Hi,
on A3, as on A2, when you import audio files you have to choose between “import to the session” or not.
Does it make a difference, and in what way, if you don’t import files located on the same disk than the session directory ?
Thanks
Short version, unless you know you don’t want to, always copy the files.
SeabladeThanks Seablade,
curiosity tends me to like a longer version, but can live with the short one, specially if it makes a session work 
If you can afford the disk space, then copy them.
It makes no difference to Ardour, as long as it can find the files where it expects to find them. They don’t need to be in any particular folder, or even on the same partition or disk as the Ardour session files. Ardour works with the files non-destructively, so it won’t attempt to alter the originals in any way.
BUT…
If you move or delete a file accidentally, you’re in trouble. If you copy the files during import, at least they’ll exist within an Ardour session folder, where (one would hope) you’ll be less likely to move or delete them accidentally.
Even if you’re sure you’ll be keeping the original files in their original location forever, it’s safer to copy than not. If a file becomes corrupted for any reason, at least you’ll have a backup copy somewhere.
If nothing else, it’s a convenient way to keep your files organized, and it makes it much easier to archive entire sessions, or to move or copy entire sessions between computers. If you wanted to copy an entire session to another machine, and your source files were spread out over a number of locations, you’d have to recreate all of those locations on the target machine. The greater the number of source files, the greater your chance of missing a file or copying it to the wrong location.
You’ll thank yourself when you need to do any housekeeping, as well. Are you sure you don’t need that mysterious, cryptically-named audio file in your /downloads/temp/audio/misc/whatever/unknown/ folder?