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512gig Flash vs 1tb flash for internal drive?
I’m in the market of buying a new iMac. I’m trying to figure out, how much internal space is sufficient for Post. This info seems to always change once every five years.
I understand that the best workflow is to edit off of an external. But when deciding to buy a new iMac, the difference between getting a 512gig internal Flash vs a 1Tb Flash is huge in price.
I’m thinking maybe 512gig internal is fine, and whatever money I save from not getting the 1Tb will go to a decent external thunderbolt drive.What do you guys think? Is a 512gig Flash drive enough? Or do you think I would need 1Tb of space? I’m using mostly FCP 7, Premiere, After Effects, and some Da Vinci.
I would be using this mostly for commercials, documentaries, and possibly a feature film shot on 4k Red. I appreciate any advice or real world experience from you guys, thanks!
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4 Replies
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[Seth Burke] “I understand that the best workflow is to edit off of an external.”
I dispute the continued validity of this advice.
Back in the day, you had to edit off external storage, because external storage could be a big fast RAID and internal storage had to be a single, slow mechanical HDD.
Fast forward to today, and solid state on PCIe is the fastest disk technology generally available. You may choose external storage for capacity, portability, or logical separation, but I don’t believe it’s really necessary for pure performance anymore.
I think that 512 GB is enough for most users, but you may ultimately need to be willing to move some user data (iTunes, Dropbox, etc.) to external storage, too. I have a 512 GB SSD on a couple of my laptops, and it requires some management on my part to keep enough working space free.
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn] -
The smaller hard drive will be just fine – as you suggested, putting the extra dough toward a RAID will be a better investment.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss ProductionsDavid is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.
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Do you have suggestion for the best Raid or external device for storage on the iMac Retina with 512 GB Flash Drive? I’m an editor and colorist, using Avid, Premiere, Adobe AFX, and DaVinci. I’m on a tight budget right now. I’m trying to figure out what I can get away with until I can buy (and need more storage). Portability and speed are and budget are the main factors at this point.
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[Jami Francescon] “I’m on a tight budget right now. I’m trying to figure out what I can get away with until I can buy (and need more storage).”
Everyone is on a tight budget – you have to decide if you want to “get away with” something now, and end up buying twice, or just buy the right storage now, when storage is at its all-time lowest cost ever.
A 4-bay or 8-bay Promise Thunderbolt-2 enclosure is probably your best bet – they are very inexpensive and provide lots of throughput. Keep in mind, every time you double the number of hard drives in a RAID you essentially the throughput, so if you’re going to be cutting 4K anytime soon, the 8-bay enclosure will be necessary.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss ProductionsDavid is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.
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