How to plan cache capacity for overlapping projects

Keep overlapping projects ready for the working day

Suite’s shared library lets a workstation move between projects while its local cache supports the active work. Size that cache around the media needed during overlapping sessions, then reserve room for applications, scratch files and outputs. A practical daily working set gives you a more useful capacity plan than adding every project’s lifetime media total.

Suite's cache configuration guide recommends an internal or external SSD, appropriate filesystem formatting and, where possible, enough allocation for the active project or media. The following capacity ledger extends that guidance to overlapping work. Use this planning method alongside observed cache use on your workstations.

Map the busiest plausible day

List the projects that can be active together. For each, identify the media needed for the planned work, when it becomes active and when it can stop competing for local capacity. Include an unfinished export, an agent analysis job or a last-minute revision if those regularly overlap with editing.

Separate shared assets from project-specific assets. If two estimates include the same asset, count it once in your conceptual workload inventory. That accounting rule does not promise a particular physical deduplication ratio inside the cache; validate actual use on the workstation.

Keep occasional projects on the schedule even when they are not active today. A machine that fits the normal editing day may have less room when a delivery and a new project arrive together.

Use a capacity ledger with explicit assumptions

A hypothetical workstation plan might include 300 GB of active media for project A, 200 GB for project B and 100 GB of shared assets listed separately. The planned media set is 600 GB if those groups do not overlap. Reserving another 250 GB for application workspace and 150 GB for operating-system needs and headroom produces a 1,000 GB planning total.

Those figures illustrate the arithmetic, not a recommended drive capacity or a measured Suite footprint. Check usable capacity rather than relying only on a drive's label. Record whether each estimate is an observed maximum, a project forecast or an allowance chosen by the operator.

If the available space cannot accommodate the planned overlap, change one of the assumptions deliberately. Reduce simultaneous work, choose a smaller relevant media set or evaluate additional suitable local capacity. Do not quietly spend the application's workspace allocation twice.

Check the plan during real work

Observe cache utilization, available disk and application workspace at the start, busiest point and end of a representative session. Note projects that unexpectedly become active and outputs that persist longer than planned. The value of the ledger comes from comparing it with those observations.

Avoid shrinking an active allocation simply to make the spreadsheet fit. Suite's cache guide cautions against reducing the allocated size while cached data is still needed. Follow supported cache-management guidance and coordinate changes with the people using the workstation.

Review the ledger when the project mix changes. A shared workstation needs a repeatable capacity decision, not one fixed percentage that is assumed to work forever. Keep connected operation and the actual application's performance requirements in the evaluation alongside disk capacity.