EXTERNAL DRIVE for moving projects between systems

Flame Flame Questions
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Hey Hive

For those among us who find themselves sometimes in-studio one day on a clients system and then working from home on their own system another day has anyone found a reliable way to move projects between systems without laboriously archiving and unarchiving? Ideally we need an AfterEffects (sorry!) style of workflow where we can set up a project folder on an external drive into which all media and setups are held so that we can easily move the drive between systems for a more efficient workflow. I am getting older now, perhaps I have missed something here but if anyone has some tips to share that could avoid hours of archiving time Iā€™d be so grateful!

Thanks!

Dan

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2026 makes it very simple to keep your media on different external drives. I have several NVME external array/drives from which I work, usually all connected at the same time. What I have not tried is moving the Flame database/configs to an external drive as well, making the projects 100% portable between systems. Perhaps Fred Warren or Stephane could speak to this possibility.

You may have to be careful about launching a Flame that expects a drive that was present, after it has been removed. Not sure what the behavior would be in this case.

I know that at one time, I was told that the projects and media should be kept on separate drives. Iā€™m not certain if this still applies with 2026.

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Thanks Sam - I mlpoyed the help of our favourite AI Assistant to see what it suggests sending it on a crawl of all Autodesk, Flame and Logik websites and manuals to see what it suggests. It came up with the following which to me seems like a much more complicated way than simply archiving and unarchiving the project each time:

The reliable, portable workflow

1) Prep the external SSD

  • Format for cross-platform use if youā€™ll bounce between macOS and Linux (exFAT is simplest; APFS for Mac-only; ext4/XFS for Linux-only). Create folders like:

    /FLAMEPORT/source, /FLAMEPORT/cache, /FLAMEPORT/archives, /FLAMEPORT/renders.

  • Mount the drive with a consistent path on each workstation (e.g., macOS: /Volumes/FLAMEPORT; Linux: mount to /mnt/FLAMEPORT) so relinking is painless.

2) Point Flameā€™s Media Storage / Media Cache to the SSD

  • Open the Flame Setup app ā†’ Media Storage and add your SSD path as a storage device (this is where managed/cached media goes). Autodesk explicitly documents adding/removing media storage (ā€œstonefs/media cacheā€) and notes that using an external drive for managed media is fine.

  • In New Project (or Project Settings) choose the SSD path for Media Cache / Catalog so all cached media, proxies, and renders land on the external drive. Flame users confirm this is configurable at project creation in recent versions (2025/2026).

Why this matters: keeping cache/renders on the SSD means the big, re-generatable assets travel with the project without filling internal system disks.

3) Keep source media on the SSD too

  • Ingest from /FLAMEPORT/source via MediaHub so Flame records paths on the removable drive. If you stay disciplined about that root, projects relink instantly on any machine that mounts the SSD to the same path.

4) Use Archive/Restore to move the project safely

  • Autodeskā€™s official guidance (2025): Archive/Restore is the only supported method to migrate a project to another drive or workstation. In practice, that means:

    File ā†’ Archive ā†’ New Archive ā†’ pick /FLAMEPORT/archives/.archive and choose whether to include cached media/renders. On the next machine: File ā†’ Archive ā†’ Open Archive and Restore.

  • If both machines are on the same LAN you can browse other machinesā€™ projects via MediaHub/Autodesk Network, but for a roaming SSD workflow, Archive/Restore is the robust path.

5) Version parity + performance tips

  • Match Flame versions/builds and OCIO configs across workstations for zero-drama restores/relinks. (Archives restore best into the same major version.)

  • SSD speed matters. Use a fast NVMe USB-C/TB enclosure; keep ā‰„20% free space to avoid cache thrash. Treat the Media Cache like the old ā€œframestoreā€ā€”a big, fast workspace under your control.

Quick setup checklist (copy/paste)

  1. Format & name the drive (e.g., FLAMEPORT) and create:

    source/, cache/, archives/, renders/.

  2. Mount it to the same path on each machine.

  3. Flame Setup ā†’ Media Storage: add /ā€¦/FLAMEPORT/cache as storage.

  4. Create Project with Media Cache / Catalog pointing to /ā€¦/FLAMEPORT/cache.

  5. Ingest media from /ā€¦/FLAMEPORT/source.

  6. Regularly Archive the project to /ā€¦/FLAMEPORT/archives. Restore on other workstations.

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Agreedā€¦.archive/verify/unarchive, while more time consuming, is definitely the simplest, most reliable method of which I can think.

Unless your projects/media are huge and require migration of everything when you switch machines, a fast external drive for portable archives is much simpler. For example, I use a TB5 external with a fast NVME drive (Acasis makes a great external chassis with a fan and no thermal throttling) to move between multiple macs that have TB5. Itā€™s so fast, that I use it to do auto-archiving of projects to multiple drives every night as backups. Scripting your archives is relatively easy if youā€™re into that, or you can just resort to simple OS scripts that are easily changed.

Again, itā€™s possible that Autodesk personnel may have a simpler method of ā€˜cold-swappingā€™ your media and database/settings with some redirection of several items. The portability of the new database system is the biggest unknown for me, and a key factor is that youā€™d probably only be able to switch between similar OS platforms because of permissions, file paths and other items.

In the future perhaps it would be possible to have some type of global variables for everything (if they donā€™t already exist) for this type of portability.

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just use logik projekt , its fully

setup to work unmanaged and to write tiny archives, your usecase is what it was made for just sync the files from your nas to your laptop, its really quiet slick.

otherwise, why bother woth 2 machines if its just 1 person, use parsec/teradici to access your studio flame remotely and call it a day.

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