of large media files imported into a project, does Vegas save just the edited parts, or the whole media file? In which case wouldn't it be smarter to do rough cuts outside of Vegas and just import the cuts?

Does any of this make any sense? I have searched for some technical "here's how it all works behind the scenes" documents but cant find anything.

Thanks Derek!
Joe

It's not as complicated as you are suggesting, that's why I answered the way I did.

Vegas is not creating a slew of background files while you are editing.

The Vegas Temporary Files Folder (Cache) is mainly program related files for Video FX that Vegas scans for when you boot up Vegas.
C:\Users\**YOUR_USERNAME**\AppData\Local\VEGAS Pro\19.0
Any Thumbnail image files that Vegas Pro creates are also located in the Temporary Files Folder.
If Vegas ever crashes, this is where a temporary .veg file will be created, so that next time you start the program, it will offer to restore the .veg project file.
I recommend you never change the location of this folder - it works best on your C-Drive with program files.
There is no advantage in storing this folder on a different drive.
If you have a modern computer, your C-Drive should already be an SATA SSD or M.2 SSD drive.

Something I do recommend people do, is cleaning out the Thumbnail folders every now and then, especially after working on very large projects.
These thumbnails can sometimes get corrupted if you use different files in different projects, that use the same name.
If you delete the contents of the Thumbnail folders, they will be regenerate automatically when you re-open a project.

Most of the files that Vegas creates when you are editing, will be found in the same folders your source videos/media files are located.
Hence why I mentioned M.2 SSD drives - this would be the best place to keep Source Media Files while editing, so Vegas can read/write to them very fast.
1. There is the file that is created for your Audio waveforms which is the .sfk file
2. If your choose to create Video Proxies, they will also be located here and are given the file extension .sfvp0
Video Proxy files will be the biggest files that Vegas Pro ever creates.

Wherever you choose to save your Vegas Pro .veg Project file, will be were the other files are located.
Most of these files are all small data files, like .veg and .veg.bak

Hi Derek:  Thank you for youir last response.  I think, based upon yoiur information, that the clouds are starting to part.

In my case, I have an 1 TB M.2 SSD system drive on which all the Windows 11, all the Vegas Edit, all the New Blue add-ins, all the other current utilities and applications and etc. are installed.  Leaving me with about 700GB of space. 

I also have a 1TB SATA SSD which is very fast, but virtually empty (900 GB free).  I was going to import or direct Vegas to use this drive as a "working" and project storage for projects that are underway.

I also have a 3TB SATA rotating HD which is where I store all my downloads and "to be edited photos and files before sending away to NAS photos"  With about 1.5 TB free.

Finally I have a 20 TB (Terabytes) network connected NAS system which is where all of the Terabytes of raw video and photos are stored, waiting for me to do my thing in Vegas.  The NAS has about 10TB free.

How would you utilize all of this capability to set up a workflow.

Hope all is well with you!

Joe

How would you utilize all of this capability to set up a workflow.

I already answered that question in my first reply to you.
Temporarily move the files for your project, onto the fastest spare drive you have.
But don't use your C-Drive - that is for Vegas and Windows only.

This is what I said:
4. What most professional video editors do today is first place all their project files onto a conventional slower Hard Drive - this will stay here forever.
Then a copy of all the files is moved onto a temporary "scratch" drive (like an M.2 drive) while they are editing.
This means your videos will be read/write very fast while editing, which will reduce video lag to basically zero.
Once the project has been completed and fully rendered, you would then make sure any files that were changed, are moved back to the Hard Drive for long term storage.

Thanks for your reply Derek.  Sorry to be so irksome.  I'm old and slow and some things aren't as obvious to me as they are to more experienced users.