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Activity Forums Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy NTFS or OS X extended for FCP performance

  • NTFS or OS X extended for FCP performance

    Posted by Lucy Moon on December 18, 2009 at 2:25 pm

    Hi there,

    I have been given an external hard drive to use for an FCP project – capture, edit, export etc.

    Currently it is NTFS which I can read and write to on my Mac, but I wondered if I should re-format as OS X extended, since perhaps that “works better” (is faster?) with FCP and OS X?

    Thanks in advance,
    ~Astrid

    Dennis Leppell replied 16 years, 5 months ago 5 Members · 6 Replies
  • 6 Replies
  • Rafael Amador

    December 18, 2009 at 2:30 pm

    Hi Astrid,
    The “natural” format should be MacOS Extended (no need Journaling).
    You can test the performance of the HD and if is good enough as NTFS there is no much reason to format the HD.
    You can use the “AJA System Test” that you can find with the KONA or ioHD drivers (https://www.aja.com).
    Reading PC’s HDs is a quite new feature in Macs. Before you always need an application to be able to do it.
    Cheers,
    rafael

    http://www.nagavideo.com

  • Jay Kilburn

    December 18, 2009 at 2:36 pm

    I guess the biggest concern with this is are you going to be sharing that hard drive with a windows box? If not, then go ahead an format it for OSX extended and call it a day. If you are going to be swapping between a windows box and your FCP box, then leave it NTFS.

  • Walter Biscardi

    December 18, 2009 at 2:41 pm

    [Astrid Karlsson] “but I wondered if I should re-format as OS X extended, since perhaps that “works better” (is faster?) with FCP and OS X?”

    Yes.

    Walter Biscardi, Jr.
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    Biscardi Creative Media

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  • Walter Biscardi

    December 18, 2009 at 2:59 pm

    [Rafael Amador] “Reading PC’s HDs is a quite new feature in Macs. Before you always need an application to be able to do it.”

    It’s been around since OS X was launched. In OS 9 you needed an application.

    Walter Biscardi, Jr.
    Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author.
    HD Post and Production
    Biscardi Creative Media

    “Foul Water, Fiery Serpent” now in Post.

    Creative Cow Forum Host:
    Apple Final Cut Pro, Apple Motion, Apple Color, AJA Kona, Business & Marketing, Maxx Digital.

    Blog!

    Twitter!

  • Rafael Amador

    December 18, 2009 at 3:21 pm

    [walter biscardi] “It’s been around since OS X was launched. In OS 9 you needed an application. “
    I thought that this was with FAT-32.
    For NTFS I used “Paragon NTFS for Mac”.
    No idea I could work without this.
    Cheers,
    rafael

    http://www.nagavideo.com

  • Dennis Leppell

    December 18, 2009 at 8:22 pm

    There’s been reports that writing to NTFS drives from the mac (mostly from 3rd party apps) can cause file corruption, and even damage the drive structure.

    I recommend formatting as extended-journaled, and using MacDrive on the PC to read/write to the drive.

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