ODM Node taking up too much storage - how to assign to an external HD

[8Greenman8]

I know this is a common enough problem but I didn’t see my specific question asked.

I recently made the switch from WebODM+Docker to ODM. Intimidated by coding, I find it much more stable and user friendly, which is great.

My 500GB hard drive is getting full though, and when I run the WizTree application on my files, it is showing that ODM is storing all my base picture files in the NodeODM folder within the application files, in order to process the dataset into an orthomosaic. I can manually clear out my finished projects, but it would be better if it didnt jam up my C: drive and my computer when it gets full.

How can I change this so that it saves that NodeODM folder to my 5TB external HD? Do I need to reinstall the whole program to the External HD?

Thanks, you guys are awesome.

[Saijin_Naib]

Yes, at the moment I think the best path would be a re-install on the desired drive, or perhaps removing the projects once you’re done with them.

[8Greenman8]

So I uninstalled and reinstalled ODM onto my external HD. Now I am having issues with it being able to access the processing node, that I did not have before. Thoughts?

[Saijin_Naib]

That’s really interesting.

I’ve tried it so far on two fixed/internal drives (C/D SSDs), as well as a USB Enclosure to an HDD, and have had no such issues.

Is your drive hot-swap enabled perhaps?

[8Greenman8]

Okay I think I figured it out. It was actually a problem with my USB port driver… It was unable to reach the node because it wasnt maintaining a proper connection.

Goes to show that things are not always as they appear. Failure to reach node could be a result of a number of different issues.

NOTE TO THE MODS: I think if there was a way for ODM to operate natively from desktop but for the node to operate from an external hard drive, it would be much more stable. Plus some sort of ability to clear the finished processes from the node, either as an automatic function selectable from settings, or from a manual button on the dashboard.

[Saijin_Naib]

Great feature suggestions. I feel similarly about being able to choose custom directory for installation and/or data directory.

I think the limitation right now is that wix (our installer) isn’t the easiest to configure for this.

Rules for purging of the previous tasks are interesting… I’m not sure if that really suits a general end-user case as one might run afoul of it without realizing why past jobs were being cleared. We do something similar with WebODM Lightning by clearing out completed tasks 14 days after competion.