Where should I save my cache and back up files?

[Noah Kadner]

Generally I’d recommend you just let FCPX do this for you. You definitely don’t need to micromanage at the Finder level. Or if you want more granular control over the process this is a great app:

https://www.arcticwhiteness.com/finalcutlibrarymanager/

Noah

FCPWORKS – FCPX Workflow
FCP eXchange – FCPX Workshops

[Jeremy Garchow]

I put the media location on the external hard drive.

I put the cache on my boot drive (but I have SSD boot drives), as all the little cache files run more quickly not he boot drive than they do on the SAN.

It’s very simple to then grab the cache and trash it if need be, rather than let it live in the library, which is the FCPX default.

[David Mathis]

You are saying it’s best to leave the cache files on the system drive?

[Jeremy Garchow]

[David Mathis] “You are saying it’s best to leave the cache files on the system drive?”

That’s what I do, yep.

If you have newer Macs with the PCIe SSD, go for it.

[Steve Connor]

[Jeremy Garchow] “That’s what I do, yep.

If you have newer Macs with the PCIe SSD, go for it.

“

It definitely speeds the timeline up

[Bret Williams]

I leave everything in the library on the raid except backups which by default are in the system drive ( fusion drive). My raid should get better performance than the system drive, plus wouldn’t the cache just be eating up space on the system? Another reAson not to have the library or anything of any size on the system. My time machine also backs up my system drive and I don’t need it backing up cache files.

I do leave files in place quite often, but by the time a project is done and all cleaned up for storing away, I consolidate all the files into the library.

It sounds like the op was still keeping the library in the user movies folder. I would move it out of there. Even if you are keeping it on the system drive I’d keep the library in a folder with other elements for the job like motion projects, psd files, AE projects, etc.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Bret Williams] “My raid should get better performance than the system drive, plus wouldn’t the cache just be eating up space on the system?”

Does your RAID get better performance? My MacPro PCIe SSD gets nearly 900MB/sec. Our SAN doesn’t go that fast per user.

Yes, it takes up space, but when the Cache is a simple package file, it’s very easy to delete. I keep all the caches for all Libraries in one folder called “Caches”. and then I tell Time Machine to not backup the Caches folder. Even so, time Machine is pretty maintenance free and will clean up after itself.

In the old days, you didn’t want to put anything on the internal drive, but those days are over. In many cases, the internal drive is your fastest performing drive.

[Bret Williams]

My internal is a 1Tb fusion. Cache files could eat that up pretty quick. Unless something is in the fusion portion it’s just a single Sata drive.

But I’m not sure what would be in my cache. Renders? I don’t optimize or proxy anything.

[Megan Brown]

Thanks for all of the replies.

I know this sounds silly, but could someone give me a step by step when it comes to managing these settings initially?

For example, should I:

1. Change my media location to my external hard drive for each separate library
2. Create a folder on my same hard drive labeled “caches” which I should plan to set/move all of my caches to
3. ??? Where should I set my backups to?

Does that make sense?

[Jeremy Garchow]

Cache is renders and thumbnails.

Proxy/Optimized should go on your media drive/raid.