Keep models on an external drive

Without an archive folder, a model that pasture moves away comes back by download, which can take minutes for a large model and needs the internet. With an archive folder, such as one on an external SSD, pasture copies each model there before it moves the model off your disk. The model then comes back by copy, in seconds, with no internet.

Set an archive folder

Connect the drive, and choose a folder on it:

pasture archive /Volumes/T7/ollama-archive

pasture status then says where models go:

Models that move away are copied to /Volumes/T7/ollama-archive, which has 1.4 TB free.

A model whose copy is in the folder shows archive in the WHERE column.

Choose a drive

On a Mac, format the drive as APFS, or as Mac OS Extended (Journaled), in Disk Utility. Both formats protect the copies when the drive is unplugged in the middle of a copy. Many external SSDs come formatted as exFAT, which does not.

The folder needs room for the models you keep there. When the drive is full, pasture moves a model away only if it can download the model again.

When the drive is unplugged

Your models stay in the list. When you use a model whose copy is on the drive, pasture downloads it, if the place it came from still offers the same version. Otherwise the request fails with a message that names the folder. Plug the drive back in, and everything works again.

pasture status marks the archive as offline while the drive is unplugged.

Stop using the archive folder

pasture archive off

Models already in the folder still come back from it. Models that move away from now on come back by download.