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Second hard drive for Applications
Hey OS X Cow
this question is related to Final Cut, After Effects, etc, but fundamentally i think its an OS X question so i apologize if i’m posting this in the wrong forum.
i normally do audio mixes and color correction at my own facility, but increasingly people are asking me to do these services at their facilities, usually because their needs are quick and transferring projects would just be too time consuming. in the past, since these projects were pretty simple, Final Cut’s built-in tools have worked well enough. but i’m now looking at a color correction project that is going to require bits from Color, Colorista (and other Red Giant products) and other AE plug-ins that i have. this facility doesn’t have any of these tools, let alone After Effects. i’m wondering if i can make a clone of my hard drive with these apps, and access it as a second hard drive while i’m working on their online system. some programs will probably work fine being accessed from a second hard drive (since fundamentally OS X doesn’t care where you even keep most applications). but the ones that need to access the Library folder for support elements – will these work from a second drive, or will i get corruption or other problems because there are now 2 Library folders?
booting from my hard drive would solve this issue, but that wont work because the online system needs files and drivers that my boot drive does not have.
any suggestions? being able to take my tools with me to other facilities that don’t have them would be extremely helpful.
thanks
e
Eric Hansen, The Audio Visual Plumber – http://www.avplumber.com
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5 Replies
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[Eric Hansen] “i’m wondering if i can make a clone of my hard drive with these apps, and access it as a second hard drive while i’m working on their online system.”
Not recommended, some apps will work fine running from any drive, but others (and this includes most pro level apps) MUST be run from the system drive.
[Eric Hansen] “some programs will probably work fine being accessed from a second hard drive (since fundamentally OS X doesn’t care where you even keep most applications). but the ones that need to access the Library folder for support elements – will these work from a second drive”
Nope.
[Eric Hansen] “booting from my hard drive would solve this issue, but that wont work because the online system needs files and drivers that my boot drive does not have. “
That and when activating some applications it notes the hardware ID of your computer (ie the MAC Address) and writes this into the file that tells the computer the program is registered. So if you were to boot from your drive you would have to re activate a lot of programs. As an example of this I had the logic board replaced on my computer and had to re activate much of my pro software including FCP.
[Eric Hansen] “any suggestions? being able to take my tools with me to other facilities that don’t have them would be extremely helpful. “
Take your system with you. The new 17″ MBP will be a workhorse when you max it out with 8GB of ram. Together with a Matrox MXO and a accompanying display and you can do color work also.
There are no “technical solutions” to your “artistic problems”.
Don’t let technology get in the way of your creativity! -
thanks for the suggestions Zane.
i’ve started looking at the MXO as an option for color correction work. but most facilities i’ve worked at over the last year wouldnt have enough space on the online desk for their system along with my laptop and its second monitor. but i’m starting to think this may be necessary. i’m not that impressed with the new laptops, well, the fact they can take 8GB of RAM is pretty cool. but i think i might take my MBP 2.33 with 3GB of RAM and add an SSD to make it quicker. have you had any experience with these? i’ve heard second hand accounts of the Intel x25 and OCZ Apex drives being able to boot a MBP in 8 seconds. damn. that could really make the MBP feel more like a Mac Pro.
e
Eric Hansen, The Audio Visual Plumber – http://www.avplumber.com
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[Eric Hansen] “i think i might take my MBP 2.33 with 3GB of RAM and add an SSD to make it quicker”
Maxing out the ram will definitely help video editing, but I adding a solid state drive will not do much for video editing. The reason for that is your media is still going to need to be on an external drive, so while yes a SSD will make a computer boot faster, all your large heavy media files will NOT be on that drive and therefor will not be able to take advantage of it.
There are no “technical solutions” to your “artistic problems”.
Don’t let technology get in the way of your creativity! -
in a typical online scenario, i would probably hook up my laptop to the online system via direct Gigabit Ethernet to access the files. i would then use my laptop to try different filters and effects in FCP and AE (on my laptop) that the online system does not have. i would also be using audio filters like Soundsoap. so i wouldn’t be editing per se, and i would be connected to the online system to access the media files. i’m not looking to speed up media file transfers. i’m thinking that an SSD would just make everything snappier overall, since they are supposed to excel at small random read/writes (which is what happens when you boot the computer, or start an application). since i would just be jumping around in different programs and applying different test filters, don’t you think an SSD would help speed these programs up, especially if i’m constantly switching to different ones? since i only have 3GB of RAM, it would probably be advantageous to shut down programs when i am done with them, then use the speed of the SSD to start them back up when i need to. i know render times within the programs, and transfer times would be the same since the media would be on another system/drive. i’m just looking to make my laptop feel more like a desktop and i’m understanding is that an SSD could help. have you had any experience with one?
i guess i should ask around on the FCP and AE forums to see if anyone has tried. thanks
e
Eric Hansen, The Audio Visual Plumber – http://www.avplumber.com
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A SSD will only give you a noticeable speed improvement when turning the machine on or when you launch a program. Programs like FCP and AE are processor and RAM intence, so once the prigram is open and running your processor speed and the amount of ram you have are going to determine how fast the program can do things.
So like I said a SSD is NOT going to speed things up when editing or doing motion graphics.
There are no “technical solutions” to your “artistic problems”.
Don’t let technology get in the way of your creativity!
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