Best storage layout for FCP on 8cMacPro

Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy

Best storage layout for FCP on 8cMacPro

Posted by Francois Driessen on July 27, 2007 at 1:49 pm

Hallo there!
Just upgraded to a 8core MacPro (for AfterEffects CS3) & FinalCut S2. Traditionally, the approach for file storage for FCP would mean I’d like to keep project files (on one drive) and media files (on Raid scratch drives) separate. But in linking Motion & LiveType projects to the FCP timeline, does that not make them ‘media’ files now? So I’m not sure what is the best approach in organizing my drives & files to get the most out of my new system.

Apart from the System drive, I have 7 SATA drives to stripe to Raid0. But for data security and backup I don’t want to place Motion, STP & LT files on a single array with media files if that’s not necessary.

Here’s the system config:
2x Quad Xeon 3GHz
4x2Gig + 2x512M RAM
ATI Radeon X1900 XT
1x 7200RPM SATAIII 500Gig System drive (Partitioned to use only first half of drive to keep speed up. No projects stored on there)
4x SATA II + 3 SATA III
FCS2
AE CS3+ NucleoPro2

Thanks!

Francois Driessen replied 19 years, 1 month ago 2 Members · 4 Replies
4 Replies

Ernie Santella
July 27, 2007 at 3:09 pm

You didn’t mention if you are doing SD or HD. Do you need all 7 SATA II drives striped together for speed? if not, maybe consider seperating them into 4x & 3x RAIDS.

For safety, I just use a couple of FW drives for backup. Copy the media files to them for safety at the end of the day.

Ernie Santella
Santella Film/Video Productions
http://www.santellaproductions.com
Francois Driessen
July 27, 2007 at 3:33 pm

Hi, E.

HD. Yes, FW800 backups is part of my workflow.

Sure. 3x & 4x is an option. But to figure out what will be best. I’m trying to figure out what the dynamic is for linking Motion, STP, LT projects into timeline.
thnx!
Ernie Santella
July 28, 2007 at 3:35 am

I keep all my media files on one large 5 Drive SATA II RAID. I’m only doing Uncompressed SD and DVCProHD. All media files run fine from one fast RAID. Graphics, Music, Video all on the same RAID.

If I was to get into Uncompressed HD, then SATA wouldn’t quite be fast enough. You really would need a Fiber Channel Xserve RAID or equivalent to run smoothly.

I also don’t fill my RAID up full. That really slows down the transfer speed.

Ernie Santella
Santella Film/Video Productions
http://www.santellaproductions.com
Francois Driessen
July 30, 2007 at 1:29 am

OK. Just to get back to the real question here:

Traditionally, the approach for file storage for FCP would mean I’d like to keep project files (on one drive) and media files (on Raid scratch drives) separate. But in linking Motion & LiveType projects to the FCP timeline, does that not make them ‘media’ files now?

Anyone in the herd with an aswer to this one?

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