Don Smith
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Good information Craig. I launched the Promise utility and it prompted me to update to a newer version which I did. Then the newer version then prompted me to update the firmware which I did.
All lights are blue now (two were red this morning before I began this process) but when I scrub the Final Cut timeline only the data activity lights of the top two drives blink.
Looking at the online manual you linked to it says that I go to the Dashboard of the Promise utility, click on the controller link and click settings to managed the power (sleep) of the drive. I do that and it takes me to a Component Page but all I get for the controller section is a box with three tabs of information. Nothing on the page with a Settings button except for the Buzzer settings and the Fan.
When I first used the RAID it was CONSTANTLY spinning down! I mean, after only a couple of minutes!
And the Promise website is just awful. When I went to register the Pegasus 2 it wanted the ‘TLA’ but didn’t explain what that was. I figured it out by trying any number I could find on the unit and the box it came in. Now, they’ve replied to my help request and asked for a service report from the Promise utility and I can get that, but to upload it I have to go to my case on their website. Fine. Except no amount of clicking on the link will do anything. The email asking for the service report is a dead drop and I can’t reply to it. I’m sitting here trying to figure out how to send them the service report or at least let them know I can’t send it. Arghh!
Blackmagic Disc Utility can now check the drive. I get 970MB/s write and 880MB/s read. That’s very good but I don’t know if its the same as a known properly operating RAID.
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Thank you for the information Nick.
I just had a quick trip home. Both lights blue on the top two drives, only the power light is on and blue for the bottom four drives.
Then I played a quicktime movie and saw that all drives were being accessed.
As soon as I get out from under the pressure of the edit I’m finishing up I’ll really look into this.
Some peripheral information; I went into Terminal so the array wouldn’t be running 24 hours. Then, when I need the array to continue so it can render I put in an app called Caffeine. There’s a coffee cup in the menu. When empty the drives will sleep when the computer sleeps. Click the cup to put coffee in it and the drives will not go to sleep.
I’m wondering if something I’ve done is interfering with the RAID’s normal operation.
What I want is for the RAID to power down overnight when the computer goes to sleep.
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Just looked up what the blue lights on the front of the drives mean. The top light on each drive is the power and the bottom light is activity. What I read seemed to say that when the RAID is being accessed, ALL the activity lights will light up. All the power lights will be on for each drive at all times. Is that correct? This morning, two of the drives had two blue lights while the other four had one blue light on. I said before that I thought it was the bottom blue light but now I’m not sure. I’ll have to wait until I get home to see for sure.
In any case, seeing one amber light this morning concerns me although it went off right after I started editing.
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Yes, the R6 ‘cooked’ for hours setting itself up and was left on and alone for days before I received my Mac Pro.
This morning I saw an amber light on one of the drives. That went away shortly thereafter. While editing I saw that the top two drives in the RAID had two blue lights while the remaining four drives had one blue light, the bottom one in every case. I don’t know enough about RAIDs to know what this means.
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I agree with Mark. I’m editing a project with thousands of clips in the Library. The speed is no different than having a few clips in the Library. Only the thumbnails are kept in memory, not the clips themselves. However, ‘no different’ and ‘full performance’ are not the same as I’ll explain below.
That’s my home system.
On my old Mac Pro at work I sometimes have a half a dozen big projects open. No speed difference.
My take-away is that there are other factors at work if FCPX bogs down. I’m facing the slow-down problem on my brand new 2013 Mac Pro at home. It’s not performing better than my 2008 work Mac Pro which has a fraction of the RAM. And, my new Mac Pro is maxed out. 12 cores, 64GB Ram, D700 graphic cards, etc. My new Mac Pro is connected to a new Promise Raid R6 with Thunderbolt 2. It should be SCREAMING but something, SOMETHING is slowing it down. I’m on the trail. My point in all this is that performance on a given system doesn’t seem to change whether the Library has a few clips or thousands. That’s my experience anyway.
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Charlie is right. File > Update Projects and Events should find those two projects and create an untitled Event. Once in FCPX, just drag the projects to the Library that contains the media within the projects and the projects should update its links to the raw material. If not, its easy to relink.
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To expand on what Nick said…
Use Event Manager X to TURN OFF EVERYTHING.
Un-check the Restart FCP button so you can activate the hiding of everything once without restarting FCP. Then check the Reactivate button for all future use.
One at a time, activate an Event and its related Projects and restart. FCPX will then find the Event and Projects and create a new Library. Rename the Library to fit the Event and Projects you collected into the Library.
Use Event Manager X to activate one Event and related Projects at a time and go through this same process. TIP: I also use this process to combine related Events and Projects so that future edits will have access to the entire pool of source material.
At the end, for now, when the update completes, it’ll ask you if you want to Trash the old Events and Projects or save them. Save for now. It doesn’t take up any additional space. The process is highly reliable and it’s likely you won’t have to go back but it gives you peace of mind. I’ve never had a problem and I’ve updated a number of Events and Projects.
You might notice that when the new FCPX creates a Library your Event And Projects folders disappear. Don’t worry about it. When you use Event Manager X to activate a new set of an Event and its related Projects it’ll recreate the proper folders for FCPX to find and update.
But, you can go back, say, because you made the wrong decision of how to combine Events and Projects for that particular Library. You’ll find the Events and Projects folders in a new folder named after the hard drive where they existed. Put those folders back into the root directory and try again.
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Boy, I hate to disagree with Dave but I mix audio bit rates on multi cam and synchronized clips all the time. What you say used to be true under the old Final Cut but with Final Cut Pro X that is no longer a problem.
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Thank you! Yes, the camera angle of view is the secret sauce!
Thank you very much for taking the trouble to make this demo for us. I’ll put it in my pocket and look like a genius one day when a similar need arises.
Don Smith
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Got it. Thank you.