PremierePro

Specify scratch disks to improve system performance

When you edit a project, Adobe Premiere Pro uses disk space to store files required by your project, such as captured video and audio, conformed audio, and preview files that you create manually or that are created automatically when exporting to certain formats. Adobe Premiere Pro uses conformed audio files and preview files to optimize performance, allowing real‑time editing, 32‑bit floating‑point quality, and efficient output.

All scratch disk files are preserved across work sessions. If you delete preview files or conformed audio files, Adobe Premiere Pro automatically recreates them.

By default, scratch disk files are stored where you save the project. The scratch disk space required increases as sequences become longer or more complex. For best performance, it is recommended that you dedicate a hard drive or drives strictly to your media assets. Specify these dedicated disks as your scratch disks. If your system has multiple disks, you can use the Edit > Preferences > Scratch Disks (Windows) or Premiere Pro > Preferences > Scratch Disks (Mac OS) command to specify which disks Adobe Premiere Pro uses for media files. This is best done when you set up a new project.

In terms of performance, it’s usually best to dedicate a different disk to each asset type, but you can also specify folders on the same disk. You can specify unique scratch disk locations for the following types of file:

Captured Video
Video files that you create using File > Capture.

Captured Audio
Audio files that you create using File > Capture.

Video Previews
Files created when you use the Sequence > Render Work Area command, export to a movie file, or export to a device. If the previewed area includes effects, the effects are rendered at full quality in the preview file.

Audio Previews
Files created when you use the Sequence > Render Work Area command, use the Clip > Audio Options > Render And Replace command, export to a movie file, or export to a DV device. If the previewed area includes effects, they are rendered at full quality in the preview file.

Media Cache
Files created by the Media Cache feature, including conformed audio files, PEK audio files and video index files (for MPEG).

DVD Encoding
Files created when you export movies to a DVD folder.

Specify scratch disks

You set up scratch disks in the Scratch Disk pane of the Preferences dialog box. Before changing scratch disk settings, you can verify the amount of free disk space on the selected volume by looking in the box to the right of the path. If the path is too long to read, position the pointer over the path name, and the full path appears in a tool tip.

  1. Choose Edit > Preferences > Scratch Disks (Windows) or Premiere Pro > Preferences > Scratch Disks (Mac OS).
  2. Identify a location for each type of file named in the dialog box. Adobe Premiere Pro creates a subfolder named for each file type (for instance, Captured Video) and stores the folder’s associated files in it. The pop-up menu lists three default locations:
    My Documents
    Stores scratch files in the My Documents folder.

    Same As Project
    Stores scratch files in the same folder where the project file is stored.

    Custom
    Allows you to specify a location of your choosing. Choose Custom, then click Browse and browse to any available folder.

Maximizing scratch disk performance

For maximum performance, follow these guidelines:

  • If your computer has only one hard disk, consider leaving all scratch disk options at their default settings.

  • Set up scratch disks on one or more separate hard disks. In Adobe Premiere Pro, it’s possible to set up each type of scratch disk to its own disk (for example, one disk for captured video and another for captured audio).

  • Specify only partitions formatted for the NTFS file format as scratch disks. FAT32 partitions do not support large file sizes.

  • Specify your fastest hard disks for capturing footage and storing scratch files. You can use a slower disk for audio preview files and the project file.

  • Specify only disks attached to your computer. A hard disk located on a network is usually too slow. Avoid using removable media because Adobe Premiere Pro always requires access to scratch disk files. Scratch disk files are preserved for each project, even when you close the project. They are reused when you reopen the project associated with them. If scratch disk files are stored on removable media and the media are removed from the drive, the scratch disk won’t be available to Adobe Premiere Pro.

  • Although you can divide a single disk into partitions and set up partitions as scratch disks, this doesn’t improve performance because the single drive mechanism becomes a bottleneck. For best results, set up scratch disk volumes that are physically separate drives.