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Ideal FCP iMac setup
I have a fairly new aluminum 24″ iMac that I have been editing HD footage on in FCP. I have maxed out my internal drive.
I understand I shouldn’t be doing anything on the internal drive. I was thinking of getting two external drives. One for scratch disk, and one for everything else. Any suggestions on this setup or recommended drives?
Thanks!
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9 Replies
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Hi Wesley,
I guess you are limited to FW800.
Buy a RAID system for your media. There are many brands and prices.
The transfer speed won’t be a bottle neck when editing.
You can put the media in one HD and the renders, graphics and music in the other. Even if you have only one FW Bus, the write/read tasks are distributed between more heads.
Best,
rafael -
Another storage option you might consider would be iSCSI … the DroboPro or DroboElite are boxes you can check out on that front:
https://www.drobo.com/resources/iscsi.php -
When you say put media on one drive and other content on another drive, do you mean I should have two RAID systems hooked to the iMac?
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[Andy Mees] “Another storage option you might consider would be iSCSI … the DroboPro or DroboElite are boxes you can check out on that front: “
I have a drobo and I will say that I love it but it is NOT for video editing. The data redundancy capabilities of the drobo are simply amazing but the speeds are a little below average for data transfer. The device is built for data redundancy not for drive speed, and because of that is NOT a good media drive for video editing.
Hindsight is always 1080p
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Hey Zane
Which Drobo model do you have, and which generation?
Best
Andy -
[Andy Mees] “Hey Zane
Which Drobo model do you have, and which generation? “I have not the most recent generation but the one just before that with FW800, and the speeds that I see are actually lower then other FW800 drives. The reason for this is because the drobo is not really a hard drives as it is a computer that controls hard drives.
One may be able to get away with editing from a drobo but in my opinion it just does not give the speeds needed. Now keep in mind I am a person who will refuse to edit from anything slower then a esata raid because when I switched from FW800 to esata for media drives my render times cut almost in half thus making my productivity almost double.
The drobo is perfect for backups or for keeping projects archived on, and that is exactly what I purchased it for but not for editing.
Hindsight is always 1080p
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Hi Zane
So just a 4 bay original Drobo, possibly 1st generation (which were notoriously slow)? Not a DroboPro or DroboElite? If so, then you might be happily surprised by what these later and better models can handle:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/typicalpcuser/4204611054/sizes/l/in/set-72157623045990118/
Worth a look for anyone considering their options on less expandable Mac’s.Best
Andy -
[Andy Mees] “So just a 4 bay original Drobo, possibly 1st generation”
4 bay yes 1st gen, i dont think so I believe the 1st gen only had USB.
While yes those numbers from the drobo pro are better, you still bet much better speeds even from a 2 drive esata raid.
Like I said i’m a data speed snob.
Hindsight is always 1080p
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No need of two RAIDS.
You said that you where thinking of buying two HDs.
In that case you can set it as I said.
If you buy a RAID, that should be enough.
Rafael
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