Cleaning the scratch disk

[David Roth weiss]

Only if you have top secret video on your media drive.

A reformat using Disk Utility will be just fine.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.com

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums. Formerly host of the Apple Final Cut Basics, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.

[Fredy Schwerdtner]

I\’ve asked because I read that after using it só many times the HD becomes messed with data writen everywhere.

MacBook Pro 17″
2.5 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
(2) External HD LaCieMac (400/800 FW and USB)with 500GB -(2) USB External HD Western Digital (in cases) with 750GB
OS X 10.6.5
Final Cut Studio “3”

[David Roth weiss]

It does Freddy, but there’s little difference in 1&0s and just 0s. The SATA hard drives that comprise most of the drives in use now are quite robust and need little maintenance over their life span, which can be a long time these days.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.com

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums. Formerly host of the Apple Final Cut Basics, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.

[Fredy Schwerdtner]

Ok then …. just a fast format is fine … forgetting the zero all data,right ? And … keep the secret files away from KGB, CIA and MOSAD … lol

Excuse me, moreover …. The best way to format for video editing is the “Mac OS Extend” (not journaled), right ?
But using my Disk Utility and selecting the image of the manufactor it shows journaled and selecting the image and name that I gave to the specific disk it shows not journaled. Is it right ?

By the way, I’ve followed your advise to go ahead on my thoughts for doing the upgrade on my Old MacBook Pro and bought those thing on our discussion some weeks ago and I’m using the the Sonnet Express Card/34 adapter for esata connection, running the machine with 6GB of RAM and built the Array/Raid with the OWC enclosure with 4 HD. As you’ve said, these things did not make my final renders faster, but helped on little renders to preview and gave me more confidence and safety that I will not lose my work on a HD failure.

As you were the only person answering me I will ask you one thing about another post that nobody responded me.
I always say that when “you have 2, in fact you have 1 and if you have 1 you definitely have nothing” . That is a good rule for making backups on HD.
I have been collecting footage for some years and sometimes I very often use them on my projects and they are saved and organized in a external HD (with no mirror or raid) different from my scratch disk, which is an array with 4 HDs setup as a raid 5.
What is the best ? Save the collection on the scratch disk or leave it where it is and make regular backups ?

MacBook Pro 17″
2.5 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
(2) External HD LaCieMac (400/800 FW and USB)with 500GB -(2) USB External HD Western Digital (in cases) with 750GB
OS X 10.6.5
Final Cut Studio “3”

[Jeff Greenberg]

You’re talking about fragmentation. OSX has a process called Hot File Adaptive Clustering that really reduces the amount of fragmentation in general.

What to format the drive? It’s argued that HFS+ non-journaled is better than journaled for media drives, because the ‘journalling’ information means that writing times are just a little longer – and we need speed at all costs.

Last, you bring up a question from an earlier post.
If you’re working with a single drive for media – you’re in danger of that drive dying and losing everything. The ‘safest’ way is a RAID 5 and a backup (also!).

A Raid 0 takes two disks and treats them as one drive. Advantage – all the space plus extra speed. Disadvantage, one dies killing all the data on both drives.
A Raid 1 takes two disks and mirrors one to the other. Advantage redundancy. Disadvantage? half the space and twice as long writing times (bad for video)

A Raid 5 uses 4 or more disks and stores some extra parity information on the other drives. Advantage – redundancy but you lose 25% of each drive to go to the redundancy information. If a drive dies, you just replace it.

Best,

Jeff G

Apple Master Trainer
Avid Cert. Instructor DS/MC
Avid & Color Videos Vasst.com
Compressor Essentials Lynda.com

[Dagna Griffin]

After I completed my project I deleted everything from the folder. I guess it’s called scratch discs. I tried to bring them back and reconnect them but it doesn’t work. My final cut still doesn’t want to open and the same note shows up: Non-writable scratch discs. I don’t really care about that project. How to make my final cut pro work again??????? I really need it! Please help me. Dagna

[Fredy Schwerdtner]

Why don’t you trash your FCP preferences ? Download a free app called Preference Manager ( https://www.digitalrebellion.com/prefman/ ). It can help you saving and backing up your preferences before trashing them out and then help you to restore them back.

iMac 2.7 GHz Intel 4 Core i5
16 GB memory

MacBook Pro 17″
2.5 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
6GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM

OWC RAID 5 with 3TB
(2) External HD LaCieMac (400/800 FW and USB)with 500GB -(2) USB External HD Western Digital (in cases) with 750GB
OS X 10.6.5
Final Cut Studio “3”

[Jeff Greenberg]

Dagna, Giving you have a different problem than Fredy did, I suggest you start a new thread so we can diagnose your problem.

Best,

Jeff G

Apple Master Trainer | Avid Cert. Instructor DS/MC | Adobe Cert. Instructor
————
You should follow me (filmgeek) on twitter. I promise to be nice.
New- my book (with Richard Harrington and Robbie Carman)- An Editor’s Guide to Adobe Premiere Pro
Compressor Essentials from Lynda.com
(older but still good) Marquee, Media Composer (3.5) and Basic/Advanced Color DVDs (1.0) from Vasst.com
Contact me through my Website