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Best Storage Option for New iMac
I’m wondering what the best recommended option would be for the internal and external storage on a new iMac. I am thinking that the best option would be to get an internal SSD and install my apps on it, then use an attached Thunderbolt drive for my footage.
My big question is where should the render/preview files go? Should I put them on the external drive or should they go on the internal SSD? What would give me the best overall performance?
If I put them on the SSD then I will have to get a larger SSD to fit them, but if I put them on the footage drive I am worried I will have performance issues. I often have 2 or 3 cam shoots and want to make sure the system can keep up.
We edit 1080p AVHD footage.
Our budget on each machine is about $3,000, but this is some what flexible within reason. -
3 Replies
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I was at a workshop led by a couple of Adobe guys and I asked the same question as I was waiting for delivery of my new iMac Retina 5k. They suggested that a “best practice” is an external USB 3 drive. So that’s what I did. I use it for Previews, Media Caches, Autosaves, etc. I also render my final output to this drive.
BTW, I am noticing some weird behaviour with rendering. It seems to speed up and slow down drastically. Even on projects that are cuts only, no effects. I’ve got the faster processor and the faster graphics card and 32GB of RAM. My early 2009 MacPro with a CUDA card didn’t render much slower. But that’s strictly anecdotal, not scientifically measured 🙂
Jeff
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I use a pegasys R4 thunderbolt array set up with redundancy in case a drive fails. I put everything on it, projects, media, cache, with the exception of the auto-save. I save that on a different drive in case something catastrophically fails.
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Thanks for the response! When you say “rending” do you mean exporting? I ask because I am not sure why you need to render a sequence that only has cuts. I verified with Adobe that the new AMD GPU in the New iMac with Retina Display was compatible with their Mercury Playback Engine even though it is not listed on the website and was told it was, but I wonder if this could have something do with your weird rendering behavior? Maybe it is supported, but buggy?
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